Week Three in Portable Two

Friday, September 21, 2018

We just finished week three in portable two and here is a bit of what’s been going on:

Meet the Teacher Night – Thursday night was Meet the Teacher Night. Unfortunately, the teacher couldn’t be there. I was on a field trip in Toronto with the Me to We club from Waterford Public School. The field trip was a huge event at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto (known as: We Day) where thousands of people come together and celebrate those who are making a difference in our country and the world. It was booked a long time ago and I couldn’t change the date. Nonetheless, the classroom was open and thanks for coming. I hope you enjoyed the tour of our classroom from your personal tour guide. The students were excited to show you our classroom and what they’ve been up to.

Math – We have been focusing on Big Numbers in math. In grade 4, we work with numbers up to ten thousand. We’ve been doing a lot of things in class with Big Numbers like: reading them, counting them, saying them out loud, listening to other people say them out loud, writing them in words, writing them in digits, building them, drawing them, taking them apart, putting them back together, organizing them on a place value chart, and so much more.

Reading –  Reading is just one part of our language program at school. So far, we have been developing our independent reading skills, listening to read alouds, and setting up our classroom library. Our classroom library is in the process of being set up and it will be filled with books on topics that we’re studying and books that we’re interested in. We’re organizing our classroom library into three basic categories: fiction books (books made up by an author), non-fiction books (books that contain true, factual information), and poetry.

Working with Words – There are many activities that we do in class to develop our knowledge of words and improve our spelling. One activity that we do is called, How Many Words Can You Make? You can see a sample of the activity below this paragraph. Each student gets some wooden letter blocks and moves each block around to make words using a variety of strategies (consonant blends, vowels, spelling rules, word endings, words within words, building on, etc.). There is always at least one word that can be made using all of the letters.

Writing –  Students were introduced to part of our writing program this week called, Independent Writing. During Independent Writing, students can write their own books. They can choose between writing fiction, non-fiction, or poetry books. They can also choose between writing chapter books, picture books, graphic novels, comic books, scripts for plays, journals, diaries, and a lot more. The possibilities are endless. It’s exciting for me to watch their excitement come alive as young authors.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me at julie.pragnell@granderie.ca OR call me at school: 519-443-8942.

-Mrs. Julie Pragnell