Friday, November 8, 2019
We just finished week nine (Oct. 28 – Nov. 1) and ten (Nov. 4 – Nov. 8) in portable two and here is a glimpse of what we’ve been up to:
HALLOWEEN – The students in portable two had so much fun dressing up for Halloween and going to the Halloween dance/games room. I loved their Halloween spirit!!! Thanks to the WPS Student Leadership Committee for running/setting up the dance/games room. Here are some pics of their amazing costumes:
READING AND WRITING – Our class read a non-fiction article called, No Cell Phones Allowed. It was about the cell phone ban in Ontario. The students answered questions about the text and wrote about whether they agreed with the ban or not (using information from the text to support their opinion).
READING WITH EMILY – Some of our goals for reading are to learn how to read fluently and accurately. One of the best ways to do this is to read out loud so, the students in our class take turns reading out loud to Emily. Emily is a woman from the Norfolk Association for Community Living and she comes in each Tuesday from 9:30 to 10:30 to listen to students read to her. Emily loves this experience and it brings her so much joy. Students from Mrs. Schipper’s class read out loud to Emily each Tuesday from 9:30 to 10:00 and students from our class read out loud to Emily each Tuesday from 10:00 to 10:30. It’s an opportunity to get involved, take a risk, help others, and improve our reading skills. I’m so proud of the students for having the courage to do this.
READING AND DIGITAL MEDIA – We read a TV news script from a youtube channel called, Kids News Break. The news script was for the episode entitled, Remembrance Day. The main idea of the script was to inform the audience about the History of Remembrance Day. After reading the news script, we watched the episode on youtube. This experience helped us to learn more about digital media and how it is used to communicate a message to the audience (video, audio, photographs, illustrations, music). Stay tuned because students will be writing their own scripts for an episode on our class youtube channel (student have been generating ideas on the name and logo of our youtube channel).
PRINT MEDIA – We worked on our Remembrance Day posters for the Legion poster contest. We used this opportunity to learn more about print media and how it is used to communicate a message to the audience. The theme of the poster contest was Remembrance and our task was to create an eye-catching poster that represented that theme. Some of the poster design techniques that we focused on were:
- using a bold or dark color of lettering against a light background for readability
- making sure our posters were not cluttered up with too many images and words because that can make it confusing for the audience and the message can be lost
- choosing pictures for our poster that relate or speak to the theme and message, without being too tricky for the audience to understand
MATH – Some of our math learning goals included (note: mm is grade 4 only):
- collecting data (measuring the height of each student in our class in cm, rounding that height to the nearest ten, and recording the heights on a chart)
- estimating length/height/distance (mm, cm, m, km)
- choosing which unit of measurement best suits the task (mm, cm, m, km). For example, if you need to measure the height of a large tree, would it make the most sense to use mm, m, cm, or km?
- ordering objects based on linear measurements (mm, cm, m, km)
- representing the same length/height using different units of measurement (cm, m)
- measuring the length and width of squares and rectangles (mm, cm)
- drawing squares and rectangles given the length and width (mm, cm)
- solving problems using our knowledge of measurement (mm, cm, m)
- understanding the relationship between different units of measurement. For example, 100 cm = 1m , 200cm = 2m , etc.
- discussed how our measurement skills can help us when designing our poster for the Legion poster contest.
BUCKET DRUMMING – We continue to learn about the elements of music through bucket drumming and how the elements of music are used to create the mood of a piece. Some of the elements we have learned about so far include: TEMPO (fast or slow), PITCH (high or low), and VOLUME which is also known as DYNAMICS (loud or quiet).
PHYSICAL EDUCATION – In gym, we have been learning how to play Newcomb Ball (the beginner’s version of volleyball).
SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES – During Social Studies, we have been learning about mapping skills, Canada (Grade 4s), and Ontario (Grade 3s). Recently, one of our science units have been introduced. The grade 3s will focus on soils in the environment and the grade 4s will focus on rocks and minerals. Through inquiry-based learning, students will make connections between what we’ve learned in Social Studies to the Science concepts we are studying.
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
The Pragnell Press 