Friday, November 9, 2018

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

Math – We learned more about number lines and how they work. Number lines help students build their number sense. In grade 4, we learn how to place any number (up to ten thousand) on a variety of number lines. See some examples below:

Language, Social Studies, and Science – We were reading two different magazine articles. They were non-fiction texts (aka, not fake). We have been learning a lot about the importance of using texts from trusted sources and these articles were from a trusted source. Both articles were written about some things that are being done in Canada to lessen the negative impact humans are having on the earth. 1. Banning plastic straws in Vancouver, British Columbia. 2. Banning Plastic Beads in Canada (the little plastic microbeads found in soaps, etc.).

Remembrance Day Assembly – Look at the pictures below to see a glimpse of our school’s Remembrance Day Assembly. It was truly incredible and the students showed so much respect:

Remembrance Day Poster Contest – We are all entering the Waterford Legion’s poster contest. The students have put a lot of time and care into their poster and it shows. Here are most of the posters (there are just a few that are still finishing):

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

Here is a digital copy of my calendar of events for November. Students will glue this in their agenda on Monday, November 5th and there will be a paper copy sent home for parents/guardians.

Hello to our New Followers,

If you just started following this blog, you can click on the link below to see my weekly posts and get caught up on what has been going on in Portable Two since September!!!! Once you click on the link, just scroll down to see my weekly blog posts.

https://thepragnellpress.news.blog/

Thank you, Mrs. Pragnell

p.s. I’m trying to write a blog post each Friday to give parents a glimpse of what has been going on during the past week from my point of view (because we all know what happens when we ask our children … depending on the child, the answer is usually, nothing.)

 

 

 

Friday, November 2, 2018

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

Math – We learned how to read, write, extend, and create addition and subtraction number patterns (e.g., Start at 3528 and add one hundred each time).

Language – We started writing non-fiction, expository paragraphs (aka, not fake and informational paragraphs …. stick to the facts … do not include opinions or personal feelings/experiences). We also learned about the difference between a fact and an opinion.

Mrs. Pellazzari’s Visit – Our Child and Youth Worker came by for a lesson about the Golden Rule this past week (treat others the way you would like to be treated). We also learned how we can use the Golden Rule when we are solving problems with our friends,  fellow students, and/or family.

Halloween – Look at the pictures below for some Halloween fun in Portable Two!!!

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

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, October 26, 2018

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

Visual Art and Media Literacy –  The Royal Canadian Legion hosts a nationwide poster contest in honour of Remembrance Day each year. We reviewed their judging criteria for an effective poster and started to design our Remembrance Day Posters this past week.

Read Aloud of the Week – Each week, we have a different read aloud that we focus on in our class. This past week, we focused on a non-fiction book that taught us about a famous poem, In Flanders Fields.

Writing – We continued learning about paragraph writing. This past week’s focus was learning about the four basic purposes for writing (Expository – Writing to Inform the Audience, Descriptive – Writing to Create a Picture in the Audience’s Mind, Persuasive – Writing to State an Opinion and Persuade the Audience, Narrative – Writing to Tell the Audience a Story).

Math – We have a booklet in our desk called, Working with Numbers. We take time to work in this booklet each day to build our number sense in a variety of ways.

Input/Output Machines – Students from Mrs. Stronks’ class came by to challenge us with the input/output machines they invented. A number goes in the machine, something happens to the number while it is inside and then the number comes out. We enjoyed seeing the creativity and figuring out what happens to the number when it goes into the machine. For example, the number 2 goes in the machine and a 4 comes out. Then, number 6 goes in the machine and a 12 comes out. Finally, a number 10 goes in the machine and a 20 comes out. That means the machine must be a “times two” machine. Every number that goes in, gets multiplied by two and then it comes out.

Mrs. Pellazzarri’s Visit – Mrs. Pellazzarri (Child and Youth Worker) came by to teach us about Cooperative Group Learning.

The First ROAR Assembly – Each month, grades 4-8 students gather in the gym for a ROAR assembly. At the assembly, Teachers recognize students for positive character traits and they take a ROAR certificate home.

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

Friday, October 19, 2018

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

Gym – Newcombe season has begun. In our class, all students are divided up into two teams (Team Odd vs Team Even). Teams are decided based on their student number. Team Odd won the first game of Newcombe this past week. Let’s hope Team Even can get a win this week!!!

Visual Art – Our first trip to the Old Town Hall Art Gallery was this past week. We observed and discussed the work of artist, Teri Donovan. Students had two questions to discuss as they looked at the artwork: What do you see? and What do you feel?

Language – We have been learning about the parts of a paragraph. Each student picked a main topic and wrote a paragraph about it. Students wrote paragraphs about many different topics such as: Fortnite, candy, and Halloween (just to name a few).

Math – During math class, we did some work with multiplication (up to 6×6 to start) and how it is connected to arrays/repeated addition.

Mock Election – We will be participating in the mock election on Monday, Oct. 22nd at school along with the other grade 5 and 6 students. Students learned how to read the ballot this past week and who they have a choice to vote for.

The Big Crunch – The students got a hoot out of this activity. At 2:30pm on Thursday, many students across Ontario took a bite of an Ontario apple to celebrate healthy eating and local food. The students loved their apple and put their core in the compost bin afterwards.

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

 

 

Friday, October 12, 2018

WOW, what a week! The students were so excited for Pumpkinfest and we were able to participate in a lot of activities to prepare for Pumpkinfest. Here is a bit of what we were up to during week six in portable two:

PUMPKIN CARVING – Every year, each student at Waterford Public School gets to carve a pumpkin for Pumpkinfest. All of the pumpkins are donated by a local farmer. Here are some pictures of our pumpkin carving adventure in the gym:

 

WALKING OUR PUMPKINS TO THE PUMPKIN PYRAMID – Each year, we walk our jack-o-lanterns over to the pumpkin pyramid for display during Pumpkinfest. We are very thankful for the Waterford Lions and Lionesses who volunteer their time and work hard to make all of this happen. Here are some pictures of this event:

 

FLOAT IN THE PARADE – Waterford Public School will have a float in the parade. The theme of our school float is, Fall into a Good Book. Each class was asked to choose a book and paint a pumpkin that resembled a character from the book. Our class picked the book, Miss Nelson is Missing. Viola Swamp was painted on our class pumpkin and each student in the class made a sad face to go around a missing sign for Miss Nelson. Here are some pictures of what we made:

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. You can reach me by email (julie.pragnell@granderie.ca) or by school phone (519-443-8942).

– Mrs. Pragnell

 

 

Friday, October 5, 2018

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

Language – We focused on learning about the variety of texts that we read and write in class. The handout below describes this in more detail:

Computers – We had our first computer class this past week. Our first job was to learn how to sign in to our Microsoft Office 365 account. Each student’s sign-in information can be found at the back of their agenda. Once everyone signed in, we learned how to send an email using Microsoft Outlook. I forget how lucky I am to be able to send and receive emails until I see the student’s excitement when they are learning how to do it (most for the very first time).

Field Trip to the Norfolk County Fair – During our field trip on Thursday, we learned all about the business of agriculture (raising livestock and growing crops).  We watched an agricultural presentation at the fair where we met many different types of farmers (i.e., apple, chicken, beef cow, dairy cow, pig) and learned about their jobs. We also learned how to milk a cow and watched a very strong woman shear a sheep in about five minutes. Finally, we traveled around the fair to answer the questions on our agricultural passports and get them stamped. Here are a few pictures of the day:

Math and Writing – We are working on publishing our first class book. It is a non-fiction, informational text about everything that we’ve learned about numbers so far. We are calling the book, What is a Number? Each student is writing at least one page in the book. It’s a team effort and we can’t wait for you to read it.

Social Studies and Gym – One thing that we learn about in Social Studies is cardinal directions (north, east, south, west) and intermediate directions (north-east, north-west, south-east, south-west). Students tend to learn this concept best when moving so, we combine this topic with gym class. First, the students learn what it means to be in a ready position (on the balls of your feet, feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, arms ready, eyes ready). The ready position is great for the many different types of games that we play in gym class because it helps students move quickly and easily change direction. I shout out one of the directions and the students have to move in that direction. They have to be quick on their feet and listening attentively. It’s great exercise for their body and their brain.

Pragnell’s Compost Crew – We will start to collect compost from the whole school starting Tuesday, October 9th. It’s a big job and this hard-working crew has it covered. Each student knows what their job is and how to do it because we were practising this past week. Here are some pictures: 

Lessons with Mrs. Pellazzarri – Each Wednesday, Mrs. Pellazzarri comes in to our class to teach us about a program called, PATHS (it stands for Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies). Mrs. Pellazzarri is a Child and Youth Worker. This past Wednesday was her first day in our class. We talked about rules and why we have them. Here is a picture of Mrs. Pellazzarri talking with us:

Colour Houses – At Waterford Public School, it’s important for us to build school spirit so, every student belongs to a colour house. We have 10 different colour houses. There are colour house challenges throughout the school year where students can participate to earn points for their colour house. The school’s first colour house challenge was last Friday for Orange Shirt Day. Every student that wore an orange shirt received a point for their colour house. Students can check the back of their agenda to see what colour house they are in or they can check the poster in our classroom. Here is a picture of the colour house poster in our classroom:

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving. 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

Each student glued a copy of this calendar in their agenda on page 19. I am putting a copy here for easy reference:

 

Friday, September 28, 2018

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

Social Studies Field Trip – On Tuesday, we jumped on a bus to the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford (with the grade fives in Mrs. Stronks’ class). We learned so much (from past to present) about one of the many groups of Indigenous peoples across Canada known as the Haudenosaunee (pronounced: Ho-din-know-show-knee). They were known as the Iroquois by the French, and Six Nations by the English, this group is properly called the Haudenosaunee Confederacy meaning People of the long house. While we were on the field trip, we took a tour of the museum, made pottery (pinch pots), and participated in traditional dances/music. Having this field trip right before Orange Shirt Day was perfect timing. As our bus pulled up to the Woodland Cultural Centre, we saw Canada’s first residential school (which they are currently renovating) with our very own eyes. The whole experience reminded me of the importance of orange shirt day in Canada. There are some pictures below from our field trip and the pottery that we made. I was very proud of the students and their respect/focus/participation in the day’s events.

Visual Art and Language –  As a follow up to our field trip, we reviewed the meaning of some of the new vocabulary that we learned about the Haudenosaunee and the Hiawatha Wampum belt by completing a fill-in-the blank activity. We also made a mini-replica of the Hiawatha Wampum belt out of felt, yarn, and white glue. Here are some pictures of our work:

The Terry Fox Run and Media Literacy – On Thursday, the whole school participated in the Terry Fox Run. As part of our learning in media literacy, we watched a documentary that was created this year called, Terry Fox, Anything’s Possible. We focused on how they made this documentary (from start to finish), who their target audience was, and why they made it. It’s a powerful video and we all felt inspired to make a difference after watching it. Here is a link to the video we watched:

Math and Drama – There are many different numbers in our world (fractions, whole numbers, decimal numbers, percents, parts of whole numbers, even numbers, odd numbers, etc.) and we use them for many different purposes (measuring, weighing, counting, communicating, understanding, etc.). With this in mind, we have spent a lot of time this week on learning about what a “number” really is. To do this, we pretended that an alien landed on planet earth, asked us what a number was, and we had to explain it to the alien. We acted out our plan with a partner (one person played the role of the alien and the other person played the role of the teacher). It was very interesting to observe all of the student’s mathematical ideas, knowledge, and real-life examples as they attempted to explain what a number was to the alien. In the end, we came up with a basic definition that could be applied to many real life situations. Then, we explored many real-life examples of how we use number in our lives to represent how much there is of something. For example, using google earth and google maps, we figured out how many kilometres (km) we would be running for the Terry Fox Run and compared that to how many km Terry ran each day during his Marathon of Hope. We posted some of our math learning on chart papers as seen below:

 

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