Canadian Agriculture Literacy Week

Thursday March 5th the Grade 4 students enjoyed a wonderful guest speaker to participate in Canadian Agriculture Literacy Week through Agriculture in the Classroom-SK. Our guest speaker was Jacquie Mitchell from Viterra in Wilkie. She read us a book entitled, The Adventures of Michael and Mia: Stewards of the Land which taught us about the importance of the land and how to be stewards of the land. She emphasized the importance of careful farm and gardening practices with minimal waste and negative impacts on the environment. She told us all about Viterra, what they do, and what her job was and also, all about her fruit farm south of North Battleford. We had an awesome time learning about agriculture from Mrs. Mitchell.

Mrs. Mitchell reading "The Adventures of Michael and Mia: Stewards of the Land." Each student got a copy of the letter!

Some of the samples Viterra donated to our classroom!

Each student got a sticker and a book!

Thank-You Mrs. Mitchell!

What's Brewing in Grade 4?

We've been doing a lot of work in Grade Four lately!!  So much that we haven't had time to blog!!

In math we are working on a variety of mental math and estimation strategies for addition. By practicing our mental math skills we can get better and better at addition (and subtraction), which helps us add larger numbers quicker (in our heads) and also helps us with our multiplication (and division)!

We've also started an ELA unit on Descriptive Writing. Descriptive writing is writing that uses our five senses in order to vividly describe things. Good descriptive writing paints a picture in the readers mind with exactly what they are describing. We started this unit by listening to to a piece of descriptive writing written by me (Miss Komar). I described my monster friend "Kerploof" who comes to visit me every year. As I was describing my friend, it was the students job to draw what I was describing. Then we discussed what kind of words and descriptions were used to describe my friend. Check out their versions of Kerploof based on my description and stay turned for their own descriptions of their own monsters!!!

Agriculture in the Classroom is putting on a contest for grade 4 students throughout the province and we are taking part! The contest is to see which grade 4 class can read the most minutes in class and out of class. Miss Komar is in charge of updating our weekly in class minutes and we are in charge of keeping track of our at home minutes. If we win we get a pizza party!!! So... READ READ READ. Remember: Real Reading is thinking about what we are reading and making connections to what we are reading with our Schema!
Reading does not have to just be reading a novel... it can include anything from reading comic books, magazines, or books by yourself, to reading a picture book to your siblings, or helping your parents read recipes and instructions.
There are 3 types of reading: 1) Reading the Pictures 2) Reading the Words and 3) Retelling the Story.
READ READ READ! The contest ends October 31.
(And don't forget to do you AR tests!)


In Science class we are continuing our look at Habitats and Communities. We have a new addition to our classroom to help enhance our studies... two new additions to be exact: Finn and Webster, our two "African Dwarf Frogs!!"

They are super cute, super fun, super easy to take care of AND the little cuties can help us get a first-hand look at observing a small community of two populations in this habitat. We are currently creating our own food-webs and food-webs, but I have a special project/lab coming up to give the students a first-hand examination food chains and food webs.



In art we have been studying the concept of colour using the medium of paint. We definitely have some wonderful artists in this grade 4 class!   We have reviewed Primary and Secondary Colours and created a series of "dots" showing tints and shades of both primary and secondary colours. This past week we put our creative juices to the test and created our own "Sunset Pictures" using warm colours.  They turned out great... check them out:

Next Up: Remembrance Day Posters, "Cool Colour Artwork" and (hopefully) a special halloween surprise!


-- Miss Komar

Metacognition

This week in ELA we learned about METACOGNITION and real reading.

We learnt that fake reading happens when you read a book, but you are not paying attention. You read the words, but are thinking about something els.e  Real reading happens when we read AND think about what we are reading!

We did this by relating reading to salad! Fake reading is like a salad made of just lettuce.... BORING!! Real reading is like a salad with all the delicious toppings, like carrots, onions, tomatoes, croutons, bacon bits and dressing! More delicious, more fun, and definitely more meaningful!

Metacognition is the fancy word to describe this process... it is when we think about  our thinking!

(Photo Borrowed)

First Day of School

Today was our first day of school in Grade 4.  
It was so great to meet all my little grade 4 kiddies. I can tell this is going to be an AWESOME year!
It was also great to have the opportunity to meet so many parents as well! I hope if any of you have questions about what is going on in our class, you don't hesitate to call the school and ask!.

Today being the first day of school, and MY first day at a new school, meant it was pretty hectic. The kids all have 1 name to remember, but I have 23 to remember in grade 4 and 26 in grade 3! Crazy.

We did a lot of fun stuff today:

• T/F Quiz about Miss. Komar
• Wrote our OWN T/F for Miss. Komar
• Read "The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes" and learnt that it is OKAY to make mistakes once in a while, that's how we learn and grow!
• Played a "name game" in the gym, which got pretty chaotic!
• Had a contest to build the BIGGEST SPAGHETTI TOWER ever (which hopefully showed us how important it is to work as a team). 
• Learnt about the classroom jobs we will be in charge of this year
• Had a chance to write about what we did this summer (or what we WISHED we did this summer) 

I hope all my students had as much fun as I did today! 

Check out the pictures from our tower building... it was awesome!

Teamwork!

Brainstorming!

Working Hard!

The boys hard at work!

Most Creative Tower!

Tallest Tower!

Most Effort//Biggest Mess!

Best Teamwork!

Best Teamwork!