Homework: Assigned: Fri. Feb. 2 Due: Mon. Feb. 5
Stories provide an amazing opportunity to bring history to life. Through stories, people share information, values and attitudes about history, culture and heritage. Stories are communicated through legends, myths, creation stories, narratives, dances, oral traditions, songs, music, traditions, and celebrations. In class this week, we have been reflecting upon the importance of legends and stories, particularly as they relate to our ongoing study of First Nations in Alberta. We learned this week that First Nations people have an oral tradition about hunting for buffalo. Before hunts, the Blackfoot people danced and prayed for good luck in finding the buffalo herds. When they captured a buffalo very little of it went to waste. Students learned that virtually all parts of the buffalo were used by First Nations people: At one time, millions of buffalo ranged across the plains of North America and were a major resource for First Nations peoples. Nowadays there are far fewer buffalo. We learned that buffalo were hunted for sport and profit in the 19th century. This led the buffalo to the brink of extinction and was a tragic circumstance for the First Nations peoples who largely depended on the buffalo for food and sustenance. Fortunately, in Alberta there are a number of provincial parks, protected areas and the national parks that are important to the sustainability of Alberta’s natural environment. In these places, there are herds of bison. Wood Buffalo National Park is largely in Alberta with a northern extent into Northwest Territories. In this largest national park in Canada is a herd of more than 5,000 free roaming wood bison. Students in 4E and 4F looked at pictures of the park with Mr. Brewer and talked about the importance of the bison.
We have begun to write their own legendary stories in class. Students will go through the different stages of the writing process to plan their stories. This week we began at the pre-writing stage. We have been thinking about our topic, planning and brainstorming. Students have a provisional title for their stories, have an idea about characters, setting and story problem. They have begun to think about what will happen in the story. In the coming days we will begin drafting, revising and editing our stories:
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This week in humanities, students received back their spelling quizzes. On these bi-weekly quizzes students get practice in spelling new words and use the words from the lists in their own sentences. They receive a mark on the quiz itself and on the quality of the sentences they write. Mr. Brewer attached a 1 ~ 4 rubric to the quizzes this week that can be seen in the picture to the left. Over the course of term I, many students have greatly improved on the content and length of the sentences they write. In the beginning, most students faced challenges in remembering to capitalize at the beginnings of sentences or including end-punctuation. While these are still areas of growth for many students, there is a growing awareness of how to self-edit. Many students are becoming far more conscious about such errors in their own work. Typing on Google docs has also had the effect of making students aware of such issues too. Mr. Brewer offers feedback on sentence writing and students always edit and proofread their work. Spelling lists often comprise curricular words (e.g. travois, First Nations, pemmican), sight words (common words that do not always follow orthographic rules e.g.: mountain, because, too) and there is frequently a focus on a particular spelling rule: (e.g. "When two vowels go walking the first does the talking": load, road, toad.") As students practice, they work towards internalizing rules. Interesting discussions result too. On this week's test, many students failed to capitalize First Nations. We talked about how proper nouns: days of the week, place names, personal names etc. are always capitalized. When the emphasis in the list is not on a particular rule it's easy to overlook other important conventions. Many students do benefit from these reminders. The work that students have done over the course of term I will contribute towards my overall assessment of their progress in writing. Also in this week's class, most students chose a working title for their legendary stories. Students learned through reading "Mistakes of Old Man" and "Nanabosho: How the Turtle Got Its Shell" that legends often have an explanatory value. They explain how something came to be. Many students chose a provisional title for their own story like, "How the Cat Got Its Meow" or "How the Zebra Got Its Stripes." We also learned that in a story we can use common 'red flag' words and phrases to heighten tension and make a story more exciting. Some of these words and phrases are:
Spelling list: 'ow' words + First Nations vocabulary. Students received the list on Mon. Jan. 15 - test to be held on Mon. Jan. 22, 2018. Homework: The Mistakes of Old Man - Assigned: Fri. Jan. 19. Due: Mon. Jan. 22
This week we began talking about how stories of Aboriginal peoples tell us about their beliefs regarding the relationship between people and the land. In class, Mr. Brewer read from the book: Raven's Greatest Creation by David Bouchard and we also listened to the author narrate the legend. The story tells about the origins of human beings. As a means of introducing this topic, students were shown a very famous piece of Haida sculpture that may be seen in the UBC Museum of Anthropology: The sculpture was made by Bill Reid whose mother was Haida. The title of this work is: Raven and the First Men.
Also during this week's lessons students learned about a World Heritage site in Southern Alberta called Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump. In this place, people of the Blackfoot First Nation drove herds of buffalo over a steep cliff. By this means they were able to kill many of these animals in order to use their bodies for sustenance. The buffalo was the primary food of the Blackfoot people. In a video we viewed in class, a cultural interpreter at the site explained that the buffalo helped his people to endure the cold winters. Buffalo hides were used for clothing, bedding, teepee covers and saddlebags. Bones were used arrow shafts, needles and saddle horns. The meat was used as food like pemmican which could keep for a long time. In this week's spelling list there are many words related to our current unit such as: teepees, powwows, artifacts, bison and travois. Homework assigned: Fri. Jan. 12, 2018. Due: Mon. Jan. 15, 2018.
It was a very productive first week of 2018 for 4E and 4F students in Humanities. This week Mr. Brewer completed reading aloud the story Superfudge. Students discussed the story and answered comprehension questions about it. A particular strategy that we have worked on in class is making a mental picture or image in our mind as we listen to a story or while reading it to ourselves. This week students retold events from the story through the medium of drawing it. This strategy allowed students to summarize the events in the story as well as understand the connections among events, characters and settings. In a four-panel cartoon students were encouraged to retell the events in the final chapter in a logical sequence. They also drew a picture of a particularly funny event that happened in chapter 11 of the book. This helped them to demonstrate clear relationships between character and plot in the book. Using the Internet students began to find out about a particular dinosaur they had chosen to research at the end of last year. Through this ongoing research students have been finding out how paleontologists discovered the presence of dinosaurs in Alberta. Indeed, the weekend homework assignment for Social Studies relates directly to this area covered in the curriculum. Through their research on dinosaurs, students have learned a great deal about when dinosaurs roamed the earth, what they ate and how big they were. Over the weekend, students are encouraged to work on completing their dinosaur research. Students have been doing this research independently in class. You may log in to Google docs via your CBE student Username and Password. All students chose a dinosaur to research using this link: www.kidsdinos.com/alberta Below is a copy of the checklist we used in class to check that all required elements are in the research paper:
The final week of classes before the winter break was a busy one around Nose Creek School. 4E students were keen participants in all the activities that took place this week. On Monday was Hot chocolate for $1 in the gym, Tuesday was Santa Hat Day, Wednesday was Pajama Days and finally on Thursday many students went to the year end dance or participated in afternoon activities like face painting, watching a Christmas movie or making crafts.
Students put final touches on their fossil opinion pieces during class this week. Also, each child chose a dinosaur found in Alberta to research. Demonstrating skills and processes for inquiry and research are integral parts of the Social Studies curriclum and will be further explored in 2018. Over the Winter break, students are encouraged to read for 20 minutes per night. During time away from school this a great way for students to keep up their literacy skills in an ongoing way. For practice, students are encouraged to come to this blog and take part in the activities provided on the Word Work link provided here: gradefourncs.weebly.com/word-work.html I would like to thank all parents/guardians for the many thoughtful gifts I received. All of them were very good and I enjoyed getting home baked goods! I look forward to seeing my students back in January 2018. Have a peaceful and enjoyable vacation! I would like to thank the many students and their parents who contributed toys, food and clothes to our 4E Christmas stocking for Inn from the Cold. The items contributed are intended for a 4-year old boy. When children from our homeroom took these items to Ms. Malayko on Friday she remarked positively on 4E's efforts. Mr. Brewer told students that at this time of year it is good for all students to be mindful of those who have less than others.
Following our opinion writing assignments, students shared their writing with peers on Google docs. Students used lists to detail what peers did well and list areas for improvement. In the final week of December students will use this feedback to work on improving their written work. We read a chapter from Superfudge and Mr. Brewer introduced the reading comprehension strategy of chunking text. This means that we break down words into smaller parts. Students have identified prefixes in words and through our study of Haiku poetry we learned about syllables. The chunking strategy is an effective means of improving students’ reading comprehension by allowing them to break down larger words smaller parts. On Wednesday students wrote their final spelling test of the year and on Thursday students received results and most students edited their spelling sentences. Many students showed good knowledge of the Science terms that were contained in the list through their sentences. This week was abbreviated as the majority of students went skiing/snowboarding at C.O.P. on Tuesday and Friday was a P.D. day with no classes. Mr. Brewer introduced a new spelling list. The list is notable for having many words related to 4E and 4F's study of Science in Ms. Ross's class. In Humanities we endeavour to extend sight vocabulary to include words frequently used in other subject areas in order to extend understanding. In addition, words in the list like conclusion, opinion, and finally are being used in student opinion pieces on the subject of protecting Alberta's heritage. In these pieces they are actively seeking to identify other perspectives by exploring a variety of ideas, opinions, responses in oral, print and other media texts. This weekend Mr. Brewer came across the following article that relates strongly to this topic: news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/duck-dinosaur-amphibious-halszkaraptor-fossil-mongolia-science/
Classes viewed a Bill Nye video on the subject of dinosaurs on Thursday. We reviewed how fossils are created and learned about the variety of dinosaurs that Science does know about. The wide-ranging video also discussed current theory on the demise of dinosaurs due to a meteorite impact approximately 65 million years ago. World-wide distribution of iridium (a rare element that is not often found on earth) in strata and the fact that dinosaur fossils are not found after 65 million years in strata were advanced as evidences of the meteorite theory being a plausible explanation of the disappearance of dinosaurs. In coming classes, students will choose a dinosaur that was found here in Alberta to do a personal research project. 4E and 4F will be introduced to the website www.kidsdinos.com/ On this site students can read about a number of dinosaur fossils that have been found in Alberta itself: www.kidsdinos.com/alberta This week, students in grade 4 learned that up until 1978 in Alberta, anyone who wanted to could take fossils and keep them for themselves. In 1978 that all changed when the government introduced a law that stipulates that anyone who finds a fossil must report the find to the government. We learned in class about a girl who found a fossil on the surface of the ground. She reported her fossil find to a paleontologist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller who informed her that it was a squid fossil. Since these are very common types of fossils she was allowed to keep her find. The law was passed to protect Alberta's fossil heritage and is one of the strictest laws on the books in the world. In class this week 4E and 4F worked on expressing their opinions about the issue of how Alberta's fossil heritage should be protected. Students were exposed to different points of view from paleontologists, government officials, people who enjoy making jewellery from ammonites and fossil hunters. They considered these various different viewpoints as they expressed their opinions by speaking and crafted their own written responses. They have been considering issues from multiple points of view and explaining which one they agree with most. Below are some of the words they are incorporating into their written responses: Students used the knowledge gained through classroom discussion/debate and by looking at the textbook. The phrases above were introduced to students and they were encouraged to use them in their opinion pieces. The writing process involves pre-writing; in class we had a discussion and engaged in a class-wide activity where students had to choose one of four corners to go to to react to statements about how to conserve fossils. Secondly, we did some research using our text books to discover who holds different opinions and how these opinions differ a lot. Finally, we looked briefly at the website of the Royal Tyrrell Museum and we viewed the rooms inside the museum using the Google Earth app and read about the law of 1978. All students are encouraged to look at the Royal Tyrrell's website to see how the museum contributes to scientific knowledge regarding Alberta’s fossil heritage: www.tyrrellmuseum.com/ Many students have a good plan about what they will say in their opinion pieces and they are now typing using computers. We learned how to log into our CBE Google accounts. Next week, students will investigate the various aspects of the program in order to self-edit their writing and share their opinion pieces with Mr. Brewer.
Fossils give a valuable record of the plant and animal life and environmental conditions from millions of years ago in Alberta. In class this week, students looked at at fossils of trilobites and ammonites. Some students brought in actual fossils to show the class too. We discussed the Fibonacci numbers by reading a picture book about Leonardo Fibonacci the Italian mathematician who discovered this sequence. The title of the book was Blockhead and was authored by Joseph D'Agnese. The fibonacci sequence of: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 8, 13, 21, 34 appear everywhere in nature, from the leaf arrangement in plants, to the patterns of a flower, the bracts of a pinecone, or the scales of a pineapple. We can also see this pattern in the fossil ammonite: In class this week students practiced for the Spelling test on Wednesday. They received their Spelling marks on Thursday or Friday. On Friday, most students were able to complete research questions about Alberta's fossil heritage and edit spelling sentences. Working towards revising and editing their work independently through attending to common spelling rules, knowing when and how to use capital letters and using punctuation correctly are all ongoing goals in Word Work this year. Some students who did not complete the work in class time brought it home as homework over the weekend.
Spelling list: This list contains curricular terms related to our current study of Alberta's fossil heritage, homonyms and words containing the spelling pattern 'oa' where the 'o' is voiced and the 'a' is silent. There will be a quiz on Nov. 22. Since September we have been talking about and repeatedly reviewing the types of behaviours that will support students in their reading. Some examples of behaviours that will help students with their reading are:
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