Welcome to the 27th week of Grade 4 at NCS!
This post is early this week, as Thursday and Friday of this week are non-instructional days, due to Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences. Hopefully you have had a chance to book a time slot to see us! There are still a few times available if you still need to book in! This week students worked on 4 main things in humanities. Reading (for 20 minutes each day), creative writing (for at least 15 minutes daily), sharing these creative stories with the class, and working on our creation stories! Students have worked very hard this week on these tasks. The creation stories are coming along nicely! Most students are working on their rough copies or onto the editing process! We set a goal of having our rough copies completed before the break. That way, when we come back, we can get started on editing/good copies, and then move onto our artwork for the project! We will be wrapping our First Nations unit after that. Students also had a chance to visit with some grade 8 science buddies this week for a tour! They were able to Important Information -No School Thursday or Friday this week - due to conferences (students are encouraged to come too!) -Spring Break is upon us! Students come back Tuesday, April 3rd. ENJOY the break!! -Today, students cleaned out their lockers, so they might be bringing a few extra items home (if needed). -Reading Logs went home for Spring Break -- 20 minutes daily reading if possible! Have a wonderful break and looking forward to seeing many of you at conferences, Ms. Clark
0 Comments
Welcome to the 26th week of Grade 4 here at NCS! This week, students worked on lots of different tasks in humanities! Students continued to read for 20 minutes in class each day this week. We also continued our creative writing/stamina writing activity - students can write for 15 minutes without interruption, when given a variety of story prompts! Students have also continued to share their stories with their peers. There are lots of hilarious, creative, and exciting stories that students have shared! We also have continued to learn about First Nations in Alberta. We had a chance to talk about scared places and sacred items. We looked at 4 different perspectives that each shared their point of view about what should be done with sacred/special cultural items. The 4 perspectives were the museum visitors, the museum curators, First Nations Elders, and antique dealers. Each had a different point of view about how cultural items should be kept and shared. Students had a chance to discuss in both small and large groups, and then work individually on a few reflection questions regarding this topic. Students also worked on another "sequencing comic" this week! We read the story "The Great Race" and students had to select key plot points, and organize their thoughts into 6-8 sentences/visuals. They had to colour in their images and work to create an organized and concise account of the story that they listened to. This story also had beautiful and inspiring artwork, and was a cultural story from a First Nations Group. Below you will see a few images from this task! Students had a chance to begin our next project! On Wednesday, I read 3 stories to the students - "How The Fox Got It's Crossed Legs," "How The Turtle Got It's Shell," and "The Loons Necklace." The students were able to figure out the theme between these stories, which was "how the animal got it's ________" or, creation stories. This connects to our learning of Alberta's First Nations, as it is a style of First Nations stories! We spent some time on Wednesday and Thursday working out our outlines for our stories. Friday, will begin our rough copies, and continue this into next week. After that, we will tackle peer editing, good copies, and artwork!
Important Information -You can now sign up for Parent Teacher interviews. You can do so online, or by calling the school for more information. Parent Teacher (and student!) interviews take place next Thursday and Friday. -Spring Break begins right after interviews, and goes until April 3rd (our first day back). Enjoy the break, hopefully with more spring like weather! -Ms. Clark Welcome to the 25th week of Grade 4 at NCS! This week, students worked on a variety of activities in Humanities class. We continue to read for 20 minutes daily, and students also continued their "creative writing" work in class for 15 minutes each day. This week we had a bunch of funny story starters, including ideas from the idea jar (some ideas were magical shoes, space ducks, and super cats) as well as from our story dice, creative story starter flip book, and our animal flip book (todays animal was part hermit crab, part rhino). Their stories are always humorous, and have been brainstorming so many unique ideas. It's also allowing students to practice different types of writing (e.g., news reports, stories, descriptive writing, movie trailers, etc). Students are continuing to practice their presentation skills when they share their stories with peers. This week students in 4A and 4C continued to learn about First Nations in Alberta. We were able to finish our mind maps that we've been working on for a couple of weeks! They have tons of key facts and interesting details. Students had a chance to discuss why places of historical significance/scared places are so important to the past, and important to people's identity (e.g., Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump or Writing on Stone Provincial Park). Students also listened to a First Nations story called "The Story of the Jumping Mouse" this week. This book is a beautiful picture book. After listening carefully to the story, they had to then pick 6-8 key details/ plot points, and organize their ideas into a "comic" with their key ideas in sequence. They had to draw images to represent the 6-8 key plot points (visualizing), and also write a key sentences describing their scene. This activity incorporates many key reading/listening strategies that we have worked on throughout the year, and it was a great way to apply many strategies in one activity! Students worked quite diligently on this task. Great job Grade 4s! Below you will see a few examples of the "sequence comics" that they worked on! Additionally, this week students were able to learn about different ways that First Nations celebrate their cultures and traditions. We talked about sacred/special ceremonies, drumming, dancing, powwows, the importance of circles and certain images, buffalo hunts, and more! Students were able to relate some of these ideas to their own cultures, histories and identities. We also had a chance to do two different art pieces recently -- the first was the creation of Teepees (last Friday), and learning about First Nations artist Norval Morriseau (and using his style to create our own artwork). Below you will seem some examples of both art work pieces! Important Information:
-RRJs - week 18 happened this week! Most students are caught up with this week. Week 19 next week! -Parent-Teacher-Student Interviews are coming up soon! Stay tuned for booking information -Students are reminded to head outside after lunch! Some students have been spending lunchtimes inside but are encouraged to head outside for some fresh air! Have a great weekend! -Ms. Clark Welcome to the 24th week of Grade 4 at NCS! This week was quite exciting as we had our "Be Brave" Calgary Hitmen Field Trip! All students from grade 4-9 were able to attend the game, as well as all teachers and many parent volunteers! Students were wonderful ambassadors of our school, and really showed Nose Creek SPIRIT! Unfortunately the Hitmen lost the game, but it was still a great experience for our students. This week, we also had other activities, including button making, hat day, pink pop day, and tomorrow (Friday), which is Kodiak gear/red and black day. All money raise is donated to anti-bullying and mental health in the community! Below you will see a few photos from the game! This week, we continued our exploration about First Nations communities in Alberta. Last week, we started a mind map that had lots of important facts and key details about First Nations in Alberta. Students did a great job and got lots of information written in! Students' mind maps included facts about First Nations homes, foods, key tools, and a little bit about art, music, and culture. They know that this will be a tool they can reference later, and study from at the end of the unit! We learned about the 6 natural regions and the different First Nations groups that traditionally lived in these areas. We also created a map that showed the 6 natural regions and the cultural groups that have lived in those different areas. Below you can find a few examples of these mind maps and First Nations maps. Today, we learned about different symbols that have been found from petroglyphs (images) in different areas in Alberta! We also learned about the colours that First Nations peoples used. We learned that these images can be to communicate stories and tell about the past. These images could be found in artwork, on tipis, carved in stone, and other places! Students then had a chance to create their own symbol, that would represent a key part of their own story. Students had to then write a paragraph/story that would explain their symbol (imaging that someone could try and interpret their symbols in the future). This allowed students to gain the perspective of peoples from the past that used symbols to share stories and traditions. We will be using these symbols tomorrow in our special activity! Stay tuned for pictures next week!
This week we've also continued independent reading for 20 minutes, and our new activity, creative writing! Students have been working to increase their time while writing on a daily basis, using a variety of different story starters/ideas. Some of these ideas are our classroom "idea jar," story cubes, the "remarkable animals" book (which makes us combine 3 different animals), and our flip book of creative writing ideas! Students have also hard the opportunity to share their stories out loud and practice their presentation skills too! Important Information: -This week was week 17 of RRJS, there are still several students that need to hand in their RRJ for this week. -Scholastic book orders are going home today. You can order online, or via cheque. Orders are due March 8th. Have a wonderful weekend, Ms. Clark |
AuthorGrade four Humanities teacher. Archives
June 2018
Categories |