April 30, 2015

Miss Jackson started a new novel this week, Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea.  The students are really enjoying this novel and we look forward to reading it.  Yesterday in the novel there was reference made about dollar words. Our students were interested in finding dollar words and we added a few words to a chart that some of the students discovered - Edmonton, Wednesday, excellent, elephants.  Students can keep adding dollar words as they discover them.

We are finishing our plans for our inquiry project and are ready to begin the process of creating the projects.  If your child requires materials from home, please help them gather the materials and send them to school by Tuesday.  

Reminders

1. Spring Fling Dance tickets went home

2. Swim notice and forms went home

April 29, 2015

Well done to the students that took the time last night to complete their introduction and first paragraph of their report.  We continued this work today and gave the students time to complete the second paragraph in the body of their report.  If Students do not have enough information to show that they are an expert in their topic or have not finished the intro, and two paragraphs in the bod, then they have been asked to take it home and work on it again tonight.  We talked about using a variety of sentence beginnings to make their report more interesting to read.

After math, we continued to work on the project part of their inquiry and students started writing a plan to begin their project.  If your child requires materials from home, please send them as soon as possible as we will begin working on the projects when they are done the plan(hopefully tomorrow)

Today was fun lunch - OOPS forgot to put  that in the blog yesterday.

There are swimming forms in your child's folder today that need to be completed and returned to the school.  Acknowledgment of Risk forms will be sent home on a later date.

April 27, 2015

The students have been working on writing letters for students across Canada.  We are participating in the Great Canadian mail race.  Students have completed a good copy of a letter and today we started to chose what schools each student will send their letter to.  We are hoping to write to cities in all the provinces across Canada.  It will be exciting to get letters back from students from all these different places!

The students began working on their next paragraph for their inquiry report.  We talked about the importance of having a topic sentence which tells the reader what the paragraph will be about.  Once  the topic sentence is written then the jot notes about that topic need to be put into sentences.  We talked about expanding each jot note and giving details.  Many students discovered that they still do not have enough facts to be able to write a really descriptive paragraph.  Students have been asked to continue to find more facts at home and to complete their first paragraph in the body of their report.  By tomorrow students should have the introduction and their first topic paragraph completed.

We started to make our plan to begin our final project using the facts we have found on our chosen topic.  All students should have a list of their materials they need and what they need to learn to do for their project.  Some students might require a few materials from home but we are not expecting parents to go out and spend money to get these for the project.

Mrs. Cooper's math class learned how to set up a fact practice sheet and we practiced doing it for multiplying by 2.  We know that multiplying by 2 is the same as adding doubles so we should be able to do it fast and without using our fingers.  We also practiced skip counting by 3's and students were asked to say it at least 10 times tonight!  We also spent time solving a math problem that involved multiplication.  Miss Jackson's class is continuing to work on division and were shown how to do one way of long division.

Enjoy the wonderful weather this evening.

April 24th, 2015

Today was Mrs. Witmer's last day at school. We are sad to see her go and we are all going to miss her! As a send off, the students made her a book where we wrote stories, poems and drew pictures of things that were memorable about her time with us. She made cookies for everyone in both of our classes! We wish her the best of luck as she closes one chapter and continues onto the next in her career as a teacher. We know that her future students will be lucky to have her!

This morning the Kindergarten classes along with three Grade 1/2 classes presented an assembly themed around Earth Day, which was on April 22nd this week. We enjoyed watching the students present their work from the year. We learned a lot about Kindergarten's trout inquiry and the Grade 1/2's inquiry around the Lorax. Ask me what my favourite part was from the assembly!

This afternoon, the weather was a bit chilly so we didn't get to the pond this morning. Instead we brainstormed for descriptive 'tree' words to gather ideas for cinquain poems. We then went off and worked on our own cinquain poem. Back when Mrs. Rauser was with us, we made art work of ash trees. Since we had these pieces of art available, we wrote the good copy of our cinquain poem on these works of art and hung them up in our rooms. Ask me what a cinquain poem is!

Reminders:

1. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

2. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson and Mrs. Cooper's classes are due on May 6th.
3. Coco Brooks Pizza Forms are due on April 30th. 

April 23, 2015

We are sad to say that tomorrow is Mrs. Witmer's last day as our student teacher.  It was wonderful having Mrs. Witmer and we will miss her but we wish her all the best as she continues her journey into teaching.

We have asked that the students complete their introductions for their inquiry report.  Next week we will continue to work on writing the reports.  We will also begin working on their projects that will be their final product for showing their expertise on the their topic.  It would be helpful if parents could talk to their child about their plan and what they will need to start their projects.  On Tuesday they will be making a list of everything they will need to do their projects.

In math, Miss Jackson's class is working on division. We have added another word to our mathematical vocabulary, quotient. Our quotient is the answer we get from a division equation. This word is similar to sum, difference, and product that we talked about in our work with addition, subtraction, and multiplication. We are learning through word problems to recognize this word and understand what it is asking us to do. Students should be continuing to work on their basic multiplication facts at home as we are realizing that multiplication is a crucial component of our division learning.

Mrs. Witmer brought in carnations for the students to dissect this afternoon.  It was very interesting to very carefully examine the different parts.  Students created a labelled diagram after carefully observing the different parts of the flower. This process also helped us to have a better understanding of the purpose of the different parts.

As part of our poetry work, we are going for a walk to the pond tomorrow morning to examine some trees to help us discover descriptives words for writing a cinquin about trees(weather permitting).

REMEMBER TO SPEND SOME TIME DOING MATHLETICS AND HOME READING

Reminders:

1. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

2. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson and Mrs. Cooper's classes are due on May 6th.
3. Coco Brooks Pizza Forms are due on April 30th. 

April 22nd, 2015

Today students started the day by continuing our work in using visual language as a planning tool. Yesterday we brainstormed ideas for what we could to celebrate Cranston's 5 year anniversary. Today, groups picked their top five choices and started to display them on chart paper using visual language as their tool for communication. Our goal at the end of this project is to present our ideas to Mrs. Kinsman!

This afternoon we continued our work in writing research reports about our inquiry topics. Students have finished their outlines, which plan out the order in which they will talk about categorized information. We started our introductions today. We had a chance to read an interesting introduction and then we talked about what made it interesting. We've determined that we need a 'hook'. Something that draws the reader in! Then we need to define our topic so the reader understands what we are talking about. Finally, we tell the reader where we are going with our inquiry and what our focus will be.

We watched an informative video this afternoon about parts of the plant and pollination.  Mrs. Witmer followed up by having the students label the parts of a flower.  We will later use these for an art journal page.  Tomorrow the students will have the opportunity to dissect a flower and find the different parts.

*MATHLETICS*

Just a reminder that students should be using Mathletics as a tool to continue to practice basic concepts. This extra practice really impacts the students in their daily work in math so we encourage all students to use Mathletics on a regular basis.  Those students in Mrs. Cooper's math class should be practicing using mental math to add and subtract and now to multiply facts to 5.  We have worked on multiplying by 0, 1, 2 and 4.  Today we discovered that when you multiply by 4 a quick strategy is it multiply it by 2 and then double it.  Knowing doubles and being able to skip counts really helps students to quickly learn basic multiplication facts.  

Reminders:

1. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

2. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson and Mrs. Cooper's classes are due on May 6th.
3. Coco Brooks Pizza Forms are due on April 30th. 

April 21st, 2015

The school was filled in a 'C' of red today as many students and teachers wore their jerseys to support the Calgary Flames. In amongst the red were various other colours supporting the hockey team favourites for other cities as well!

This morning students continued working on a haiku poem with Mrs. Witmer. Right now they are writing a haiku based on one of three nature photos. Since a haiku has three lines, students were provided with prompts to assist in their writing. The first line is Where, second is What and the third is When. The tricky part is getting the right amount of syllables to fill each line! Ask me how many syllables are in each line of a haiku!

This afternoon we were lucky to have Mrs. Gates come and talk to us as an expert on plants. She worked as a Junior Park Ranger near Peace River here in Alberta so she brings a wealth of knowledge pertaining to native Alberta plants! Her presentation inspired us to ask many questions as we found out more about Alberta plants and discover which plants are liked most by mason bees and honeybees.

Just a reminder to students to have all of their jot notes ready to go as we proceed in out inquiry work. Some students have realized through sharing their information that there are some gaps that need to be filled. This has to be done outside of class time as we are moving forward in out work. Please make sure that if you do take your inquiry notebook home that you take it back to school the next day!

Reminders:

1. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

2. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson and Mrs. Cooper's classes are due on May 6th.
3. Coco Brooks Pizza Forms are due on April 30th. 

April 20th, 2015

This morning students in grade 4 had French with Miss Jackson. We have reviewed all of the basic conversation, months, days, and numbers that we have learned up until now. Students should be practicing their French at home so they can improve upon their recall when we do oral activities and games in class. Please refer to last Monday's blog for vocabulary covered so far.

To start of our inquiry work this afternoon, Mrs. Cooper read "Just the Facts: Writing your own research report". We had a discussion around first steps in continuing forth beyond writing jot notes and delving into our project work. Students met with a partner today to talk them through their jot notes. They were given feedback as to whether or not there were information gaps within the notes that need to be filled in. Some students realized that they need more jot notes to continue with their projects and will have taken their notebooks home to complete on their own time.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is a Jersey Day, celebrating our local teams, The Calgary Flames and The Calgary Hitmen, in the playoff!  Students should come to school dressed in their favorite team jerseys and t-shirts.  If you don't have anything that suits our teams, please come wearing our team colours, Red and White! 

This day is a great way to show pride in your favorite teams.  If you choose to wear a jersey belonging to another team, that's fine too!  

Reminders:

1. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

2. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson's class are due on May 6th.
3. Coco Brooks Pizza Forms are due on April 30th. 

April 17th, 2015

This morning students went down to the greenhouse to observe the growth of our plants. There are a lot of identifying features on these plants now so we are taking detailed drawings and notes to see if we can figure out what type of plants they are! We pulled out a few plants that were growing too close together and looked at the root systems of these plants. Ask me what I have observed about our growing plants!

Students had choir today with Mrs. McBride and Mrs. Jones. They are still working hard on the song for Music Monday, "We Are One". Keep looking and listening to this at home! 

At the end of the day, students practiced more visual recording. This work will be used for planning, recording and representing our thinking throughout our learning moving forward. Students can be showing what they have learned in our practice and teach it to their families at home!

On Monday, students will be sharing their jot-notes with their classmates. Please make sure that you finish up these notes on the weekend and remember to take your inquiry notebook back to school on Monday morning!

Have a great weekend! :)

SPRING IS IN THE AIR!! 

Mother’s Day is quickly approaching and our annual Spring Plant fundraiser is about to get underway.  Forms will be coming home this week with your children, please check their backpacks and consider supporting this fundraiser.  We are going with Devry Greenhouses again this year and their plants have been beautiful so this year should be no exception!!  If every family sells 2 items we will reach our fundraising goal to support the extra quality programming the kids have enjoyed this year (Artists in Residence, Quest Theatre, Dance Program etc.)  Forms are due back Friday April 24.  Thanks in advance for your support!

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART

Mr. McDougall is asking students to bring back their Jump Rope for Heart envelopes by Friday, April 17th. Please make sure to finish up your fundraising this week so that we can meet this deadline! :)

Reminders:

1. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

2. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson's class are due on May 6th.

April 16, 2015

Students are continuing to work on their letters for the Great Canadian Mail Race. Once we are done writing our rough draft we will be preparing to send a good copy to our respective schools. If you haven't narrowed down a province and place within that province that you would like to write to, then please have this conversation at home.

We had a wonderful day at the pond where we observed and discovered different ways that seeds travel.  We found seeds that travelled by wind, on animal fur, through animal waste and we even got to watch bees pollinating. We will continue to further explore how seeds travel next week.

In music, students have been continuing to strive to move up a colour in belt testing. Make sure that you are practicing your precorder so that you can move onto another colour! Ask us what belt we have earned! As Music Monday approaches quickly, please make sure that you are reviewing the lyrics and the song, "We are One" at home. This is an important day to appreciate and draw awareness to the importance of music education in Canada!

Fundraising forms went home in the students folders today.

SPRING IS IN THE AIR!! 

Mother’s Day is quickly approaching and our annual Spring Plant fundraiser is about to get underway.  Forms will be coming home this week with your children, please check their backpacks and consider supporting this fundraiser.  We are going with Devry Greenhouses again this year and their plants have been beautiful so this year should be no exception!!  If every family sells 2 items we will reach our fundraising goal to support the extra quality programming the kids have enjoyed this year (Artists in Residence, Quest Theatre, Dance Program etc.)  Forms are due back Friday April 24.  Thanks in advance for your support!

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART

Mr. McDougall is asking students to bring back their Jump Rope for Heart envelopes by Friday, April 17th. Please make sure to finish up your fundraising this week so that we can meet this deadline! :)

Reminders:

1. Jump Rope for Heart envelopes are due on April 17th.

2. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

3. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson's class are due on May 6th.

April 15th, 2015

Tomorrow students will be visiting the pond as part of our science inquiry. Please make sure that you come to school prepared for the weather. 

Please check the weather and come prepared for this outing. 

This morning students worked on writing letters for the Great Canadian Mail Race. After our letters are written students will pick a place in Canada to send them to. All letters will be distributed to the grade 3 and 4 classes in a Canadian school with the hopes of receiving a letter back from them! Have a chat with me about which provinces I am interested in writing to and what questions I would like to ask!

Later in the morning, Miss Jackson introduced us to Visual Language. This is a type of recording medium where we use pictures, labels and titles to take notes, share ideas and make plans. We started practicing some basic visual language concepts in our art journal today. Ask me to show you what I remember from today's session! 

This afternoon took jot-notes in our inquiry notebooks while studying a video about pollination and how seeds travel. We will continue this work and discussion in our walk to the pond tomorrow! 

SPRING IS IN THE AIR!! 

Mother’s Day is quickly approaching and our annual Spring Plant fundraiser is about to get underway.  Forms will be coming home this week with your children, please check their backpacks and consider supporting this fundraiser.  We are going with Devry Greenhouses again this year and their plants have been beautiful so this year should be no exception!!  If every family sells 2 items we will reach our fundraising goal to support the extra quality programming the kids have enjoyed this year (Artists in Residence, Quest Theatre, Dance Program etc.)  Forms are due back Friday April 24.  Thanks in advance for your support!

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART

Mr. McDougall is asking students to bring back their Jump Rope for Heart envelopes by Friday, April 17th. Please make sure to finish up your fundraising this week so that we can meet this deadline! :)

Reminders:

1. Jump Rope for Heart envelopes are due on April 17th.

2. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

3. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson's class are due on May 6th.

April 14th, 2015

On Thursday students will be visiting the pond as part of our science inquiry. Please make sure that you come to school prepared for the weather. 

Please check the weather and come prepared for this outing. 

This morning students continued their work in exploring various types of poetry. Mrs. Witmer introduced the concept of haikus to the students. They had a chance to read a few haikus, talk about the characteristics of a haiku and then create their own. Ask me what I learned about haikus today!

This afternoon students worked on taking jot notes for our inquiry projects for the last time. Any students who have not collected enough information during the given class time will be responsible for retrieving this data outside of class. We will share our jot notes on Monday so we are asking the students to have this completed by then. From here on in we will be focusing on the work that will be needed to complete our final inquiry projects. Talk to me about the information I have found on my topic and what my final inquiry project will be! 

SPRING IS IN THE AIR!! 

Mother’s Day is quickly approaching and our annual Spring Plant fundraiser is about to get underway.  Forms will be coming home this week with your children, please check their backpacks and consider supporting this fundraiser.  We are going with Devry Greenhouses again this year and their plants have been beautiful so this year should be no exception!!  If every family sells 2 items we will reach our fundraising goal to support the extra quality programming the kids have enjoyed this year (Artists in Residence, Quest Theatre, Dance Program etc.)  Forms are due back Friday April 24.  Thanks in advance for your support!

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART

Mr. McDougall is asking students to bring back their Jump Rope for Heart envelopes by Friday, April 17th. Please make sure to finish up your fundraising this week so that we can meet this deadline! :)

Reminders:

1. Jump Rope for Heart envelopes are due on April 17th.

2. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

3. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson's class are due on May 6th.

April 13th, 2015

On Thursday students will be visiting the pond as part of our science inquiry. Please make sure that you come to school prepared for the weather. 

Please check the weather and come prepared for this outing. 

The grade four students had French this morning with Miss Jackson. Students are learning basic conversational French such as the following:

Bonjour! Salut!
Comment t'appelles tu? Je m'appelle ____.
Comment ça va? Ça va bien. Ça va très bien. Ça va mal. Comme ci, comme ça. Ça va.
Quel ages a tu? J'ai ___ ans.

We are getting to know the French alphabet by singing it! We also have started to learn the months of the year and the days of the week.

Les mois de l'année: Janvier, Février, Mars, Avril, Mai, Juin, Juillet, Août, Septembre, Octobre, Novembre, Décembre

Jours de la semaine: Dimanche, Lundi, Mardi, Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi, Samedi

Today we played a counting game in class called "Dix". We changed the rules a bit and had students sit down when we got to twenty, or "vingt" to practice counting up to 20. Ask me how high I can count in French and see how much conversational French I can use with you at home!

In music, Mrs. McBride has been checking in on their practice and awarding students a coloured belt depending on the level they have achieved. Ask us what belt we have earned! As Music Monday approaches quickly, please make sure that you are reviewing the lyrics and the song, "We are One" at home. This is an important day to appreciate and draw awareness to the importance of music education in Canada!

In gym, Mr. McDougall has new stations setup for us this week. In groups of 6 we have to go through series of stations that work on strength, agility, and coordination. 

In math, Miss Jackson's class is working through division and continuing to develop our problem solving skills. As multiplication skills help tremendously in the area of division, students are asked to keep reviewing their basic facts at home. Mrs. Witmer is now working on multiplication. The students have talked about arrays and worked on a multiplication problem. 

At the end of the day, students worked on writing jot notes for their inquiry. Students are developing their skills in this area and are learning what makes a good jot note. Jot notes should be in their own words and be written in sentence form. If students would like to make jot notes from a video we are asking them to complete this at home as the classroom becomes too noisy for everyone trying to concentrate.

SPRING IS IN THE AIR!! 

Mother’s Day is quickly approaching and our annual Spring Plant fundraiser is about to get underway.  Forms will be coming home this week with your children, please check their backpacks and consider supporting this fundraiser.  We are going with Devry Greenhouses again this year and their plants have been beautiful so this year should be no exception!!  If every family sells 2 items we will reach our fundraising goal to support the extra quality programming the kids have enjoyed this year (Artists in Residence, Quest Theatre, Dance Program etc.)  Forms are due back Friday April 24.  Thanks in advance for your support!

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART

Mr. McDougall is asking students to bring back their Jump Rope for Heart envelopes by Friday, April 17th. Please make sure to finish up your fundraising this week so that we can meet this deadline! :)

Reminders:

1. Jump Rope for Heart envelopes are due on April 17th.

2. Spring Fundraiser forms are due on April 24th.

3. Scholastic Book Orders for Miss Jackson's class are due on May 6th.

April 10, 2015

Our morning started with an hour on the computers to focus on our inquiry work.  We discussed the importance of setting up subheadings for our jot notes so that our work is organized.  Students were asked to take their inquiry notebooks home today to take some time on the weekend to find more facts to put in their jot notes.  Remember jot notes are just brief facts stated in your own words.  Our students need to be experts in their topic before we can begin working on our final projects.  FACTS, FACTS, FACTS!

We made some interesting discoveries today from the celery experiment that we started yesterday.  As we continue our learning around plants life, Mrs. Witmer will provide the students with a variety of experiments to make connections with their learning.  The celery experiment allowed us to see the purpose and importance of the stem.  Mrs. Witmer has demonstrated how to write up an experiment.  Have your child tell you the subheadings for writing an experiment. 




SPRING IS IN THE AIR!! 

Mother’s Day is quickly approaching and our annual Spring Plant fundraiser is about to get underway.  Forms will be coming home this week with your children, please check their backpacks and consider supporting this fundraiser.  We are going with Devry Greenhouses again this year and their plants have been beautiful so this year should be no exception!!  If every family sells 2 items we will reach our fundraising goal to support the extra quality programming the kids have enjoyed this year (Artists in Residence, Quest Theatre, Dance Program etc.)  Forms are due back Friday April 24.  Thanks in advance for your support!

April 2nd, 2015

Students have been asked to take home their acrostic poems to work on over the weekend.  Just a few reminders about what we talked about to create the poem.  We want to include alliteration for each sentence (words that begin with the same letter).  Not every word has to start with the same letter but try to include as many words as you can with the same letter.  We also talked about the importance of each sentence being about you!  We suggested that students make a list of words about themselves to help generate ideas for their poem.

Our plants have really grown in this week so we spent some time this morning observing, writing and sketching both the plants in the green house and the bean seeds that we are experimenting with.  The beans with water and sun have started to sprout a small root and the bean seeds in the dark with water have also sprouted.  The bean seeds without water and the seeds with acid water have not changed.

In preparation for Music Monday, all the students in the school are working on "We Are One" in music class. Since we will be singing this song on Monday, May 4th at the same time as students across Canada, she is requesting that all Cranston students know the lyrics for this piece of music. Students should be going over the lyrics at home. You can find a YouTube video of the song and the lyrics on the Music Monday website. 

Reminder that there is no school tomorrow as it is Good Friday. There will also be no school on Monday, April 6th as it is a PD day. We will see everyone back at school on Tuesday, April 8th!

Please take a look at our safety website put together by the School Bound and Safety Committee if you haven't done so already. There is important information on there for parents and students about safety in coming and going from school.

April 1st, 2015

Happy April Fool's Day!

Mrs. Witmer introduced the students to alliteration and the students starting to create an acrostic poem about themselves using alliteration.  We have asked students to bring it home to complete for tomorrow if they didn't finish today in the time given.  We will share our acrostic poems with the class tomorrow.

This afternoon we attended the Jump Rope for Heart assembly. We learned about the program that we will be participating in and got to see some of the students here at Cranston show off some skipping moves! Mrs. Jackson's class received their information packages before the Spring Break and Mrs. Cooper's class will be taking them home today. Please review these with your child and think about registering online to get your free skipping rope and $5 jump-start donation. The amount raised will go to heart and stroke research.

For the remainder of the day, both classes got together to create a table in order to keep track of the observations we make during our plant experiment. They also sketched and labelled the plants we planted before the Spring Break that are currently growing in our greenhouse.

Mrs. Witmer's math group will be doing an assessment on fractions tomorrow to show what they have learned so far. Mrs. Jackson's class will also be wrapping up area and perimeter tomorrow with a short assessment on what the students have learned.

Please take a look at our safety website put together by the School Bound and Safety Committee if you haven't done so already. There is important information on there for parents and students about safety in coming and going from school.

Reminders:

1. Miss Jackson's Scholastic Book Orders are due on April 2nd.