What We did for Bullying Awareness...

What we did for Bullying Awareness 

by Fiona, Mikayla, Daniel S., Emily H

We did a lot of work on this topic and combined it with Language. We learned that bullying or picking on people will hurt them. We read a book called "Sorry" and we wrote about how if you say you are "sorry" you have to mean it or it will not cut it! We think bullying or being hurtful is mean. We know that it is not right to do. We learned that if someone is bullying or bothering you, you can try to talk it out or tell a teacher.

 

We made skits that showed how to deal with situations where students needed to deal with each other in a respectful way.

by Ms. Howie

Our School Board has an excellent program called The Samaritan on the Digital Road. We followed the Grade 3 program as it is new for the Grade 4's as well. 

https://sites.google.com/a/ocsb.ca/ocsb-digital-citizenship/grade-3

Have a look at the website above and use the information and pictures to have a conversation with your child about the important values we have learned.

First we covered the story of The Good Samaritan. We then saw videos about modern Samaritans. Students wrote about Mother Teresa, Ryan's Well (Ryan Hreljac began raising money for clean water when he was in Grade 1. He continues his dream today, 15 years later) The Doorman, ( a high school student who moved to a new school after being bullied. He began to open doors for his new school mates and gained respect while teaching others about small acts of kindness) and The Winnipeg Bus Driver (he stopped his bus and gave a homeless man the shoes off his own feet). With the recent death of Nelson Mandela we learned about his huge contribution to equality among all peoples and his example of forgiving his enemies. Students wrote excellent paragraphs about Mandela which showed their understanding of a great man's gift to the world. 

Lots of pictures to share....

Science Reports  

Using a cardboard triangle worked and the book did NOT fall!

We have done a lot of active learning in Science during the past few weeks. Matthew S says that he has learned a lot about how structures can be made stable. If the building is tall then the foundation has to be wide and strong. Here is an interactive website that we used.  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/lab/index.html 

Making the support a triangle helped but the construction paper was not strong enough.

Posts in each corner, beams at the top, triangle for the roof and a brace for the rectangular walls make this stable.

 When we write down what we did, we have procedural writing.

It is a lot easier to learn about gears when you can actually build a machine and watch what the gears do!

Braces can make rectangles stronger.

Our Grade 4 reporter, Ryan, learned how pulleys are made by making a fixed pulley with his partner.  It is easier to pull down with gravity than to lift up. With the movable pulley a person can cut the weight in half but you have to pull up. A combined pulley allows you to pull down with gravity AND it cuts the weight in half. 

A movable pulley.

 One of our Grade 4 's built a bridge to teach the Grade 3's how a load will collapse. However if arches are used to support the beam, the load can be supported.

The arches support the foam block.

The finished pulley.

Thank you for bringing your mom to help                                                                                               us build a merry-go-round with working                                                                                                  gears! Mom was having as much fun                                                                                                     as the boys!

Building a fan to show how gears work.

Someone found a motor in the Lego box and look!!!! the fan can actually work!

Teamwork is an important part of learning. A good
working group respects each others' ideas.

The gears on the merry-go-rounds meet at right angles.

Jaden brought his grandmother also! Together Mrs. Delorme and the Grade 4 girls figure out those Lego merry-go-rounds.

A fixed pulley

Lots of Learning Happening in Grade 3/4!!

The Buzz About Science

      We are doing 2 Science themes in our class right now using an "Inquiry" model of learning. The topic for Grade 4 is pulleys and gears and the Grade 3' s are learning about stable structures. I put these together because they both involve building things. What is "inquiry" ? Well we started off by having books in the classroom on the themes. Students wrote down what they already knew about the topic and then they wrote what they would like to learn. Ms. Colasante and I met together and took a close look at the students' questions. We lined them up with the curriculum, grouped similar questions together and came up with several big questions on each Science topic. The children chose a question to investigate. Why use an "inquiry" approach? The immediate enthusiasm of the students was noticeable. They were engaged right from the start. Students generated the questions and are coming up with ideas on how to share what they learn with the class. Today there was a beehive of activity as towers, bridges, pulleys, and buildings were constructed. Thank you Mrs. St. Pierre for being a second pair of adult hands to help with string, cardboard, popsicle sticks, glue and organized chaos! Pictures of today's activities to come but here are some from Tuesday, Oct. 29.

 Hmmm... what do we need to make the top part stay up?

                                                                  The spring scales will                                                                            help us find out how a                                                                    pulley helps lift a heavy load.

This structure has a pretty solid base.

Each group has made a plan about what they can do to show the class the answer to their inquiry question.

This group took what they saw on a video from youtube and applied it to a simple structure they made. Do you see the arches? Your child will be able to explain why an arch is strong. And what exactly is a buttress? (besides being a funny word!)

Here are some youtube videos that we watched and I promised the children that I could post them so they could show you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4DoyvJFM2Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYtIFM1ek_M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4oj95E8J9M

Enjoying the Go Fish- Fruit of the Spirit. Is it Religion? Social Skills? Music? Dance? Phys Ed.?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyBmPOlPWNA

We do enjoy art in our class. Hope you have wall space to display these masterpieces. 

Having trouble getting your Grade 3 or 4 student to bed on time?? Remind them of the project on healthy sleep habits that they just finished or review      http://www.sleepforkids.org/

Math: What are we up to? and how can you help your child?

We have been working on addition and I can't stress enough, the benefits of knowing number facts. We worked on doubles ( 6+6) and near doubles (6+5 or 6+7). We will add facts that add up to 10. A small number of children have difficulty remembering number facts but most can learn them with a few minutes of daily practice. I am finding that many students still need to make the effort. Grade 4's will be adding X table practice to their efforts.

While we will informally continue adding and number facts, our new focus will be linear measurement. We cover cm (centimetre) mm (millimetre) m (metre) and Km (kilometre). Students need to measure, estimate what they think the length will be, choose the appropriate unit of measurement, ( a cm is the right unit to measure the length of  shoe) and compare units ( 1 m = 100 cm). Students can be given tape measures at home and set loose to measure all kinds of things! Common mistakes can be not lining the 0 up with the beginning of the the object, or just not realizing that there is a need to be accurate. 

From there we will begin to measure the perimeter of shapes. Sometimes students will measure with a ruler and other times with a grid.   Finally, we will be measuring the area of shapes and comparing it to perimeter. Often students understand perimeter and then become somewhat confused when area is added to the mix. Learning the difference and where each measurement is used in real life is important.  You can make these concepts more real by looking around your home and talking about what might need measuring and where you might need to find the area or perimeter.