Sep. 29th This Week's Learning

Literacy
Together, both classes have been writing personal narratives. We have been learning how to put detail and the five senses into our writing to make it more interesting! Personal narratives are about taking specific memories and turning them into enthralling stories. Next week, we will start a new personal narrative topic on a special person in our lives.

Math
Godzilla Came into our classroom this week and boy did he love Math and towers! If Godzilla knocks only the top floors of towers, including one floored towers, and then arranges the buildings from tallest to smallest, is there a pattern to his destruction?





Here is the link to the Math Pickle website for more fun games and puzzles if you are interested in doing the problem again!
Godzilla Problem

Terry Fox Run
Thank you families for your donation. Students were thrilled to dress us up on Thursday and it made our run more exciting!


Students estimated and calculated the donations we raised in class. Here's an example of some of our students solved the problem.


Orange Shirt Day
Students were involved in critical challenges and talked about perspectives. They then reflected in learning in their visual journal.

Grade 4 Club Opportunity: Comprehensive School Health Student Leaders

Comprehensive School Health Club is looking for keen, mature, self-directed students who are interested in making positive wellness changes in our school. These students will be joining us for our comprehensive school health team for the year. We are looking for students who will be committed to meeting every second week for the entire school year. We are looking to capitalize on existing leadership skills. 

If you are interested, please get them to write answers to the following three questions:

How can you help students make positive wellness choices?

 

What past experiences will help you to achieve this?

 

How have you shown leadership in the past? 

Please have them bring them to either Mr. Sauverwald or Ms. Barrie by Monday, October 2nd. 

This week's update as well as Curriculum Newsletter and Year-at-a-Glance

We are looking forward to meet you tomorrow. Your child is invited to attend the conference. This will be a great opportunity for them to share their classroom experience with you. In today's message, we have attached the curriculum newsletter for the months of September to December. There will be another newsletter for January and March, as well as April to June. Please read these news letters so you are informed as to what your child is learning. There is important information such as field trips too so it's worth a read!

Also, we have attached a  Grade 3/4 Year-at-a-Glance for you to understand the topics we will be covering this year. This information can also be found in Learn Alberta website.

Language Arts
This week, our students were working hard to choose one of the 7 Sacred Teachings that speaks the most about them and wrote a personal narrative about it. Please come to the conference and see their masterpiece


For word work, students also played Boggle and used moveable alphabet to create as many words as they can using the letters provided. Some of the Grade 4 students explored cursive writing this week.



Math
Students worked on an open-ended math problem and explored different strategies and solutions. Here is a quick snapshot.



Classroom Expectations
Classroom expectations and rules are established to respect the rights as a learner and how we can work collaboratively with each other in a classroom community. Room 20 and 21 has very similar expectations/protocols to create a safe and engaged learning environment for us all


Upcoming Events:
- No School on Friday September 22nd
- Terry Fox Run on Thursday September 28th
- Orange Shirt Day on Friday September 29th

Information about Birthdays and Celebrations from our Principal

Below is a message from our principal Dr. Bettesworth. Please read her message about birthdays and celebrations!

Birthdays and Celebrations

As you are aware, Captain John Palliser is a healthy foods and “allergen aware” school. This awareness helps to establish a safer learning environment for students with mild and severe allergies. It also helps us model healthy eating practices for our students. At CJP, we have some students with severe allergies to food and non-food items. In order to continue ensuring a healthy, safe, and inclusive environment for all students, we ask you to reconsider sending food treats for birthdays and other celebrations to school. I am asking you to help me emphasize the fun over the food in a celebration. To that end, we will not be using food to celebrate birthdays.

I appreciate that birthdays and other holidays are important to every child and they like to celebrate with their classmates. However, sending in a food treat to the classroom can pose a huge risk to the health and safety of students. It can also exclude those children who have severe food allergies, diabetes, or other dietary restrictions.

The CBE also recognizes the importance of students making safe, healthy choices at school and at home. In their ‘Healthy Eating’ statement, the CBE explains,

“Food rewards and treats are often used to give recognition to children and youth because they are quick and easy. However, rewarding children with treats may contradict the healthy eating lessons in the classroom. It can also encourage children to eat outside of regular meal or snack times when they are not even hungry. Many sweet treats can be harmful to children’s dental health and may teach them that food rewards are ‘better’ than regular foods. Recognition in the form of non-food items is recommended.”

There are many alternatives to food treats for your child’s birthday celebration at school, below are some suggestions:

1.    Party favours - bouncy balls, matchbox cars, erasers, tops, magnifying glasses, notepads, balloons, whistles, bubbles, etc). You can get these at a party supply store, dollar store, or on dollar shelves at stores like Wal-Mart and Michaels.

2.    Buy a book as a donation from your child to the class library. He/she can also read it aloud to the class!

3.    Buy something for the classroom (games, music, a craft, plant, etc).

4.    Send an autograph book to school. Have the teacher ask each student to write something nice about the birthday child. The birthday kid gets to take the book home at the end of the day.

5.    Send in supplies and directions for a simple craft for the kids to do instead of eating a snack. It is a bonus if the parent comes in to help with the craft J . Please keep in mind we value our instructional time. This should be a simple craft and this should be done in consultation with the teacher.

6.    Arrange for the kids to play a game instead of eating a snack. If you don’t have any ideas, talk to your child’s teacher. They are likely to know what the kids will enjoy and what will work well in the classroom setting. Again, it is a bonus if the parent comes in to play games with the kids J

7.    Bring in something that all the students can sign as a birthday treat for the birthday child (shirt/sweatshirt, tote bag, autograph stuffed animal, pillow case, etc).

8.    Ask the teacher if you can have a ‘show and tell’ time for your child on his/her birthday. They can make a poster, bring in some of their favourite things, bring pictures, etc.

9.      Send in your child’s favourite appropriate dance song (on a CD or MP3 file) and have the whole class have a mini-dance party!

Thank you for your continued support in our efforts to maintain a healthy and safe learning environment for all students.

Important September Announcements

Please book your parent conferences for this Thursday (September 21st). Conferences shall run from 8am until 7:15am. We hope to see everyone! Please make other arrangements with us if you are unable to make this date. The day after conferences will be a P.D Day for teachers so no school. We will see you on Monday (September 25th).

Thursday September 28th is our Terry Fox Run! Below is a link to our school's sponsorship site if you would like to donate.
https://secure.terryfox.ca/registrant/TeamFundraisingPage.aspx?TeamID=740703#&panel1-2

September 15, 2017

Thank you parents for attending our school Welcome Back Picnic! It was a great turn out.

Reminders:
- Parent Teacher Conference Booking is open. It will be next on Thursday September 21.
- No school on Friday

Literacy/Health/Art
Students continued to learn the different elements of the 7 Sacred Teachings. We talked about "Truth, Love, Humility, Honesty, Wisdom, Courage, and Respect."






Math
In Math, students worked on shapes problem. Students used personal strategies to come up with different solutions. Also, we are beginning to come up various ways to represent the number.




For more information and parent resource on your child's learning in mathematics, please visit
http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/mychildslearning/grade3_math.html
or
http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/mychildslearning/grade4.html#3

Social Studies
Students worked collaboratively on a Critical Thinking Challenge on Citizenship. Students placed their own thoughts and ideas about what they know about citizens. Then through an activity and discussions, they came up with the meaning of citizen and citizenship together. We extended our this concept to global citizenship and introduced Terry Fox and Craig Keilburger. Please ask your child what they learned about citizen and global citizen. 

 

Friday

Today, we read the book "We are all Wonders" by R.J. Palacio. We had thoughtful discussions as to why it is important to accept others and how to create a sense of belonging. Students the proceeded to create beautiful Visual journal pages or cover pages in the style of the illustrator and author R.J. Palacio.

We also started learning about the seven sacred teachings. They are values based in Indigenous culture and traditions. It is importan to understand the Indigenous perspective when studying the history, celebrations, and challenges of Alberta.The animals represent each teaching. Today we learned about the Buffalo who reprsents the teaching of respect. Students journaled about a time they showed respect and drew buffalo in the style of Jason Carter. An artist from the Little Red River Cree Nation.





Meet the Artist!

First Week of School

Students from both classes brainstormed good questions to ask Ms. Yong and Ms. Ma

We are so excited to meet our students this week! Students are learning how to build respectful and safe classroom community by posing questions and working collaboratively with their peers. Students should have their Communication Folder in their backpacks with questionnaires and Welcome letter. Students are responsible for their Communication Folder and when we have notices, or assigned work, students are expected to place them in their Communication Folder and return it the next day.

Literacy
- Both classes have read the story "Mr. Blueberry" by Simon James. In their writing, they wrote a letter to themselves that will be read on the last day of school.
- Room 20 also read "What Were You Thinking", "First Day Jitters", "Rulers of the Playground", and "Making Friends is an Art."
- Room 21 brainstormed and worked together to build classroom expectations.




Mathematics
- In math, students have started working on patterns and statistics in Room 20.
- Room 21 learned math games such as "Addition War" and "Salute" to practice basic addition facts. These games can be easily played with a deck of cards at home. Ask your child to teach you these games.




Upcoming Events:
- Welcome Back picnic is on September 13th and it starts at 5:00pm
- Fun lunch is going to start on September 20th. If you are interested, please visit school website.
- Terry Fox Run is tentatively scheduled September 28th.