Ms Burton Snow's Blog

One of my students left for Brunei right before school closed for the Christmas holidays.  Mrs. F took the time to come to our class to give an excellent presentation on Brunei, Asia.  We look forward to writing to our dear friend, it will give us plenty of opportunity to hone our letter writing skills. You can see Mrs. F in the photo below. Learning about the continents is one of the outcomes of our new Social Studies program.  Has any parent been to Europe?  I would love to have a speaker come to the class so that the students could learn a little more about Europe.

I'm just getting a few minutes to post photos of the dioramas that we made prior to the Christmas break.  I think they look great!

From the smallest Snow... Merry Christmas!

I delivered all the food, money and gift cards that you gave me for Christmas on December 24th.  Thank you everyone!

Today was such a busy day.  We are trying to tie up a number of loose endings before our Christmas break.  We spent part of our day working on Christmas diaoramas.  We are constructing nativity scenes which hopefully will be displayed in your homes year after year. The better late than never title??? I forgot to write Music tomorrow on the homework... it is now 9:00 p.m. so perhaps a few parents might read this post before they retire for the evening.

Decorate gingerbread cookies, have physical education, technology and art class.  After a gruelling day yesterday I decided that my little elves needed a much deserved reward today. We spent part of our day in the computer lab learning about Asia.  One of my students is moving to Brunei next week and his mother is coming to our class to give a presentation on Monday so a bit of background knowledge was essential.  You can see what we worked on by looking at the Links and reading the tasks that we completed today.  This afternoon we worked on the gingerbread cookies that Ms. R so generously donated to our class.  We had a blast!   Since I knew the cookies would never make it home, I made sure to take a photo of each creation.  Have your child show you their special treat. My, your green eyes are quite large! This guy is certainly red in the face! Lovely polka dot trousers! The green pants and white vest are quite creative! The artist who created this confection wo

Today we spent a large portion of our day finishing up our Math unit on Patterns and beginning our unit on Data Management.  The students have now interpreted two bar graphs and two pictographs for me.  We have also surveyed two other classes about their favourite sports so tomorrow we will begin our pictograph and bar graph construction using that data.  So far so good!

Today I would like to congratulate the students in my class who participated in our school musical.  I know we really enjoyed seeing you perform for the school today. Keep up the good work, guys! Madame

Today was another busy day in Grade 4!  We spent part of our day in a Kindergarten class.  Each student in my class was paired with a Kindergarten student.  My students were responsible for writing a letter to Santa on behalf of their little buddy.  This writing activity helped to reinforce the concept of letter writing and how to follow the format for letter writing.  The letters turned out quite well.  The Kindergarten students added their own touches by signing their names and drawing a picture.

It seems like everyone is quite busy.  Many thanks to all the parents who somehow found the time to come and see me today.  I know it is a hectic time of year and everyone has their plates full.  Good News... after this week there will not be any Spelling or Math facts until the New Year.  More Good News.... I am not giving a test on our Math Patterns chapter.  We are now finished the chapter, but, I already have plenty of work samples from the children.  You can expect to see the Math Patterns work come home before the Christmas break.

Today we learned our French prepositions.  Tonight you can ask your child to sing the song to you... hopefully they will remember it all.

Today the students went to see Scrooge at the Arts and Culture Centre.  A good time was had by all!

Today marks the beginning of Hanukkah.  One of the three religions that we study in Grade 4 is Judaism.  We learned about the menorah, helper candle, latkes and the dreidel game.  The students have just started to make their Hanukkah booklets.  In order to test how well your child was listening you may want to ask them to tell you about Hanukkah tonight. On another note, our work on Math Patterns continues.  Today we used triangle pattern blocks to model a growing pattern.  We are now on Lesson 5, Equations.  There are only 7 lessons in this chapter so the students will likely have a test the week after next.  The final chapter before Christmas is Data Management.  I always find that the students enjoy this chapter the most.  There will be no final test for Data Managment.

Today was the official start of Literature Circles in our class.  The circles worked very well, especially since it was the first time many of the students had participated in this type of activity.  I am happy to report that everyone was prepared for their roles. One quick note... could you please sign the tracking sheet in the front of the dua-tang as that will let me see who has completed the necessary reading with a quick glance. Additionally, the Illustrator role requires that the students color their work too. Hope this is going well at home.  The Connector sheets are the most difficult so they might take a little longer.