Ms Burton Snow's Blog

Today we changed our desks around.  It should be interesting to see how this new seating arrangement works out, as the students were a little unsure this afternoon!  It was time for a change anyway! We also began some Christmas activities in our French class!  December will be filled with a lot of activities like this so I am sure we are in for a lot of fun this month! - Ms. Doyle :)

Today we did a very serious lesson on abuse for our health class.  The students all had lots to say about it, and we had a great discussion that brought about some great ideas.  We will spend some more time talking about abuse throughout the rest of the week. - Ms. Doyle :)

Today the students worked in groups to write questions based on second hand data.  The students used bar graphs from the old Grade 4 Math text as well as two graphs from the Stats Canada website to formulate their questions.

This week I began a red, green and yellow light system.  A student remains on green if they are completing their work, listening, prepared for school and acting respectfully.  Students move up the light based on the way they are behaving in class.  It seemed to work really well this week and it has been interesting to see the movement! This afternoon we finished our watercolour paintings along with having some free time to  play our new board games!  It was a great way to end the week!

Today we continued our art activity called Planned Designs.  The kids had to plan a picture or design that involved only squares or rectangles.  They then had to glue rectangle or square shapes onto a piece of paper to complete their design.  Needless to say we came up with some pretty interesting pictures!   Next we are going to  make some accidental designs.  I am sure that they will be very exciting to make as well! - Ms. Doyle :)

We spent some time cutting out pictures from travel brochures for Saint Pierre today.  The students learned words like un tambour, un magasin and un musee (I can't get my accent to work in this program for my musee... grrr technology)  Ask your child to tell you what these words mean in English. Oops!  I forgot to write on the board that we have music tomorrow! Sorry!

Today we continued to work with bar graphs and this unit seems to be going great so far.  It is a unit that is very interesting, interactive and fun for the students so I do not foresee many issues with this.  Today we went around the class and did a tally on six different questions!  It was a great time, and we really got to see how different people feel about different things!  (They now know for sure that I know nothing about sports...ha ha!) - Ms. Doyle :)

We spent the morning learning about how we measure the weather.  We predicted the temperature, wind chill and the type of clouds.  After we predicted we found the exact answers. I haven't forgotten about the pictures of the clay sculptures, I'll post them tomorrow.

Today the students represented something from the video Pittance of Time (see Links page for video).  The students created some really neat models.  I will take some photos tomorrow and upload them to this blog so that people at home can see the masterpieces.

Today we continued with some french culture activities.  We learned about all the activities that you can do if you visit St. Pierre, along with looking at and coloring our own St. Pierre flag!   I sent it home for homework so they may be coloring that tonight.   Here it is in case they need to take a look at it! We also had lots of fun on our little outing this morning! - Ms. Doyle :)

Today we started a series of writing skills worksheets to help the students polish up their grammar and writing skills.  Sometimes we overlook how important it is to capitalize letters in our writing, so hopefully these worksheets will help us out. The sheets are only short, and we will only be spending about 15 or 20 minutes a day at them, but I think they will be a great help in the long run!  (I hope!) - Ms. Doyle :)

November 4, 2011 Today in art we started a watercolor painting. We learned new techniques to use with water paints. We are looking forward to finishing our paintings next art class. Have a good weekend everyone!

November 3, 2011 Today we listened to a French song and in groups had to put strips of paper with the lyrics in order. It was a little challenging but we worked really well together and accomplished the task! We all enjoyed listening to the song when we had it all completed!

Today we did a lot of catching up with work that needed to be done.  We have been doing a lot of small projects in different classes so today the class was given a couple different opportunities to get their work done. Slowly but surely it will all get done I'm sure.  We need days like this from time to time because we all know that not everyone works at the same pace! - Ms. Doyle :) P.S.  There was a permission slip sent home today regarding a field trip that is coming up next week.   And I want to remind you to return your Lap-A-Thon forms as soon as possible! P.P.S.  Here is a picture from our Halloween party!  We had an AWESOME time :)

November 1, 2011 Today we were able to get back to our novel study after taking a few days to work on Halloween related activities. The students discussed what it meant to feel safe and tried to put themselves in the shoes of Ellen and Annemarie in the novel and think about how it would feel to be afraid for their safety. They then wrote a journal entry about what their feelings would be. This was a nice activity that helped the students develop empathy toward others and really understand how others could be feeling. It also pointed out that we should not take our own freedom and safety for granted. The students are continuing to enjoy the novel and are looking forward to reading more tomorrow!