Week Four!

We started to learn about "Zones of Regulation" we learned about the green zone, the blue zone and the yellow zone this week.

The green zone is the go zone. This is where we like to be and is the zone we are in when we are ready to learn.

The blue zone is a rest zone. We don't like to stay in this zone for a long time. It's when we feel sad or sick or bored or upset.

The yellow zone is when you get frustrated, or annoyed or acting very silly. When we are in this zone we are not ready to learn.

We talked a lot about strategies and building our tool box so that we know some options about what we can do when we aren't feeling our best.

We made learning goals for ourselves this week. We first wrote them in our writing books and then put them onto leaves so we can add them to our classroom tree.

   

We started to learn about the Regions of Alberta in Social Studies. We discovered that the 6 different regions of Alberta are the Rocky Mountain Region, Grassland Region, Boreal Forest Region, Foothills Region, Canadian Shield Region, and the Parkland Region. Ask me what I know about these regions.

We are dancing in gym! We are participating in Sound Kreations with a really cool dance instructor named Keston! This week we learned about hip hop! He taught us some super sweet moves like the "shamrock", the "outlaw", the "mosquito", the "rumble", the "whip and nae nae", the "Harlem shake", the "noodle" and "8 town stomp." Dance is so much fun, it's like going to a party every day!

We started our first novel of the year it is called "The City of Ember"

In math we played a cool game, "Order it!" we had to work together in teams and order numbers from greatest to least OR least to greatest. The first team to complete their number line, won! We also started a glossary in math of important math terms we will be using this year.

1. greatest - the biggest number, larger than another number

2. least - the smallest number, smaller than all the other numbers

3. comparing - looking for a difference between two numbers

4. manipulative - a material you can use to help you

5. equal - the same

6. adding - putting numbers together

7. subtraction - taking numbers away from other numbers

8. place value - each digit in a number has a place. It can go into a place value chart

9. rule - a way to do something in math

10. rank - how high a number compared to other numbers

11. strategy - something you use to solve a problem or find an answer

12. prove - use your strategies to SHOW how you solved the problem

13. solve - to figure out the problem and find an answer

14. problem - an equation that needs solving

15. equation - how you write a problem (3 + 7 = 10)

Until next week!

Love, 

Room 7 & 8 

Week Three in Room 7 & 8

We continued to create artistic abstracts for our book covers. We are allllllllllmost finished! We refreshed our memories about mixing colours, which ones are primary and how to make secondary colours. Ms. C has been gracious enough to help us put them all together as well! These covers have been a big job and they are looking amazing!

We continued with our science unit, Waste and our World. We learned about where to put our garbage and recycling and watched a really cool video about how Calgary sorts recycling. We found all of the recycling in our classroom and went around to all of the other classrooms in the school to collect recycling. We discovered that many recycling bins were not sorted properly. We have a big job this year, teaching our school how to be more responsible recyclers!

Watch the video here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhv-Dv9h3J4

In math this week we started with learning about place value. Place value is the value of each digit. Each digit in a number has its own value. There are ones, tens, hundreds and thousands. We learned how to show these numbers using base ten blocks and putting them into place value charts.

In gym we played "Tennis Soccer" and a really cool version of dodge ball that Mr. Collins made up and calls it "Super Hero Dodge Ball" it was soooooo fun. We played class against class and we are so good that our game ended in a complete tie!

To top it all off, there was a school popsicle fundraiser and we got to eat delicious, cold, sweet treats.

Until next week, Love,

Room 7 & 8

International Peace Day

Happy International Peace Day!

"The United Nations International Day of Peace, September 21, provides an opportunity for all humanity to come together, in spirit and in action, to forward the ideals of and conditions for peace. This global day is observed by hundreds of millions of citizens in cities, towns, and villages worldwide as well as citizens and governments, organize and engage in diverse peace-related activities on and around this global day." - http://internationaldayofpeace.org/ 

Peace education is very important to those of us at CJFS and today we celebrated by talking about what peace means to us, what it feels like, sounds like and looks like. We brainstormed and came together to share our ideas and reasonings as to why we wish to live and learn in a peaceful environment and how we are working to achieve peacefulness in our classroom and in our school. 

To us peace looks and sounds like many things, here are some of the wonderful ideas we came up with:

What does peace feel like?

-    People feel happy when it is peaceful.

-    Calm.

-    Relaxed.

      What does peace look like?

-    No one is fighting.

-    People are focused.

-    People are compromising.

-    People are understanding each other.

-   

What does peace sound like?

-    A whisper.

-    No screaming and yelling.

-    Normal.

-    Calm and quiet.

     Happy

     Kids playing on the playground

   

      After we talked with our peers and teachers we got to sit at our tables and write about what peace means to each of us personally. We all agreed that being peaceful mostly means showing respect and kindness to others and doing our best to make the world a better place, not just today but everyday. 

    Peace and love, 

    Room 7 & 8 

Week Two in 7/8

This week we continued to create art on our work book covers and learned about abstract art through the artist Kandinsky. We used oil pastels to create our own version of abstract art. They look incredible! 

 

We also created circle patterns inside circles with sharpies for our word work books. They are currently a work in progress and are starting to look really neat!

We went on a riveting nature walk around our school. We discovered that there was garbage on the ground, 'thousands' of female seagulls and a male seagulls, Mr. Collins teaching gym, leaves falling, some leaves are changing colours, pigeons , seagulls eating garbage off the ground, we saw the plants we planted and we saw bees there! It was also noted that there are millions of rocks.

After our walk we looked at pictures of cities that are really clean and cities that are not so clean. We learned that Calgary is actually one of the top 5 cleanest cities in the whole world. However when we looked at pictures of the landfill in Calgary we saw many recyclable items that were not sorted properly!

Earlier this week we started a math pre-test to see what we remember from last year! We were very excited to start math and learned that we have lots of manipulatives we can use to help us solve problems.

This week we wrote pattern poems about ourselves. It was an "I am" poem, it was all about me, I had to fill out the poem using four different sentence starters. The poem had parts that repeated and we had to use adjectives to our poems so they had lots of details and had to use full sentences. Turns out our class is quite poetic.

We started talking about RUBRICS this year. We use rubrics to make sure that we do our best work. When we are working we can use our rubrics to look at to make sure that we have done our jobs the best we can. I can use my rubric to check over my work before I hand it in. Using rubrics is good because then I know what my teacher expects and what I think makes good work. We made writing and math rubrics this week.

 

Until next week,

Love,

Room 7 & 8

Sports Hall of Fame Field Trip!

Yesterday, Tuesday September 13 2016, Room 7 & 8 along with the other grade 3/4 classes got to go to the Sports Hall of Fame for the unveiling of the Terry Fox Exhibit. It was a very special opportunity! We got to meet olympic gold medalist Catriona LeMay Doan and Terry Fox's younger brother Darryl who was there with Terry during his Marathon of Hope. This was such a special event that we even made the news! Colonel J Fred Scott's grade 3/4 classes were the first to see the new exhibit and interact with the artifacts. Check out the news clip here:

http://globalnews.ca/news/2937644/canadas-sports-hall-of-fame-unveils-terry-fox-exhibit-in-calgary/

Our First Week of School

We all got together for the first time on September 6th 2016 in room 7 & 8

Grade 3/4 has been very exciting so far! Our first projects were to get our workbooks organized and decorated. We created lots of different kinds of art that revolved around us. Each one of our books is a kind of self portrait.

To complete our Math work books we did a symmetry self portrait. For this I had a picture of half of my face and I had to draw the other half to look the exact same!

For our free writing books Miss Kolb and Miss Klem took pictures of us thinking. We glued the picture onto a piece of paper and we got to draw and write about things that we like. It looks like a brain explosion of awesome things!

For our social work books we got to use paint! We painted our book covers in an ombre pattern. Then a picture of our face was glued on top, they look amazing and these ones are Miss Kolb's favourites!

Every Friday we get to use our free writing books for Free Writing Friday! During this time I get to write about anything I want. I can write in any style I want too. This is a chance for me to get to use my creative brain!

Mr. Collins is our gym teacher this year. He is so funny! He is really good at teaching gym. We have played some really fun games that work on developing our skills in the gym. This week we played "chuck the chicken," "capture the treasure," "line tag" and "rock paper scissors four corners" it was so much fun!

Ms. Gunderson comes around to our classrooms for music this year. She has a magical traveling music cart. We have already started practicing our singing and have begun learning and practicing our school song.

Our classroom is so much fun! We have art supplies, an amazing reading corner, we have games for free choice, lots of pillows and a tree in the middle and a giant leaf in the reading corner! We have tons of places to sit and work and instead of desks this year we have tables. The tables are really great for collaborating with our classmates. We all have a classroom job and they are very important. These keep us organized and tidy.

Until next week!

Love,

Room 7 & 8

A little bit about the teachers:

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Our names are Miss. Kolb and Miss. Klem and we are thrilled to be your child’s grade 3/4 teachers this year!

At Colonel Scott School our mission is to empower our students to be self-directed learners.  Our students use their academic and social skills to become productive, resourceful and responsible citizens.  This year our school wide focus will be on the 21^st Century Learner competencies: engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit.  In addition we will be taking up the inquiry question, “How are we connected?”

In the coming weeks we will work to create an environment where your child takes an active role in building a strong community based on the Three Pillars of Respect:

                                                        Respect for ourselves

                                     Respect for each other

                                 Respect for this place.

We are looking forward to a very exciting year with the many opportunities that will be available to our school.  Our classroom is part of the Grade 3/4 team and we will be planning together with the other teachers teaching grade 3/4: Ms. Shustack, Ms. Macleod, Ms. Yap and Ms. Greaves to ensure that all students have rich and diverse learning opportunities.

After two months of summer holidays, your child is probably anxious to get back to school.  However, it will take a little while to get used to the long school day again.  You can help by ensuring that your child gets lots of sleep, eats a good breakfast and lunch and brings a nutritious snack so that they have the energy to make it through the day.

The following information answers some commonly asked questions and suggests ways which you as a parent can support our program.

Personal Belongings: 

To come to school: Please feel free to send a water bottle, filled with water, to school with your child so they can stay hydrated and focused! Indoor shoes are also required so that our school remains nice and clean. Please ensure indoor shoes are comfortable and can be worn in the gym for daily physical activity.

To stay at home: Toys, specialty (gels, metallic) pens and other personal belongings should not be brought to school. They are a distraction and their safety cannot be guaranteed.  All necessary supplies are provided (part of your student fees) so all other crayons, pens and pencils will remain at home.

Behavioural Expectations:  We believe that it is important to have a safe, caring, learning environment in which all children feel that they can learn. We will be working to achieve this throughout the year.

Snacks:  We encourage children to have healthy snacks for our nutrition break.  We also discourage the children from sharing snacks.

Agenda: Your child will bring home an agenda each day that will share any notices and important information about your child’s learning. Please take the time to check your child’s agenda each night and sign that you have read it. As well in the opening days of school please go over the beginning pages in the agenda with your child as these pages have valuable information about our school and our expectations for the year. Please sign that you and your child have discussed this information by September 9 so that your child can be entered to win a book!

Homework: Read each night with your child for 15-20 minutes. Any other homework that your child brings home will consist of work they did not complete during the class time given or will be in the agenda.

Volunteering: We love volunteers! Volunteer opportunities include reading with children, preparing activities for students, or helping with class projects, and joining us on field trips. If you would like to volunteer this year, please be sure to complete the Volunteer Registration Form and visit the office to receive a letter, which is needed when completing the Police Security Check online. The Calgary Board of Education requires these forms before volunteering can take place.

School Attendance and Times:

School starts at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 3:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday.  On Friday we start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 11:47 a.m. Please ensure your child is on time for school.  This helps children begin each day ready to learn.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us by phone at 777-6710 ext 3007 or ext 3008 before classes start in the morning, at lunch or after school and we can arrange a time to talk or meet in person. You can also contact us through e-mail at bekolb@cbe.ab.ca and deklem@cbe.ab.ca

There will also be weekly updates on our classroom blog, and our school blog. please check these regularly to ensure you are up to date with your child’s learning and are “in the know” about coming events at our school . 

We look forward to working with you and your child, and meeting with you at Parent Teacher Conferences on October 6^th and 7^th

Sincerely your child's awesome grade 3/4 teachers,

Miss. Kolb & Miss. Klem