Week Sixteen

We got a pet fish! We still have to come up with a brilliant name for him, but he is here and we already love him! Write a comment if you have a suggestion for his name!

In social studies we learned about natural resources. While we were doing social studies we had computers and text books that we used to research different facts about Alberta's natural resources like water, oil (oil sands), coal, wood, iron, minerals, fossils and many more. We connected this back to when we learned about the First Nations and how they used the buffalo, which is also a natural resource. While we were researching we learned the importance of taking notes and putting the information into our own words. We learned how to be super flexible and patient during this activity! The first day we got the laptops the cart wasn't turned on so all of the laptops were dead!

  

  

  

  

In gym we are learning about hockey and how to stick handle and shoot the puck. In stick handling practice we learned about how important controlling the puck is. We did laps around the gym with our sticks and pucks to see how well we could do without looking at the puck. We learned about the snap shot and a wrist shot, soon we will be as good as some of the NHL players on the Calgary Flames.

  

Mrs. Craig visited us this week to teach us about some apps on the ipads. We learned how to edit pictures, we learned about Skitch and we used Book Creator. Mr. Southworth even came in and showed us his sick guitar skills on garage band. He rocked it!

      

  

Open gym started this week. Grade 3's get to go to the gym in the mornings on Thursdays and grade 4's get to go to the gym in the mornings on Fridays. We are allowed to use any gym supplies we want to and it is so fun, we can even continue to practice our hockey skills!

In science we continued to learn about light and shadow. We did centers that had prisms, books about light and shadow that we could research with, there was the water in the cup station that showed us about refraction, and a station with mirrors that showed how reflection works. During our centers we recorded our research like the real scientists we are and had to draw what we saw and write down what we thought was happening. Then we watched a Magic School Bus episode called "How to make a Rainbow." We learned that: When you put a flashlight through a prism you can see all the colours of the rainbow.

  

    

  

  

We did "Sart" (science art) this week. We got glass jars and flashlights and got to trace out shadows and practice shading.

        

We get to do free choice today because it's Friday and because we did such amazing work this week! Our insane teachers emptied the ticket jar we were shocked and appalled! But we understand that it's a new year and we have some new students so we are going to start off 2017 with a fresh jar of opportunities to win sweet prizes!

With love,

Room 7/8

Alberta's Resources

Here are some links that tells all about Alberta's Natural Resources:

http://engagingstudents.blackgold.ca/index.php/division-ii/soc-d2/social-4/4-1-alberta-a-sense-of-the-land/alberta-s-natural-resources/ 

This one is very informative:

https://www.alberta.ca/environment-natural-resources.aspx

Week 15

This week we had Christmas Store and lots of us got some good Christmas shopping done.

We finished reading City of Ember this week and then we got to watch the movie! We got to eat lots of popcorn because our teachers thought we were so responsible this week and thought we earned a special little treat! We did a compare and contrast of the book and the movie. There were lots of things that were different in the movie compared to the book.

  

We are still doing volleyball in gym with Mr. Collins. On Thursday though, Mr. Collins came into our classroom and we did some Star Wars yoga, it was so fun!

Our friends in Division 1 (Kindergarten to grade 2) had their Convention of Learning this week. We got to go around to a few of the classrooms and see what they have been learning about so far this year. Some teachers from last year even came for a visit during convention, it was so nice to see them!

This week we had 3 caroling assemblies! We got to sing our hearts out and watch some really funny "JibJab" videos that Mr. Southworth made of the teachers.

In science we talked about "what is light?" and we went around the school looking for as many sources of light as we could find. We then made a T-chart and sorted what we found into "natural sources" and "man-made sources" like things that need to be plugged in or use batteries and then things that can make their own light like the sun and some animals and insects like fireflies. 

     

    

In writing this week we wrote some letters to Mayor Nenshi about implementing a city wide snow day because it has been so cold and we are tired of inside recess! We came up with lots of creative and good ideas about why a snow day should happen. Then we wrote about what we would do if we were given a snow day. We practiced our persuasive writing skills further when we wrote letters to our teachers and principal about why we want to do certain things at school.

Today is our last day of school before the winter break and it was Pajama Day! We get two weeks off and we will be back at school Tuesday January 3, 2017! We have homework packages that our teachers sent home with us. These are due back on the first day back at school.

Can't wait to see you all again! Have a wonderful break!

Love,

Room 7 & 8

Week Fourteen!

In science this week we made tinfoil models and then we made a shadow behind it. We got flashlights and a partner. One person had to hold the flashlight and the other person had to trace the shadow then we coloured the shadows in. It was pretty hard but they turned out great!

  

      

  

      

We explored shadows even more by testing materials with flashlights to find out if they were transparent, opaque, or translucent. We used paper, parchment paper and plastic as materials to test. We turned off all of the lights in the classroom and put the flashlight on our materials to see if the light went through to the wall or not. That's how we could figure out how much light went through and if the materials were transparent, opaque or translucent. Next we got a piece of paper and had to record the definitions of transparent, opaque and translucent as well as our observations during this experiment. 

  

  

  

It was Miss Tan and Miss Smaili's last week with us  :(   They were so generous and gave us new pencils, erasers and mini candy canes! We will miss you, thank you! We made them a beautiful thank you card that we all got to sign and write a nice message.

This week it was SO COLD we had to stay inside allllllll week for recess AND lunch! It was alright though because we got to watch The Lorax, half of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, AND Finding Dory over our lunch breaks. We also got to do lots of movement breaks to shake and dance out our sillies!

   

This Friday we had a candy cane sale - yum! And we earned our free choice Friday :) Lots of students made beautiful pictures for their teachers today that will be proudly hung on the wall for all to see! Wow! We even shared our love for our teachers in our free writing time by writing nice letters to them, it really warmed our teachers hearts!

In gym we started volley ball. We have played games to practice our volley ball skills. One of these games is called Balloon War! We had to get into partners and defeat another pair using balloons and volley ball skills such as bumping, setting, and serving. When you are bumping it is important to NEVER link your fingers together because you might break them!

In math we used ipads to explain how to solve addition problems using the strategies we have learned. The app we used was called "Explain Everything." Ms. Paull even joined us for this lesson and some of us got to explain our thinking to her and show her how to use the app. It was so cool to get to spend time with her in math.

  

     

We got two new students with us this week, we were very welcoming and are happy to have them join us!

We had clubs this week too. In Environmental Club we got cameras and took pictures around the classroom using flashlights to make the pictures much more realistic. Ms. Downing wanted us to make a picture of a leaf that was not hydrated at lots of different angles and zoomed in, you will make it look more interesting.

It was a great week! Until next time,

Love,

Room 7 & 8