What is Science?

 We attempted to answer the question, "What is science?" during a discussion today.  Interesting ideas were put forward.  We did figure out that science is all about being curious about the world around us.

Our work today was around it being Orange Shirt Day in Canada.  Our background knowledge was around Phyllis Webstad going to residential school in BC and having her brand new orange shirt taken away and her hair cut off.  She felt like her feelings didn't matter.  We read, "When I was Eight" by Christy Jordan-Fenton that tells the story of a young girl who went to residential school in hopes of learning to read but being made fun of and cleaning all the time instead.  We all then made a big orange heart and wrote in it a message of understanding to the children of residential schools.  We offered ideas of how to fix their hurt.

We worked through the steps of problem solving in math this morning.  Little learners are encouraged to circle numbers, under line the question, box important words and evaluate the information to solve.  Everyone had a problem on a sticker in their math book to solve before they worked with hundreds charts.

Tomorrow is Terry Fox Day at Beddington.  We will be running in Terry's memory during our phys. ed. time.  Donations being accepted.  We are working towards a goal of $400.00.

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 This week we will run our version of the Terry Fox run at Beddington Heights.  We spent today coming to a greater understanding of who Terry Fox was and what he accomplished.  We started by brainstorming everything we already knew about Terry and then talking about what we wanted to know.  After looking at videos about Terry we wrote new to us facts about him independently.  We then got a head start on tomorrow's work by making our own Terry Fox.

We did more work around ways to show a number today.  Specifically on expanded notation and drawing base 10 blocks to show our understanding.  Grade 4's are working the 1000's while grade 3 are working in the 100's.  Everyone was rolling dice and working with their own numbers.

Toonie for Terry - collecting donations - our school goal is $400.00

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Meet The Teacher

 Reminder: There is no Meet the Teacher at school tonight. Instead, please click on the link below and head to our Grade 3/4 website where you can find the Meet the Teacher Video and Powerpoint on the front page.

https://sites.google.com/educbe.ca/grade-3and4-at-bhs-2020/home

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me - ljanderson@cbe.ab.ca

NO SCHOOL TOMORROW

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Terry Fox

 

This year marks the 40^th Anniversary of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope and we are excited to share that Beddington Heights will be proudly supporting this cause.  While this year’s event might look a little different, the result remains the same; to raise funds for cancer research. Let’s all use Terry’s message of hope and strength to inspire us during these challenging times. 

 

Each class will take part in the Terry Fox Run on Thursday, October 1st, 2020 during our scheduled Phys. Ed class.  

 

It is our priority to maintain the safety of students and staff while supporting this wonderful cause. To help support safety measures in all schools, the Terry Fox Foundation has created an online fundraising page for our school as well as provide classroom/individual “Terry” activities. Here are some of the ways you can support your child for this year’s Terry Fox event: 

 

1)Donate online at:  http://www.terryfox.ca/BeddingtonHeights 

• Click the link above to donate or search for our school name at terryfox.org 
• There is no minimum donation, every dollar counts! 
• Receipts are issued immediately to donors by email 

 

2)Set up a student fundraising page https://terryfox.org/schoolrun/students/

• Students are encouraged to set up a page under their school name 
• Students can fundraise by sharing their link with family and friends  
• All student logins and links are private and secure 

 

3)Cash donations:  While we prefer online donations classroom teachers will accept cash donations.   

  

4)Support your child’s “What’s Your 40?” Terry activity 

• Individual classrooms may be engaging in a Terry activities 40 times, 40 minutes or 40 ways… 
• Students at home can also join in by doing their own “What’s Your 40?” Terry activity 
• Try one of the suggested activities online (https://terryfox.org/schoolrun/whats-your-40/) or come up with your own 
• Share your activity on social media and tag others to join  

 

If our school raises $400 or more, Mr. Shackelton will have his class dress him up and do his hair and makeup for the school to see!

 

We are very excited to be a part of this year’s Terry Fox event.  This is our opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those suffering from cancer as well as build school spirit. We hope you will join us as our school community works together in the fight against cancer. Thank you in advance for your support! 

Stay safe, stay strong, 

No school Friday

Digital Citizenship Form

 Digital Citizenship forms should now be returned to school.  This form allows your child to use technology at school.  If you have not seen the purple form please check a backpack near you!

Our first fire drill was a success this morning - 

Place Value was reviewed before creating personal posters in our math journals.  I am looking for an understanding of how to show a number in various ways.  

Last week everyone had 'packed' a suitcase that they would be taking with them on a trip across Canada.  This morning we began writing about what we had put in that suitcase and what we would use the items for.  I am looking for the use of capital letters and periods as students get their ideas on the paper.

We looked closely at a photo this afternoon and recorded all the things we observed.  I prompted students with the sentence "Tell me what you see."  Then I asked them what they were wondering about the photo and asked them, "What do you not know but you are wanting to know?" and they asked questions.  Finally we wondered about the photo using the sentence starters, 'I think..." and "Maybe..."  This is to get your little learner to use clues and their own experiences to infer.  We will do this activity multiple times to have a deep understanding and also it allows us to look at pictures of our fabulous province.  Today we looked at the main street of Canmore.

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Place Value

 We started with an anchor chart today on place value in math.  We focused in on the difference between PLACE and VALUE (place is the location of a digit in a number and value is how much the digit is worth)

using blocks and pictures to help little learners.  We also looked at four different ways to represent a number, using blocks, word form, expanded form and standard form.  We will spend the rest of this week mastering place value.

We played a game of Guess the Missing Word today - I wrote the sentence and left out a word and little learners had to read around the word to determine what could be missing.  We had a great time with this reading skill.

5 Finger Rule is how we determine if a book is 'just right' for us.  When starting a new book readers should be holding up their fist and then putting up a finger every time they come to a word they don't know.  If all five fingers go up the book is too hard.  If only one or two fingers go up the book is too easy.  We are looking for the 'just right' book that will challenge us to become better readers.

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No school Friday

 

Cheerios

 We did some more work around estimation today using a good old box of Cheerios.  First we estimated how many bits of cereal there is in one box of Cheerios.  Our estimates ranged from 22 bits of cereal in the box to 200,000 bits of cereal in the box.  Everyone got 1/2 cup of Cheerios to count and I was watching for how your little learner organized themselves for counting. Lots of us got 'lost' while counting one by one while others made groups of 10 or 5 or 2 and then counted their groups.  I was interested in the efficient counters who determined there were about 200 bits of cereal in a half cup.  We talked about adding 200 21 times (because that's how many of us were here today) and then we decided to multiply

200 x 21 to find out that there is about 4,200 bits of cereal in a Cheerios box.  Ask your little learner how they went about counting their pieces today.  Is there something in the kitchen you could estimate the total of during supper tonight?

Everyone has a purple Digital Citizenship form in their backpack that needs signing tonight and returning to school tomorrow.  Without that form your child will not be able to use technology at school.

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Day 2 of Carson Crosses Canada

 Just a reminder that the playground is off limits before and after school.  Everyone must wear a mask when on school property (including outside) and remain within their cohort.  We are asking students to go directly home after school and check in there.

We reviewed the story Carson Crosses Canada and discussed all the places that Carson and Annie stopped along their way.  Some of us have been to the east coast, the mountains and the hoodos just like Annie and Carson.  A writing piece was then started in journals about places we have visited in Canada.  I am looking for complete sentences in this writing sample, complete with capitals and periods.

We practised a bit of estimating together as a class and then everyone was able to conduct their own estimation activity with dice and a pencil.  It is important that little learners make reasonable estimates and are not wildly guessing.  

We finished packing our suitcases for our trip across Canada and are ready for an adventure!

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Carson Crosses Canada

 To kick things off we are having a close look at the picture book, Carson Crosses Canada by Linda Bailey.  Not only is it a story written about Canada but the author is Canadian too!!  We talked about facts we know about Canada and wrote sentences with starters such as, Did you know, Would you believe, One fascinating thing.  The story will give us an introduction to where Alberta is in Canada and who our closest neighbours are, leading us into our social studies unit of Alberta.

Estimation was the math word of the day.  We discussed the meaning of the word, making a thoughtful guess, and then estimated how many sea shells were in my basket.  Estimation is a powerful tool and we will be estimating all week to ensure we all have an understanding.

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Welcome Back

 Welcome back to school!!

I am so excited that we are all back together again and I look forward to our year together.

In the classroom we have been working on routines and getting to know one another.  So far, we are proud to say, we have built stamina for reading to ourselves up to 15 minutes at a time each day.  Our goal is 30 minutes - we hope to be there by the end of September.  We have reviewed 3 Ways to Read a Book, Where to read, Why we read, When to read, What to read, Who reads and most importantly that one can not expect to become a better reader without PRACTISING. In grade 3 and 4 students can still be reading to someone for 10 minutes a day and reading to themselves for 20 minutes every day at home.  So so very important to practise.

Please ensure your child has indoor shoes and several masks every day.  It is nice to change the mask every so often, and then of course, wash them at the end of the day,  We will be going outside multiple times a day and students should be dressed for the weather, and since this is Canada weather surprises.

I hope to get to meet you all at some point but until then please feel free to call me at school 403-777-6610 or drop me an email, ljanderson@cbe.ab.ca if you have any questions or concerns.