New Blog!

For those still following my Grade 4 Blog (where you are right now), I would suggest that you also add my Grade 5 Blog. The address is grade5beachycove.blogspot.com, and it will provide more of the same as I embark on a new year at Beachy Cove Elementary. There will be plenty of useful links, updates, hints and musings in the fashion you came to expect on this blog.

Thanks for your support, see you in Grade 5!

The school year is running on fumes...

Well, here we are close to the end of the year! Just a few loose ends to tidy up and the kids will be ready to trot off into their respective summer vacations. It's been a real pleasure to work with this class throughout the school year, and I'm amazed by their growth and current maturity.

We have had a few fun days, while still getting things done over the last week. We have built a robot, worked on SmartBoard skills and techniques, finished up our hockey pool and done lots of written work to get the kids tuned up for grade five. We have a couple more events and activities coming up in the last few days, so here's a heads-up.

• Tomorrow we're watching a movie in the afternoon. We will be watching it on the SmartBoard with Mme Natalie's class, with snacks and drinks provided. I have invited students to wear their PJs, bring a cushion or pillow, and bring their stuffed animal along for the ride if they wish. 
• Several students are bringing in things to show the class tomorrow and Thursday. This is welcome, just let me know first.
• One student has already sent me a sound file that they created using iNudge (see my last post). Great work, Robbie! I welcome any feedback or creative output like this.
• I will be trying to get the class outside at some point in the next few days, to make up in small part for the lack of a Sports Day this year.
• Most students brought home at least some of their year's work today. I have asked students to bring in a fabric/reusable plastic bag to aid in the transmission of all this material. Trust me, they kept busy this year!

Thanks again for all your support this year; I can't wait to see the class back at Beachy Cove next year. I'll post again tomorrow, but feel free to email if you have any questions or comments.

Some fun sound experimentation programs

We had some fun today with the SmartBoard, particularly with two sound manipulatives. Here are links to both.

http://inudge.net/

http://seawitchery.tumblr.com/post/4070384205/i-started-out-clicking-strategically-and-by-the

Hope you have headphones for your child to use, and if not I apologize in advance.

Canucks Waleyan Ne

We watched this at the end of the day today, as a way of cheering on the Canucks. It was created by 3 Punjabi Canucks fans from Vancouver, and shows just how popular and cross-cultural hockey can be! The kids had an impromptu dance party, something that I imagine will repeat itself if the 'Nucks win tonight.

If they don't, I will have to eat my words but at least I'll get to see the cup when it comes to Bonavista with Michael Ryder!

Another sunny day

Hi parents and kids! I won't interrupt your sunny Tuesday for too long, so here are a few notes;

• I reference a site in today's Agenda notes. This site is also linked in my last post. Please have your child practice their division estimation and calculation techniques. If you notice any particular issues, please let me know.
• Tomorrow afternoon we are making "Fraction Pizzas", so I have asked students to pack a lighter lunch than usual. This will fill prevent them from crashing, but leave room for tasty, tasty pizza. They can also bring an apron or other cooking attire if they would like (yes Abby, you can bring your chef's hat)!

Here are a few sites to try out today!

http://ca.ixl.com/math/grade-5/estimate-products-word-problems

http://www.mathplayground.com/multiplication04.html

If you need a reminder of how to multiply 1 number by 3 numbers, this site will help.
http://www.aaamath.com/g5_310x3.htm

News in brief

Today was another whirlwind, as we get things wrapped up before the year-end shenanigans. We were slightly sidetracked for the morning, but it was okay because THEY FINALLY INSTALLED OUR SMARTBOARD!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After I ran the necessary cables to connect it, we were able to do some fun work for the afternoon that built on our Canadian Geography and Math work. The kids were very engaged, and excited about the new element to our classroom experience.

Tomorrow will be another busy day, featuring presentations of our "Provincial Tourism" projects. Students will be using our new SmartBoard to highlight important geological, geographical, political and social elements of the province they were assigned. I can't wait to see the results.

Geography tools/games

I have assigned some online work for homework tonight, as we get further into our Canadian/World geography unit. This site has many games and quizzes about world and Canadian geography, some of which will be too challenging, and other very easy. I would encourage you to explore the site a bit and play some games, since we will be talking about this more in class tomorrow.
I would suggest scrolling down the page, as well as clicking on tabs such as "Quebec" or "Monde" on the top of the page.

http://www.jeux-geographiques.com/

This site is more geared toward open-ended exploration, and will help build students' understanding of vocabulary related to landforms, places and regions as well as their mapping skills. Click on "Click here to use the map" to open the necessary window.
Please have your child play around with the map a bit, since they will need to be familiar with it for our upcoming activities.

http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/info.aspx?item=map&lang=En#

Hello public!

Hi gang, just a short post so I can get back out into the beautiful sunshine. First, some notes:

• The school calendar was supposed to go home last week when I was out for a few days, but apparently didn't get distributed as intended. I will rectify this tomorrow!
• Students performed very well on their Measurement test in math, so I will not bother sending them home. Full evaluations of students' Personal Projects will be available by the end of the week.
• We are participating in Math Day early next week; I will be sending home a notice to let you know exactly when (although it looks like it will be Monday morning)
• I will be posting frequently for the rest of the year, with a particular focus on websites and activities that will help students study material related to Canadian Geography and Multiplication/Division

In other news, our SmartBoard should be installed shortly. Yay! In an intentionally ironic move, I have been using the still-boxed SmartBoard as a bulletin board. Such amazing technology. 

We had a great chat today about moving on to grade 5, mostly focused on the added responsibility students will have next year. To that end, I stressed to students that they should keep their foot on the accelerator until the end of the year, and to try even harder to take responsibility for their own learning and achievement. They have all come so far, and I would love to see them close out the year with a bang. Speaking of which, I have several commitments that I still need to live up to. This includes a small hiking field trip, building a robot and having a pizza-making party. The latter will be tied to our recently-finished unit on fractions, and all should be done by the last week.

Have a great day, talk to you soon!

Satuday Update

So, here's a quick update to fill everybody in on the key things we will be hitting on over the last few weeks of the year:

• I will be giving students a chance to earn their "SmartBoard" licences. Because of Beachy Cove Elementary's admirable focus and drive toward enabling this technology across the school, I believe most of the grade 5 classes next year will have SmartBoards in the classrooms. (A big thanks here is also due to parents and community partners, who have been infinitely generous and encouraging in the whole process of acquiring this technology). To that end, I will be spending time with students to give them a good base in SmartBoard hardware and software use that will help them become more comfortable when the start to use it in-class next year. 
• We will be moving through 3-D geometry in the next few days (this is only a minor extension on work we have already done on geometry earlier in the year), and will then move into multi-digit multiplication and division. This will require some work at home, so I will send home some sheets to work on to support this learning.
• The "homework DuoTang" concept seems to be working out very well. I am happy with students' progress, but would like to stress that it is very important to check agendas and make sure that your child is able to take the time to read the assigned article and highlight any things they do not understand.
• Thanks for your help with the class's Musical Instruments projects
• We will be focusing on landforms, geology and political divisions within Canada in social studies. The class seems to enjoy this type of material, and I have lots of fun activities to go with the subject matter.

Have a great weekend, and feel free to contact me with any questions or comments!

As the year winds to a close...

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post, since I have been relying more heavily on email and personal contact as we move into the final hectic weeks of the year. This being my first time going through the year-end process, I'm amazed at the amount of work that has to be done to wrap things up. We have picked up the pace in a few areas of the curriculum, and brought some very interesting ongoing projects to a close. I am participating in an External Review today, so thought I would catch you up on a few things while I'm off for lunch.

We wrapped up our Personal Projects 2 weeks ago, with a grand day of presentations in our classroom. It was a chance for students to showcase all of there hard work, and to see what others had been up to. Although I had been quite involved in the classroom/conceptual side of the project, I hadn't yet seen what students were working on at home. I was, to put it simply, amazed by what I saw. The projects ranged from written texts to movies, with everything in between. There was a Japan-themed boardgame, a model CN Tower, a scale reproduction of the invasion of Utah Beach, and even Viking lemonade!

It was open to the whole school and parents, and the most frequent comment I got was that they were amazed that all students had started off with the same assignment. Each set goals, planned carefully, reflected and altered their ideas when necessary, and ended up with a very cohesive project that was a reflection of their interests, skills and expertise. Since the intent of the project was to maximize the use of students' abilities and differentiate my own assessment models, I think it was a great success. Students and parents embraced the idea, and I look forward to doing it again next year.

We had a great trip to the GEO Centre earlier this week, as an introduction to our final unit in science. We had a great time, and I think that the pace and focus of the lessons they taught had great effect on the kids. So many children in the elementary grades react very well to hands-on learning, and this was no exception. I wish I could do something like this for every unit, since it makes it so easy to reference concepts and topics when they have already seen and manipulated them first-hand.

Lunch is drawing to a close, but I will give a further update and an idea of things to come when I can post again later.

Good geography game

We're currently working on an activity related to continents and oceans, so I thought I would repost this game I linked to earlier in the year. Other than leaving out the Antarctic Ocean (a small detail), it is accurate and uses the terminology the students need to be familiar with. I would suggest using it to build familiarity with the continents and oceans over the next couple of weeks.

http://www.learningtogether.net/continents/

The weekend is upon us

After another week of fun and learning (although you'd have to ask the kids if that's accurate or not), we find ourselves at Friday once again. Some students are fairly ambivalent toward the onset of the weekend, others count down the minutes, and small group are actually disappointed that school is over for another week. I guess that means I'm doing my job, right? I am personally looking forward to getting in a good weekend of spring cleaning and socializing as we move into what promises to be a fairly hectic last month of school this year.

I was reflecting with some other teachers earlier in the week (as we are prone to do), and the discussion turned to what effect having such a small class (14 in my case) has on the students' attitudes and dynamic with one another. It made me think, and I have really been paying attention to this over the last few days. My first conclusion was that there are probably positive effects in terms of the physical space we occupy. By not being able to run away or isolate themselves or others, students are compelled to work things out more often, and accommodate others in class. There is also a tendency to break down pre-existing cliques, and expose students' strengths and weaknesses as friends and "co-workers".

I think that the end result can be a more cohesive, focused group than in some larger classes. The added bonus of my being able to pay more attention to specific situations and students probably helps here as well. It allows me to direct conversation and activities in a way that help students gain a deeper understanding of each other an themselves, and become more comfortable with their abilities to share, interact and learn together.

I attended an interesting seminar at the ACPI (Association Canadien des Professeurs d'Immersion) conference I attended last October. The speaker's main idea was that students in contemporary North American classrooms stand to benefit most in the long term if they learn to work collaboratively in a way that benefits themselves and others equally. The jobs of the future, as he put it, will be filled by people with a wide array of skills, good leadership abilities and the ability to solicit and assimilate information from other people and sources. I think that this end is served well by the small class size we have enjoyed this year, because students' physical, mental and emotional comfort zones are pushed frequently and they are forced to adapt if they would like to succeed.

Continuing on that last point, my favourite thing (so far) about this late stage of the year is the personal and collective growth of the students in my class. Through the rich experiences they have at home, in the community and at school, they are quickly turning into very conscious, aware individuals. The speed with which they are now able to make decisions and find things out for themselves is staggering to me, and makes me very optimistic about all of their prospects in upcoming years. I was apprehensive at the beginning of the year, as I'm sure many new employees are. My pervasive concern was "What if these kids get to the end of the year and aren't ready for Grade 5?". I realize now that they would have been ready with or without my aid, but that their degree of readiness has been increased by their hard work and the efforts of their home and community networks.

Have a great weekend, and don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Things will stay very busy up to the end of the year, so let's not slow down now!

Some Wednesday fun

A bit of a time-waster here, but this game is really fun and requires some serious thinking and experimenting. Hope you enjoy, and just a warning; don't start playing it too early in the day, or you might not get anything done...

http://www.vectorpark.com/levers/

More busy days at Beachy Cove Elementary

The morning was taken up by Spring Concert practice again today, which seems to be shaping up nicely. I have been trying to sit in on the last 20 minutes or so each time, just to see the progress and the excitement of the students involved. The parts from our Earth Day Assembly have been reassigned, and several exciting new elements have been added. The end result is a more detailed, coherent presentation that provides entertainment and information about water supply and conservation.

Because the students missed their gym class to practice, Ms. Tapper was kind enough to take all the grade 4 students outside after recess. This left enough time to go to the library, then lunch! After lunch, we did manage to get lots of good work done on fractions, health and social studies in particular.

To evaluate this unit on Summer Safety, I will be asking students to create a pamphlet on some element of staying safe in summer. This will require them to pay attention to formatting, content and composition of an informational text, something we have spent plenty of time on this year. Each student will have to discuss an activity, then outline possible dangers, preventative measures, examples they are familiar with and other important details. I will also be asking them to include pictures and diagrams as they see fit. More information will be sent home on this in the coming weeks.

As the playoffs move on, the disparity between the leaders and the rest of the pack (where I find myself) is growing larger. It is still causing some excitement, and stirring an interest in math which was the idea. I'm getting over the loss of my beloved Habs day by day, and am somewhat consoled by the fact that Ryan Kesler has started to accumulate some points for me.

Here are a couple links to sites that have ideas for activities and experiments related to the properties of sound. I mentioned last week that there will be an assignment requiring students to create a project that demonstrates the principles of sound in some way, so this might be a good starting point. Most are relatively inexpensive, straightforward and tidy (something I know is valued), and results are usually easy for students to see. Let me know if you try any at home!

http://homepage.eircom.net/~kogrange/sound_experiments2.html#tablethunder

Enjoy the rest of your day!

A second post

Hi gang, just a few more notes before I tune out (ie. tune in to hockey) for the night. The class is really humming this week, with a different dynamic since we are missing 3 students (in Florida). This makes it more challenging to keep things moving at our usual pace, but opens up some opportunities for more one-on-one work. On the other hand, it will be fun to see the presentations our "missing" students will have prepared after they return.

Students that have taken time away so far this year have returned with a wealth of stories, journal entries and other information that has proven valuable to other students' learning and enjoyment. I generally encourage students to take the time to engage in extra-curricular activities and travel, especially when they are able to take these opportunities to enhance their learning and elaborate on things we are doing in class.

Another note: the presentation of our Personal Projects will take place on May 25th. The exact details are yet to be finalized, but it will be open to parents and other family members as well as other students in the school.

Take care, talk to you tomorrow!

Here comes spring...

Not much to post today, as we move along with numerous preparations. Here are a few notes for now, with another post to follow later (when there isn't as much sun to enjoy!)

• I have been asking students to bring in/email things they are currently working on for their personal projects, since I will be giving them additional support and time to work on them this week. If you have any questions, please let me know.
• We are preparing for the Spring Concert, which will take place at 7:00pm on Thursday, May 19th. Tickets cost $5, and will not be available at the door. For that reason, please send along money soon if you would like tickets.
• A newsletter went home today, with lots of important information.
• Students are going to start working toward gaining their "Smartboard License", which will require them to complete tasks and demonstrate knowledge of Smartboard software, techniques and terminology. We will be starting this soon, since we have a new computer with the Smartboard programming installed. Hopefully, our Smartboard won't be far behind.
• Anticipate a math test in the next couple of weeks! We will also be carrying out a pizza-making activity that will wrap up our fractions unit.
• Social Studies has now moved into the Physical Geography unit (much to the joy of the class). This will involve more hands-on work and possibly some additional tasks to be completed at home.

More later, but enjoy the sunny day!

What a literate bunch!

Today was dominated by the PIRLS test, as mentioned in previous posts. It is a test that is administered every 5 years, to assess literacy levels, skills and preferences in English-speaking nations around the world. The test took about 2 1/2 hours from end to end, including a questionnaire similar to the one that was sent home to be completed by parents.

This was a more formal test than I would usually administer, so was good practice for students. Everybody complete it to a satisfactory level, and seemed to have a good comprehension of what they were reading and expressing. Since there is a lesser focus on levelled readers know, it was interesting to see students reactions when confronted with texts that are (theoretically) right on reading level. I kept some of the resource materials to extrapolate on these tests during class.

This afternoon, we completed most of the remainder of our ArtsSmarts projects. These will be presented at a school-wide Art Day celebration, something that the class seems excited to participate in. Today we attached pictures and decorated the covers to reflect the content in their project. As usual, it was neat to compare and contrast the finished projects as reflections of their varied understandings of the project. Fun stuff!

As a lead-in to our next unit in health (outdoor/summer safety), we went outside to brainstorm and explore some situations that can present risks during the summer. In groups, the class spotted possible activities that they could be involved in (boating, swimming, climbing trees, playing sports, etc.) and wrote a list of precautions they might take to make sure they can complete the activity in safety. This was a great way to assess their prior understanding.

I have decided that part of the assessment for out science unit on sound will be to create a simple demonstration of a noise-maker or contraption that uses sound somehow. This will be complimented by a very straightforward quiz, which should take place by the end of May. I will give plenty of examples, but some students are already thinking of instruments, noisemakers or demonstrations that they might be interested in creating. They will be accompanied by a short write-up/illustrations/presentation as usual.

I made a couple of omissions and errors on the revised player lists for our hockey pool, which will be rectified by tomorrow. As we stand now, everybody is within 25 points of one another and things seem to be getting closer by the day.

Have a great evening, and let me know if you have any questions.

The golden rule and other light reading

We kept moving right along today, in an effort to get a good jump on the material we will be covering over the next couple of months. The main activity today was in social studies, where students worked in groups to compare and contrast the positive and negative consequences of exploration. Building on an activity from yesterday, students broke into different groups and made some tables that organized the information from 3 different case studies.

The groups each had to conclude by making a statement about which case study had the greatest net positive consequences, and which had the most negative. It was interesting for the students and I to see how different people took the same information and interpreted it. I think that this is an important lesson, as it was a great demonstration of bias, decision making and the difficulties of comparing information. It was also a good illustration of how searching for MORE AND MORE information (ie. online, etc.) isn't always necessary; what is most important is to process the information we have and use that to form well-rounded opinions.

The class presented their findings in front of the class, then carried out a group self-evaluation. This is a key part of the grade 4 curriculum, but is something I haven't focused on too much. I had students evaluate themselves and their group mates on several criteria, then submit it confidentially with their individual write-ups. I know that not all students like group work (understandably), but I feel like this gives them the time to reflect on their own contributions and share any frustrations they have about how the exercise went in general. It also allows me to tailor my instruction to address any persistent issues.

This afternoon, we had a religion lesson about The Golden Rule (do unto others...). It sparked some great discussion and questioning, which made me very happy. Discussion on the basic principles of morality that span religions, philosophy and other belief systems will be the foundation of our religion curriculum over the rest of the year. It was also particularly relevant today, as I fielded several questions about the recent assassination of Osama bin Laden. Students were generally either very resolute or confused in their opinions, so it was useful to talk about it in terms of our basic moral code. If your child has questions our concerns about any of the things we discussed today, I would encourage you to ask them questions and get them thinking about it.

Take care, enjoy the sunny day, and I will talk to you soon. Tomorrow we will be writing the PIRLS test and finishing up our ArtsSmarts, so hope to see all students in class for those things and a few surprises.

Back to school

We got right back at it today, with a flurry of activities designed to get the class immediately back into our daily routines and re-establish the patterns, roles and practices that they had been helping us progress greatly in the weeks before Easter. We carried out a small research project, some individual and group writing exercises, and an Easter Egg-fuelled "Math Blitz" to review and expand upon our work thus far on fractions.

For a first day back, not too bad! I was impressed with students' willingness and ability to pick back up on what we had been doing before the vacation, so thanks for helping your children stay in practice over the 10 days we were off. I did not collect students' Journal reflections today, but will take them in tomorrow to discuss with each child individually.

Corrected health tests were sent home today, and should be signed and sent back ASAP. I was happy with the results, but I did mention to the class that I see a very high correlation between "Time spent paying attention" and overall marks. There is also a very clear divide between occasions when students take their time and give good detail in their written and oral responses, and occasions when they rush. The resulting marks are never a coincidence!

A few other points on upcoming events:

• I sent home a survey to be completed in advance of the PIRLS literacy test that the class will be writing on Wednesday. This is to be completed by each student's primary caregiver(s), and sent back in tomorrow (May 3rd). It is a confidential survey that will be sealed anonymously, only identified by a barcode that corresponds to each student's test.
• It seems as though many students have finished their Personal Project, and others are quickly nearing completion. I was glad to hear that students were able to find time to get some things done over their holiday. They were very eager to share their developments. If there is work left to do or things that you are unsure of, let me know and by all means send things in for review.
• We are starting a new unit on Summer Safety in health, and moving on to Sound in science and Geography in social studies. I will (I promise) post a few helpful links and resources relating to these topics in the upcoming days.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments, and lets have a great final couple of months!