Happy Halloween!

THANK YOU to all of the parents that sent in food for our party!! Thank you to Mrs. Delbridge for the delicious cookies and thank you to her daughter, Brooke, for the jack-o-lantern oranges all week! So many treats!

The students also enjoyed either the games room, craft room or movie room for the afternoon on the 31st. It was a fun, exciting afternoon!

The students also participated in a Halloween STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) challenge to create a Creature Catcher. Working against a criteria and constraints list in partners, the students designed a device to catch as many "creatures" as they could over a 8.5x11 piece of paper. The students were given 4 meters of yarn and 4 pipe cleaners. They were given 30 minutes to plan and design their catcher. The catchers were tested to determine their effectiveness and then the students had to reflect on their design. This was a very open ended activity and it required critical thinking and problem-solving. They loved it!!

In L.A., we spent some time working on Haunted House Real Estate Ads to go with our Haunted House artwork. We brainstormed nouns and adjectives to describe the house and the things inside and we worked through the format of a real estate ad. This was definitely a favourite writing activity for most of the students in the class and the finished product was so well done! They have been published, printed and will be put in their memory binders for the end of the year.

Our Haunted House art project turned out AMAZING! The students took their time, mixing colour slowly into their white paint, to create an effective glow from the moon in the sky. They then chose, cut and assembled their haunted house with broken, boarded-up and crooked windows and doors. 

In P.E. we reviewed throwing and catching skills to assess student progress. Overhand throw, overhand throw to a moving target and catching skills were assessed. This October mark will soon be on PowerSchool.

Congratulations to our XtraMath Stars, who completed the addition level! Please remind your child to practice XtraMath at home, to master these facts. 

In Math, we are working through writing numbers, place value and representing numbers with base ten materials. 

In Science, we spent some time comparing products and the packaging used. We also discussed how different types of packaging affects the consumer and the environment. This lead to research on unnecessary packaging...why would some products have extra packaging, is it necessary and could they use less?

Congratulations to our Laser City prize winner for the month of October! Students are encouraged to read and record nightly and additional sheets can be filled out each month.

Another Short Week...

In L.A. we started a writing project to sell a Haunted House! We read the story "I'm Not Afraid of This Haunted House" and brainstormed a list of nouns that would be found in and around a haunted house. We also created a list of excellent adjectives to describe the nouns. Next week, we are going to begin writing about our haunted houses. The kids are really excited for this project and I can't wait to read their spooky real estate ads.

In Science we decided to sort our garbage to see how much waste we create at school in a week. The students were very mindful of having garbage free lunches and as a result, we had very little garbage at the end of the week. We decided we could sort into 4 different bags: Paper Waste, Foil Waste, Plastic Waste and Organic Waste (which is beneficial to our environment).

Our garbage at the end of the week...

We also looked at the Garbage Cycle to see where our garbage goes. The students then chose a garbage item to breakdown and they completed the cycle for their garbage. 

Our grade 4's are also in charge of all the recycling in the school. They work hard on Fridays to collect the paper recycle and juice boxes/bottles. The money from the juice boxes goes towards lowering the cost of our year end trip to Camp Warwa. 

In Math, we started our new unit Number Sense - Place Value. We began the unit with some review of place value (ones, tens, hundreds and thousands).

The kids worked hard creating their Christmas cards for the school fundraiser. Their handwriting is beautiful and the patterns and placement of their trees all worked out so well. There is such a variety.

P.E. this week was the Mission Impossible obstacle course. The kids had to navigate their way through quietly, with a partner watching their foot/body placement. Mission Impossible is a definite favourite!

Reminders...