Grade 4

Last week Grade 4 had the privilege of visiting the Dr. Willian Hrudley Observatory. We had such a great time. Everyone was excited to see actual pictures taken by ACTUAL telescopes, including the telescope that Dr. Hrudley built himself. Amazing!

Thank you to all of the parents who accompanied us. We are all very excited to visit again, once the telescope is fully functioning.

Here we see hundreds and thousands of galaxies! How can anyone NOT believe in God?!

For our Bible focus, we learnt that God accepts us just as we are. No matter where we come from, no matter what we look like, all we have to do is repent and believe that Jesus is Lord and we will be saved.

So, for our lesson, the kids each took turns making themselves look as frumpy and messy as possible to go to a dinner held by the Premiere. To go to such a dinner, we would be expected to dress up as nicely as possible in order to partake. But quite the opposite, we can go to Jesus just as we are and be accepted. Thank you Jesus for such a wonderful gift!

For our Book Report on Number the Stars, everyone had to create a Cereal Box Book Report and also do a timed commercial ’selling’ their cereal/book report. Everyone did an amazing job! I was able to record these excellent commercials, but I couldn’t upload them to this blog, sorry! I was very impressed by the quality of work and how enthusiastic everyone was to complete their project. Job well done guys! You made me proud!

Each student made their own brochures to help them to remember the different angles and triangles. We came up with little phrases to help us remember a few of the more difficult names. For example, we said the obtuse triangle was like a really big hug because the arms are wide open, and the acute triangle was like a small, cute little baby. The kids really enjoyed this! Be sure to ask your kids to see if they still remember these names! While driving, just randomly ask them to name the different angles and triangles that we learnt.

Chapter 9 in our Math text book was all about 3-D figures (face, edge and vertex, rectangular and triangular prisms, square pyramid, cube, cone, triangular pyramid, sphere and cylinder) and 2-D figures (triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon and octagon). We also then went on to focus on angles (right, acute and obtuse) and triangles (scalene, isosceles and equilateral). The kids really enjoyed this chapter and we were able to do a lot of hands-on activities.

With a focus on poetry, our Reading Week was a smashing success! Enjoy looking through the many photographs we’ve taken this week.

Since we have come to the end of Number the Stars, I decided to help the kids get a better grasp as to how the Jews must have felt; being forced to leave the only home they ever knew, hiding in a cramped, dark, smelly, hidden compartment in a small fishing boat and having to be unexceptionally quiet because their lives depended on silence. So…to make it a little more real for them, I got all of the kids to hide under one of our tables in the classroom and covered it with two large sheets. They then had to be extremely quiet as the Nazi’s (enter Ms. Suckoo) came aboard the boat and searched all over. By the third try, I think the seriousness of it all finally hit home, as they were all finally able to quiet down. This was a reality for so many people and the grade 4 students came to realize what a horrible reality that must have been. Be sure to ask your child how it felt and how they imagine the Jews must have felt.

Just for fun, the title for this post should be said like: Lights. Camera. Action!

As we move on from division, we’re now focusing on geometry! This week we learnt all about the vertex (the points or corners), the edge (the straight lines) and the face (the flat part) of 3-dimensional shapes. Have a peek at what assignments we’ve been working on in class.

A fun way to review the different 3D shapes that we’ve covered is to just point out random objects at home (the cereal box, ice cream cones, vegetable tins etc) and get your child to identify and describe them (how many faces, edges and vertices do they have?). Have fun learning!