Posted on

Narrative Writing – Hey Deer

To add some Christmas fun to our writing, Grade 4 has been analyzing the animated short film by Pixar – Hey Deer. With the help of this video, we have been dissecting what goes in to making a great narrative story. From here, we will then create our own narrative, based off of this short narrative.

Give it a watch and discuss all of the key details and events with your child, reminding them that the more details added to a narrative, the more entertaining and interesting it will be for the reader.

Posted on

Literacy, Bible, and Social Studies Objectives – November 4-8, 2019

GRAMMAR:

This week will be filled with Units 1 and 2 reviews and our final assessments for the First Quarter.

– Wednesday: Review

– Thursday: Unit 2 Assessment

– Friday: Units 1-2 Cumulative Assessment

READING:

Our final reading assessment for First Quarter will be Matchbook Chapter Summaries. See instructions below. This will be done primarily in class and is due on Friday.

Matchbook Chapter Summaries:

– Students will create summaries for Chapters:

– 1-9

– 10-21

– 22-35

– 36-48

– (49-57 and 58 – End will be completed at the end of the novel)

– One the outside of the matchbook, students draw and color their favorite scene from the chapters above. On the inside of the matchbook, students write a summary of the chapters. Students will write a 5-7 sentence summary; no more, no less. This really forces them to pick and choose the most important events to include in their summaries.

– Paste summaries inside a file folder

– Students then add the finishing touches by decorating the cover of the file folder.

WRITING:

Again, as this is the final week of the First Quarter, we will be focusing on our final assessments. Students will be  busy finalizing their drafts and publishing their writing on Monday and Tuesday.

On Wednesday – Friday, they will be completing their final Expository Writing piece for this quarter and put into practice what they’ve learned so far.

All assessments will be sent home for review and signing once completed and graded.

BIBLE:

– Use a time line and a map to enhance their study of the Bible

– Examine and analyze information from a concordance

– Apply contextual reading skills

– Demonstrate the use of Bible commentary

NOTE: A new list of Bible verses was handed out to students today to keep in their homework folder.

SOCIAL STUDIES:

– Identify ways that people make a living in the Caribbean

– Discover reasons why agriculture is an important industry in the Caribbean

Posted on

Planet Project

In Science, students will begin a new topic of Space and other objects in the solar system. This will be an at home project and their last for science. Keep in mind, this will be a large portion of their grade in the final report. 

DUE: Friday, June 7th 

They will:

  • Construct a 3D model of a planet
  • Complete a write up on a small poster 
  • The write up will include: Where the planet is located in the solar system, its size, characteristics and any unique facts. 
  • They will also create 5 test questions based on what they researched. 
  • Finally, present to the class! 

You will see below the original letter sent to students and the rubric I will use for grading. Students will also get a rubric, so please be sure they use it as a guide! 

Tips: Research specific things on google to find specific answers, then generalize searches for other information. Be sure that the write up is in their OWN words. (summary)

Example:  ‘What is the size of Saturn?’ (specific) or ‘Saturn’ (general) 

  • summarize information in your own words
  • answer the questions
  •  follow the rubric 

Each student will only be choosing 1 planet as they will complete a graphic organizer filling out information on the other planets based on presentations. The sun is being included as it’s part of our study of the solar system, this will help as an overall understanding and help conclude the objectives. 

Rubric, also passed to students 

Examples of different planets 

 

Posted on

Easter Break Packets 2019

Numeracy: Students will be completing a portion of their math review packet. Students ONLY have to complete these two sections.  If they want to move on and complete the packet, they are welcome to but  NOT mandatory. 

  • April 15th – 19th: Computation & Estimation (continuing homework from the week) 
  • April 22nd – 26th: Patterns & Numbers

Terra Nova Packets

 Students were given 4 packets.

  • Math (part 1 and 2)
  • Literacy: 2 packets that cover various parts of literacy. 

This is for them to have as reference if they would like the additional practice or get a chance to skim through a few problems throughout the break. Any chance they get to review is always good! 

Posted on

Science Fair 2019

Science Fair is officially in full swing! Students are getting excited as I’ve shared with them the outline of what is expected this year and the categories. Please review expectations from the rubric and checklist with your child.

Here are some key points to remember!

  • FBCS science fair: Friday, April 12th *which also Dress Like A Scientist Day! A great way to truly get into character! (: 
  • Rotary Science Fair: Saturday, April 27th 
  • Science Fair is mandatory! Students can work individually or in groups; no more than 4 people. 
  • There are 4 categories: Engineering, Model, Demonstration and Scientific Process. 
  • Students will be working outside of class to complete projects. They will NOT be completed in class. Students will be given some time for research, writing and group collaboration. 

All students will be given copies of these to have in                                groups or individuals . 

Please review the rubric, that will be used by the judges and myself for grading. I will review how students divided up the responsibilities and if everyone gave equal participation. 

The checklist was created as a way for students to keep accountable to their timeline and what they need to complete before science fair. 

For the checklist, please CLICK HERE

Very excited for everyone and what they come up with! We’ve already heard some exciting ideas and discussions.                                                        Keep up the encouragement and investigating! 

Parents: please make sure you are guiding your child and not doing the project for them. It is a great opportunity for them to practice problem solving skills, going through the scientific process, communicating ideas, thinking through what they know and exploring!

 
Posted on

Home and Objectives February 4th-8th 2019

GRAMMAR                                                                                                              Students will be learning to use capitalization of proper nouns. 

WRITING                                                                                                            Students will continue their understanding and practice of opinion writing and in class debates. 

READING                                                                                                              Students are continuing their study through Winn Dixie. 

SOCIAL STUDIES                                                                                                    They will be continuing their focus of Indian and Chinese ancestry. 

NUMERACY                                                                                                       Students are taking a break from their awesome work in fractions to combine what they’ve learned with art! This week is creating their own ‘Fractional Me’ which you can view next week at Open House!                        > I highly  recommend for students to work on multiplication skills at home. The next section of fractions will be challenging them in those skills and it would be good for them to have a more confident foundation. 

SCIENCE Students are wrapping up their research on ecosystems and food webs. They have shown great work and research! It is all coming together and due FRIDAY! Photos to come. 

HOMEWORK

GRAMMAR: Workbook pages 76 and 78 

NUMERACY: Mathletics Tuesday and Thursday

SCIENCE: Lesson 2, of Chapter 5. This is a quiz, please do not help students. They will have some time in class and will just continue at home. 

PROJECTS/ASSESSMENTS

Winn Dixie quiz on Chapters 10-15: Wednesday 

Ecosystems and Food Web project: Friday 

Bible Verse Test: Friday 

Posted on

Homework and Objectives – Jan. 29th – 1st February

Grammar
– Begin sentences with capital letters and end them with the correct end marks.                                               – Proofread for missing capital letters and end marks- Rewrite statements as questions, commands, or exclamations.

Writing
– Share their opinions about a specific topic using facts and details. 
– Persuade their reader’s with a powerful conclusion. 

Reading
– Continuing with Reading Assessments

Because of Winn-Dixie – A classic tale by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo, America’s beloved storyteller. One summer’s day, ten-year-old India Opal Buloni goes down to the local supermarket for some groceries – and comes home with a dog. But Winn-Dixie is no ordinary dog. It’s because of Winn-Dixie that Opal begins to make friends. And it’s because of Winn-Dixie that she finally dares to ask her father about her mother, who left when Opal was three. In fact, as Opal admits, just about everything that happens that summer is because of Winn-Dixie. Featuring a new cover illustration by E. B. Lewis and an excerpt of Kate DiCamillo’s newest novel, Raymie Nightingale.

We’re staring a new class novel! YIPPEE! We’ll be covering about 5 chapters per week and then completing a quiz following.

Some of the objectives that we will be covering while reading are:

  • Offer observations, make connections, react, speculate, interpret, and raise questions in response to text
  • Identify and discuss book themes, characters, plots, and settings
  • Connect their experiences with those of the author and/or with characters from the books
  • Support predictions, interpretations, conclusions, etc. with examples from text
  • Practice key reading skills and strategies (cause-and-effect, problem/solution, compare-and-contrast, summarizing, etc.)
  • Monitor their own comprehension

– Reading Chapters 14-15

Numeracy                                                                 Students will be learning how to add and subtraction fractions using models and number lines. 

Science                                                                                    – Students will continue working on their ecosystem and food web projects, coming along really well!         – They will also be learning about how ecosystems are influenced and effected by people. 

Homework 

Literacy

Tuesday – Workbook Plus page 72                  Wednesday – Reteaching Workbook (handout)      page 45                                                                     Thursday – Reading – Quizizz – https://join.quizizz.com           GAME CODE  – 471015

Numeracy

Mathletics: Tuesday-Thursday                              Students are to choose ONE assignment a night, to complete. They have several opportunities to complete in class during rotations, lab and investigative math session. 

Science                                                                                For the unit test, students will be completing 4 smaller quizzes and adding the points for a final score.  

I am encouraging students to complete what they can in class, but if not they will take home and returned the next day. All the quizzes will be completed by next week, so be on a look out if they are taken home.

I do ask that if students bring it home, it must be done independently. They are open book, so they need to practice those skills of using their resources and finding the answers on their own.                                                                                                                                 Lesson 1, Chapter 5 quick study is DUE Thursday 

Bible Verse 

“I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah 32:27

Posted on

Homework and Objectives January 21-25th

Literacy: Is fluency and grammar testing this week! Students should be using their English textbook to study. 

Writing: Continuing to work on our opinion writing. 

Numeracy: Students are continuing with their understanding of fractions. This week we are learning to find common denominators so we can compare and list fractions having the same denominator. 

Science: We will be studying ecosystems for the next couple of weeks as well as completing an in class project. We are learning to understand what makes an ecosystem, how it is affected, the vocabulary to describe it and food webs within them!

I’ve attached the RUBRIC (click on rubric for the attachment) and overall EXPECTATIONS (click on expectations for the attachment) of the project. This will be done in class but there is a possibility students will want to get some items outside of school to add and make it extra special! 

Social studies: Focus on our European and African connections. Students should be continuing to working on their Caribs and Arawaks at home. 

Homework and Tests

Numeracy:                                                                                                          Practice book pages 156-162. Students should do one page a night and then turn it in by Friday. Quiz on Friday. 

Literacy: No vocabulary tests, yippee (: 

Social Studies: Carib and Arawaks project at home!

Bible verse test: Friday 

Weekly Bible Verse

Students learned actions to this on Monday, see if they can remember them and continue practicing! 

You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.  Psalm 65:9 NIV

Posted on

Objectives for January 3-4, 2019

Happy New Year and welcome back!

READING

Because of Winn-Dixie – A classic tale by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo, America’s beloved storyteller. One summer’s day, ten-year-old India Opal Buloni goes down to the local supermarket for some groceries – and comes home with a dog. But Winn-Dixie is no ordinary dog. It’s because of Winn-Dixie that Opal begins to make friends. And it’s because of Winn-Dixie that she finally dares to ask her father about her mother, who left when Opal was three. In fact, as Opal admits, just about everything that happens that summer is because of Winn-Dixie. Featuring a new cover illustration by E. B. Lewis and an excerpt of Kate DiCamillo’s newest novel, Raymie Nightingale.

We’re staring a new class novel! YIPPEE! We’ll be covering about 5 chapters per week and then completing a quiz following.

Some of the objectives that we will be covering while reading are:

  • Offer observations, make connections, react, speculate, interpret, and raise questions in response to text
  • Identify and discuss book themes, characters, plots, and settings
  • Connect their experiences with those of the author and/or with characters from the books
  • Support predictions, interpretations, conclusions, etc. with examples from text
  • Practice key reading skills and strategies (cause-and-effect, problem/solution, compare-and-contrast, summarizing, etc.)
  • Monitor their own comprehension

WRITING

We’ll be starting to learn about Opinion Writing  this term. We’ll begin with a pre-assessment based on their favourite holiday.

SOCIAL STUDIES

  • Discover the different cultures that help to influence us in the Caribbean.

NUMERACY

The first couple of days back we will be reviewing number sense and computation (multiplication and division) 

The following week will be beginning fractions! We will learn how to recognize fraction problems and equivalent fractions. 

SCIENCE

We will finish working on our in-class project of adaptations and behavior for a fictional animal. This is due Thursday 10th! Then understanding parts of an ecosystem and what we have here in Cayman.

Posted on

Objectives and Homework – November 26 – 30

ENGLISH

  • Replace weak verbs with exact verbs
  • Use a thesaurus
  • UNIT 3 Test on Tuesday
  • Identify adjectives that tell what kind and how many
  • Identify nouns that adjectives describe

READING

We’ve finished A Boy Called Bat, and we’ve been busy delving deeper in concepts surrounding the book. You should have seen your student working on an Autism poster. This was due today, so please have a chat to ensure that your child handed his/hers in.

Also, we started our final, in-class project last week, and are finalizing it this week. Here are the instructions that they received.

Design challenge time! You and your group have 3 days, 30 minutes per day, to design and build a project related to the book, ​A Boy Called Bat​. It can be anything at all, so long as you can build it with materials available to you in class and it shows a clear connection to the story. Once completed, your masterpiece will go into the Design Museum. What? Your school doesn’t have a Design Museum? Well, you’ll just have to create on then, won’t you? All of your other projects can go into the museum as well. Then invite other classes to take a field trip to your museum.

I’ve been so impressed with every concept and their work ethic. I can’t wait to share the final details with you!

SPELLING

Please encourage your child to study his/her spelling words and work on their spelling contract. They should aim to get 20 points on their contract by Friday.

Length
Loneliness
Necessary
Permanent
Persevere
Pleasant
Prefer
Quit
Quite
Quiet
Rhythm
Scissors
Separate
Sincerely
Soldier
Surely
Twelfth
Village
Weird
Whether

WRITING

We weren’t quite able to publish our first batch or personal narratives, so we’ll be busy with that this week. Following this, students will be asked to create another personal narrative (hopefully Christmas themed), entirely on their own. Please be sure to check in with your child, to ensure that they are busy working on their narratives.

MATH

Investigative problems for measurement 

SOCIAL STUDIES

Prepping final drafts and getting ready for presentations 

TESTS

English – Unit 3: Tuesday

Bible: Test on Thursday

Science – Chapter 2 test 
4A: Friday 
4B: Wednesday 

Math:
4A: Wednesday
4B: Wednesday 

HOMEWORK

Monday:
– Review Unit 3 for English
– Read for at least 30 minutes and update Padlet with a little bit of detail on what you’ve read.

Tuesday:
– Study guide for math and science
– Work on Spelling Contract

Wednesday:
– NO Math Homework
– Workbook Plus – page 59

Thursday:
– Mathletics: perimeter and area 
– Study spelling words and complete Spelling Contract

NOTE: Social Studies: If students are not done with their drafts in class, they will take home to complete.