Dear grade 4 students & family members,

This Thursday, Feb. 27, 2014, was a winsome day!  We followed our Thursday routine closely, starting with a short quiz in math followed by exploring more about probability as a large group.  Mrs. Waffenschmidt turned up at The Leaning Tower of Pisa, the students really enjoyed learning about the reason the tower so famously leans.  We watched a short video explaining the science used in attempts to correct the lean and preserve this historic site.  Did you know one strategy engineers used was to freeze the ground beneath the tower with liquid nitrogen?

Every Thursday I spend some time reading aloud to the students.  This Thursday we started a new novel, Safe as Houses, in which we met the main characters.  This story promises great excitement as the characters are faced with survival during historic Hurricane Hazel which devastated Southern Ontario in 1954.  As the students engage with this story they will learn about resourcefulness, maturity, communication, cooperation, and courage.  The students really love to be read to, consider spending some time reading to or with them, it can be a very rewarding activity!

During Social Studies the students were separated into groups and asked to read a passage together, then work through various questions engaging in the text they had just read.  The students demonstrated teamwork, encouraging language, focus, and subject matter knowledge.  I really wanted to acknowledge how impressed I was with them!  Some students even said it was their favourite part of the day. 

Finally, poetry is something we do to practice both functional and creative writing skills.  It has been really interesting as a teacher getting to know this group of students to read their poems each week.  The best part is that the students hearts, humour, personality and voices shine through in their writing.  This week, after working on poems titled “Give me a…”, where we explore desires for tangible and intangible things, I asked the students to volunteer to share their work with the class.  After the volunteers read their work, the class voted on their favourites.  It was a time for the students to take pride in their work and encourage each other.  I will include the three most popular poems in this blog post.  While I haven’t posted all poems, they each were creative and interesting to read!  

I hope you all have a fun, safe and active weekend!

Ms. Froyland

Give Me A…

Give me a hundred and fifty dollar skateboard.

Give me a spray paint can for the wheels.

Five me a meat pizza.

Give me a hundred meat pizzas.

Give me a car.

Give me a car that can fly.

Give me a rover.

Give me a rover that can fly around the world.

Give Me A… 

Give me figure skate to skate on.  Give me a teacher to help me.

Give me a horse to ride on.  Give me a helper so I can win a horse medal.

Give me a great school. Give me a great school so I can get a good job when I’m older.

Give me a special power to fly.  Give a special power so I can fly all around outside.

Give me a trip to Hawaii.  Give me a trip to Hawaii so I can pick sea shells on the beach and go swimming. 

Give me gym.  Give me gym so I can grow good muscles.

Give Me A…

Give me a horse, so I can run free with it.  

Give me a true friend, so I can have trust within them.

Give me love, so I can love others as myself.

Give me freedom, so I can run forever shall be.

Give me the fruit of the spirit, so I can teach others about God.

Give me faith, so I can have faith within God.

Give me a free trip to Alberta, so I can see my cousins!