I thought I would start the week off with a couple of fun things for you! A puzzle and a video. The video is a real thing that happened in one of the world’s largest subways. It must have been pretty cool and everyone, especially the passengers, were very surprised! Lots of fun! Don’t you wish you had been there? I also embedded a winterish game for you to enjoy!
One of the things I love is seeing children thinking outside the box. So often, students are taught that things can only be done one way and that is the only correct way to do things. This is not reflected in the world where the solutions to problems are not so obvious and can not be solved by any one method.
As one way I try to encourage students to think creatively, I like to pose Science Challenges. These Science Challenges are designed to be open ended- that is, there is not one right way to solve the challenge. We will do a few of these challenges throughout the year and they will be included as a mark on the report. They will be marked out of 5 with a 5 going for those challenges that follow and complete the guidelines laid out, are related in most ways to the challenge posed and show creativity. A 3 will be given to those that follow the above guidelines but are not done by the completion date and a 1 will be given to those students who follow the guidelines but are not done within a week of the due date.
Your challenge is to create a vehicle that can move on land or by air using the power of air. You may use scissors, pencil and rulers to design it but they can not be a part of the vehicle. You may only use any or all of the following in your vehicle:
1) Ordinary lined writing paper
2) Construction paper
3) Cardboard
4) Glue
5) Paper clips
6) String
7) 1 or 2 Balloons – must be used and must be a part of the vehicle. You can not use the balloon to push it. The vehicle must move using the balloon as a part of the vehicle itself.
Your vehicle must be able to move on its own using the force of air from a balloon.
Children may have help from older siblings or adults. In fact, I would encourage this as a fun family project! However, keep in mind the proportion of work done by various members. The majority should be done by the Grade 4 students with other members acting as guidance and support.
Your vehicle may be decorated once you are done in whatever way you wish.
Projects must be completed and brought in by November 30th! You may start bringing them in by November 24th.
Have Fun!!!
So… In my recent travels around the internet these last few days I came across a couple of fun things to share with you to get you back into the whole school thing gently.
First of all, I found these cool graphics from a site called, “Information is Beautiful”. The site basically takes information and statistics and puts them into neat graphics to make them more interesting and useful for readers. The ones today showed some interesting ways to see our world in a different context. Many times globes, maps and other mapping devices don’t give us a very accurate view of our world. We look at the map and think that our country is the same size as a place like, say, Greenland or that we are not much smaller than Africa. However, you can see with the pictures below that that is not quite the case. Take a look!
Here is a fun Star Wars video I found made entirely out of paper! Cool! It actually goes very well with the Christmas Art students are working on right now!
Today was a start of some new things in 4H/G. Today we started a new reading adventure with the start of our Home Reading Program. We are going to be doing things differently with our Home Reading program.Though I have done Home reading Programs in the past, this exciting program is new for me hence the delay in start up.
You may have done home reading programs in the past. Students would bring a chart or their planners and parents would sign saying that their child read that night. We will continue to do something of the same. However, the main part of the program will be quite a bit different.
We will be using a website to record our reading and share the books we are reading as a class. Students will be able to collect virtual badges/amulets for reading and sharing their books.Students will read books, write review, share booklists with friends and take/create quizzes about books they have finished. Sounds complicated but after the initial “getting used to things”, it should work very nicely to encourage student reading.
As this is very new for everybody, I have created a booklet for parents to refer to as we get going. The booklet will be coming home today and should be in their planners. I have also put it on the blog here for you in case it somehow gets lost.
If you have questions, something is not working or you are having difficulty with something, please let me know as there will invariably be problems initially. I think this will be lots of fun and I think the students will enjoy it as well!
Wow!!! I want to say a huge thank you to my wonderful students and also to Mr. Hancock! Today I received 21 beautifully written and decorated birthday cards AND a delicious chocolate cake! I felt very blessed today! So thank you – you are such an amazing group of students!
Love, Mrs. Goosen
The week has been going by in lightning speed and Monday seems already forever ago but I just wanted to share with you the great day. We had Mrs. Goosen and several parents join us for a wonderful day filled with pumpkin activities. In the morning, students used math skills in estimating and measuring to record the weights and size of their pumpkins. They then estimating and counted the number of seeds in their pumpkins recording their findings both in place value and on a graph. In the afternoon, we had several centers where students wrote pumpkin stories, made pumpkin muffins, tested whether their pumpkins floated and carved polygon shapes in patterns all around their pumpkin. It was a full day of learning and fun.
I made a video showing the students doing lots of learning with their pumpkin. You can watch it below. Just a reminder about the 9x tables quiz tomorrow, along with the memory verse and Spelling Test. It’s a busy day tomorrow!
Tomorrow, students will starting our Home Reading Program. The way we will be doing it is very different than what you may be used to which explains the delay in start up. I will be going over it tomorrow with the students and will be sending home a booklet describing the program and the steps for students to complete. The booklet will also be on the blog for you to download and refer to.
It was so much fun joining the class for pumpkin day on Monday! I LOVED baking with the students and had a lot of requests for the Yummy Pumpkin Muffin recipe. This recipe is cut in half and will make approx. 9 good sized muffins. Enjoy! **click on the link to get the recipe ** Yummy-Pumpkin-Muffins-2
Mrs. Goosen
Hello Grade 4 Parents and Students!
I have listed below the spelling words for this week. Because of Pumpkin Day yesterday, our spelling test is going to come a little sooner. However, with all the short weeks we have been having, it is necessary for us to get in our spelling lists when we can.
Here are the lists for this week followed by the links for Spelling City. Don’t forget to bring in your certificate or get your parents to write a note in your planners to get your bonus mark!
Here are the links to the Spelling City pages.
On Monday, we are going to be having a very special day of Math, Science and Language Arts fun!
The fall season is one of my favorite times because it means that there will be mounds and mounds of pumpkins! Yes! That’s right! We are going to be playing with pumpkins on Monday for our Third Annual Pumpkin Day!! We are going to be exploring, measuring, writing about and doing lots of other things with pumpkins!
However, in all the excitement of the past week, I neglected to make a call out for parent helpers to join us in the fun and give a helping hand!
If you are at all able to help out this Monday, Mrs. Goosen and I would really appreciate having you! We will be doing activities all day. You are more than welcome to participate and help all day. However, if you can not be with us all day, please consider joining us for the afternoon or morning.
If you are able to join us, please leave a comment on the bottom of this post or send me an email at <ihancock(at)highroadacademy.com> without the arrows and with the proper “at” sign. You can also leave a message at the office tomorrow.
Thanks in advance and we hope to see you there on Monday!
