February: Kindness and Ash Wednesday

Dear Parents,

It’s hard to believe we are halfway through our school year! The students have had plenty of opportunities to collaborate and to work individually. As you know, the agenda is the regular communication tool between home and school. However, the agenda can only give snippets of what we do as a whole. Below is a quick summary of the happenings in 4/3V:

• Our class, together with the Kindergarten classes, will be hosting the Ash Wednesday Liturgy at 1 and 2 pm. Fr. Jose will join us at the school, and as always, we would be delighted to share this time of prayer with you. During rehearsals, it shows that the children look forward to making this time of community prayer special.
• Our focus for Religion in the last couple of weeks has been the Sacraments of Initiation, in which the children will demonstrate the symbols, actions, and meaning of the  sacraments by creating a poster.
• Tied with our District's theme of Love Kindness, in Health we are looking at conflict resolution, in other words, how can we solve problems while keeping in mind rules, compassion, and communication.

• For Spanish, we continue to build on vocabulary and to practice topic-specific words and phrases in many situations. We are currently learning how to use expressions to describe everyday routines and events. Soon we will start a special project that will showcase their speaking skills.
• In Math, the Grade 3s are well into their adding and subtracting units. You may have seen practice sheets going home. We have also been reviewing basic facts so it becomes easier when adding and subtracting bigger numbers.
• In Social Studies the Grade Four students are digging deep into Alberta’s past, and learning about Alberta’s cultural roots, which they will share with their classmates Presentation tool in Google docs. The Grade 3 students are currently working on comparing Services in Canada to those in Tunisia, Peru, India, or Ukraine, and they will be presenting their projects as well, using the Google drive.
• In Science, the students continue to conduct experiments to test how different simple machines are able to make a task easier, and how shapes can strengthen a design. These units are combined with an Art Project: small groups will use the knowledge and skills learned in Science to design and construct a small city block, which they will build from recycled materials. The students can’t wait to finish their Science/Art masterpieces!
• ELA update: The grade 4s have now finished their novel study, “Bunnicula”. They culminated the project with a Haiku poem. The grade 3s are just concluding their novel study, “Charlotte’s Web”. They wrote a friendly letter to Charlotte from the perspective of her babies. Both of the projects were on display for the school’s open house. We are concurrently working on our new unit. The students are learning how to write a narrative story. So far, they have learned how to introduce their stories with an entertaining beginning and provide elaborative detail. The unit is based on Barbara Mericonda’s, “The Comprehensive Writing Guide”, which is endorsed by our district. The purpose of the unit is provide the students an opportunity to write their own exciting narrative stories. The students will then learn how to write an expository piece. The students continue to work on their monthly book reports. I am very pleased to see that students are reading my comments and making the necessary adjustments in order to improve their marks. The students also continue to learn and practice their handwriting skills. - Ms. Mandziak

As always, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. Happy Valentine’s Day. We hope you can join us for our Ash Wednesday Liturgy. Many blessing to you and your family.

-Srta. V.

Merry Christmas!

It's hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner! We hope you enjoyed the Christmas Concert; the children were very excited to perform for you.

I'd like to share with you some topics we've been covering and will continue in January.

The Gr. 3's are working hard in learning all about increasing and decreasing patterns. We are at the end of this unit and in January we will be starting number operations: adding, subtracting to 1000, and multiplication of small numbers. For Spanish we continue to add to our vocabulary. You may have noticed that both grades have started a vocabulary quiz for each unit, and we will continue having one per unit for the rest of the year. For Social Studies the students completed a chapter on resources found in each of the countries we are studying, and made a PowerPoint presentation. Feel free to take a look at your child's work in your his/her Google drive. In Science, the students continue to test different types of materials, and their function under certain circumstances. For example, today we finished testing the strength of different types of paper.

The grade threes and fours have been working on similar project in Religion. Here's an update from two of the grade four students, in their own words:

My thoughts on School.

In Spanish the grade fours have been learning the verbs “ser y estar.” They are  also learning about the family. They are learning new words like: Sobrino/a, tio/a , nieto/a etc.

They have been challenging ourselves by trying to read harder books each time. We have also been playing some games of “Vocabulario.” I said some English words and sentences  and the students, had to write them in Spanish.  

In Math the grade fours have been learning: “Fracciones, multiplicación, decimales and patrones.” We have been playing “Ole”,which consists thinking about the times tables. In multiplication we have done some activities, that involved paterns. They have also been doing “Problemas de la semana.”   

In Health we have been learning bus safety tips and how to stay safe at home, school and other places.

Each six days Sr. Nuñez to teach us more health.

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My Thoughts on School

In science we are testing how different kinds of shapes move. We made wheels in different shapes and we wrote down our observations. As a grade 4 student I enjoy science because we don’t buy our materials, instead we use reused cardboard and we make and cut everything by hand.

In Religion both grade 3 and 4 are doing a Jesse tree. Each day we add a ornament to our paper tree and then we write 2 or 3 sentences about what happened on that day. On day one we wrote about The Creation. I really enjoy religion because each of us gets to colour an ornament and I think learning about how Jesus came is very interesting.         

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I do hope that you have a blessed Advent and a very Merry Christmas. May the presence of the Christ Child fill your hearts. All the best for 2015.

Sincerely, 

Srta. V

November News

Dear Parents,

Progress Reports are just around the corner, and the grade fours and threes continue to work hard as we wrap up our first term for the year! In the last couple of months, we have had an opportunity to get to know each other. We’ve also had a chance to “meet” Zeke, our class puppet. This blog is named after him.

We have covered a lot in the last couple of months! Below is a summary of what we have done in the past term; you may recognize the work from items that have been noted in the agenda. I encourage you to continue checking the agenda as it is the main form of communication with you.

• Religion: We continue to reflect more and more on how God sent the Holy Spirit to help us become a united class, by identifying specific actions that we do in the school and in class that help us grow as a community. This includes the importance of the sacraments in our spiritual life.

• Math: The grade fours continue to expand on operations using decimals. The grade threes have been learning and comparing numbers from one to one thousand: identifying the larger or smaller number in a set, skip counting by three, four, five, ten, twenty-five, and by a hundred, forward and backwards, starting at random points. More recently we have used skip counting to count money.
• Spanish Language Arts: We have reviewed and continue to work on vocabulary, using adjectives and the senses to describe people, animals, places and things. We combined this with an Art activity: the students created an imaginary character using a straw to blow watercolour paint in various directions on their paper. They then added a face, and each student described what their imaginary character looks like, where they live, and what they do.
• English Language Arts:  The students have been very busy working on their autobiographies. This unit has helped the students to enhance and improve their writing skills. As well, the students have learned to organize, record and evaluate their original text. The unit has focused on proper paragraph development. We have been working through our grammar unit, which has focused on capital letters, subject/predicate, kinds of sentences, and conjunctions.  Our spelling practice is well under way. The students have been given in class time to work on the activities. The practice quizzes will be in different formats and the students are aware of this. I have begun marking October’s book reports. The students are encouraged to read the feedback I give them, in order to improve their work. Our handwriting unit continues, and the students are doing well. The students can look forward to our winter theme, and novel study. -Ms. Mandziak
• Social Studies: The grade fours continue to learn what resources from the past and present are important to Alberta. They investigated First Nations’ culture and how they used natural resources in the different natural regions. Recently, they put together a poster depicting why fossils are important to Alberta’s identity. Similarly, the grade threes learned about culture by looking into the different traditions and celebrations particular to each of the countries we are studying for the year: Peru, Tunisia, Ukraine, and India.
• Science: The grade threes had an opportunity to show their learning by creating a poster with a specific topic within the Rocks and Minerals Unit. The grade fours culminated their Waste in Our World Unit by working on a project that reduced the amount of packaging for a particular product, and then presented their improved package to the class.
• Both grades had the opportunity to find information for the Rocks and Minerals poster and Fossil poster using the Chromebooks and their Google documents (their “learn” account). They are becoming experts at using this technology!
• Health: We shared tips on how to stay safe by presenting an unsafe and a safe way to do an activity at home or in the community through skits. The grade fours focused on internet safety.
• Art: The students are becoming skilled at using paintbrushes and water colours. Next, we will be using different types of materials to create collages. Our first project was to complement the spirit of Remembrance Day with a poppy scene using tissue paper.

We look forward to meeting with you during Parent/Teacher Interviews in a couple of weeks. Please see the St. Margaret website for more information regarding the Conference Manager and contact information: http://schools.cssd.ab.ca/stmargaret.

As always, please feel free to contact me via the agenda or email if you have any questions or comments.

Have a great weekend!

Srta. Valencia

Welcome!

¡Bienvenidos a todos! 

Using only one colour, students experimented with different textures and paintbrush sizes; they then created a landscape using these skills:

Way to go artists!