I want to thank all of you, parents, students and grandparents alike for a wonderful 2018-2019 school year. I enjoyed every single day of being with this class of incredible children. When I look back through the photos and as I clean the remnants of the year from the classroom, I am reminded of how much we accomplished and how many unique and special things happened.
I'd also like to thank Sherin Elakari for her hard work and support this year. She fostered such a lovely relationship with each child and added so much to our classroom culture. Next year she will be working with a Division Two class in the other wing. Kelly Way was our Room Mom this year and I appreciated her help organizing for our classroom parties. She amazed me each time with her behind-the-scenes work and how well she pulled everything off! I am very thankful for her help this year. I'd also like to thank all the parents who came on our field trips. It was a pleasure to have you along and your time was appreciated. We could not have done it with out you! I'd also like to thank everyone for the generous year end gifts. I was spoiled and I want you to know how much I love the choices made. So much thought went into the gifts, cards and messages and I feel very honoured to know that you and the children care so much! I'm overwhelmed! Here is the link to the CTV news story on our Entrepreneurial Adventure project: https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/students-give-back-on-last-day-of-school-1.4484387 Thank you for a wonderful year! Enjoy the summer! Karen
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Tomorrow is our Heritage Park field trip~
Parents, if you have changed your mind and would like to come with us, you are welcome to! We have room! Send me an email at [email protected]. The bus leaves at 9:20 or you can meet us at the park! Things are really busy here in Grade 4! We are finishing up our fraction unit in Math and our narrative stories in Language Arts. In Social Studies we are focused on finishing Maverick reports and in Science we continue to work on Plant Growth and Change. Students have been coding the LEGO EV3 robots this week and (last week) and are loving the challenge!
Our field trip to Heritage Park is on Thursday, June 13. Forms went home yesterday and need to be returned ASAP. Thanks for helping with this tight turn around. The cost is $19 and is now set up to pay online. If you'd like to volunteer and have police clearance, send me an email at [email protected]. Maverick reports and narrative stories are due on Tuesday, June 18. Students have been working in Google Docs so the rough copies are available to work on at home as homework. Parental help for both these projects is appropriate. Due to Grade 6 PAT exams, we do not have access to school computers until Monday. Thank you to our parent volunteers today. WIthout help, we could not take the students off campus! Kim Leroux, Rod Hume, Lindsy Wiemer and Kelly Way gave up their day to trek through the zoo and help the Grade 4s become amateur botanists!
We have had a busy time with Entrepreneurial Adventures (preparing items, filling and delivering bags, counting money, calculating profit etc.) field tripping, cupcake eating, community garden gardening, seed growing, story writing, Maverick researching and fraction comparing! Here are some of the recent photos!
Today we counted up how many tomato seeds germinated in our Tomatosphere experiments. Group L yielded 22 and Group M yielded 21. Since both groups were so similar, those results did not help us decide which group spent time in space. Next, we used a Geiger counter to see if there was any difference in the amount of radiation that the packages and the seedlings were giving out. The amount of radiation is very low but we noticed that in two minutes, Group L made the counter beep 39 times, and Group M beeped 53 times. Hmmmm..... students were sure that Group M were the space seeds. We will continue to observe how they develop as their true leaves come in. In the meantime, we entered our results into the website to add our data to the Canadian data base and we found out that: Which seeds are the "space" seeds? — Group M These seeds spent one month on the ISS in the winter of 2017. The seeds from group M were sent to the ISS during the SpaceX CRS-10 mission. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon spacecraft, launched on February 19, 2017 from the Kennedy Space Center.
The Dragon spacecraft safely delivered to the ISS nearly 5,500 lbs of cargo and supplies, including the Tomatosphere™ seeds, equipment for science experiments and supplies for the crew. The spacecraft returned safely to earth on the 19th of March 2017, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean six hours after it was released from the ISS. Thank you for your contribution to the field of space food science! For your information, the Tomatosphere™ seeds you received were all Heinz 9478 F1 seeds. This is a variety of plum tomato. The plant will produce mature fruit between 85 and 105 days, depending on growing conditions. This type of tomato is best used for juices, sauces and salsas. Let us know what you do with your #spacetomatoes by tagging us @Tomatosphere and @letstalkscience. Our Grade 4 Celebration of Learning will be held on Tuesday, June 4 from 6:30-7:30pm. Students will be showcasing the process and product of our Entrepreneurial Adventure program. More information to follow!
Our Tomatosphere plants have germinated and are growing! Students have loved learning about the ISS and how reduced gravity impacts life in space. They are interested in understanding more about radiation. The pumpkin seeds have also sprouted and are doing well! Students are learning new vocabulary and how to identify the parts of a plant. Up next is looking at the relationship between humans and plants, and the importance of plants to our environment. In Math, we are working on fractions. Students have reviewed what they learning in Grade 3 and we are ready to start comparing and ordering fractions that have the same denominators. Students have spent time creating a detailed narrative story plan. They peer edited their plans and also shared it with an adult. This week students started writing the first draft in Google Docs. We will be working on it at school and students have access to their Google Drive at home and can work on their story at any time. The students were encouraged to bring their Maverick booklets home with them. Since this is a true inquiry project, they are all working at their own pace, are at different spots in the process and require different supports. Over the coming week, the homework is to progress to the next step. Some need to finish researching and others need to get a good start on forming the jot notes into paragraphs. Others are developing their rough copies, which they will then to edit and type into Google Docs. Students are encouraged to use their writer’s voice and not just write their notes into a grocery list of facts. The booklet has more information about expectations and provides structure for the written parts. Once done, the report will be three paragraphs long. It is appropriate for parents to help type and edit if your child needs help. Reminders:
We finished up our Building Devices and Vehicles That Move unit in Science by testing our cars outside on the compound. Students were still modifying and tweaking their cars with each trip down the inclined plane. Our last unit is called Plant Growth and Change. We have been busy planting and propagating. Our first project is called Tomatosphere. We have received two packages of tomato seeds. One package spent six weeks on the International Space Station and the other package is the control seeds that have not left Earth's atmosphere. They are labeled L and M. We do not know which is which and will only find out when we send our final germination results into the website. The boys planted the M package and the girls planted the L package. They started sprouting yesterday! Next we planted pumpkin seeds. This time each child has their own cup with 2-3 pumpkin seeds growing. They have not germinated yet. In past years , students have grown their vines in their gardens once they bring their seedlings home and have actually had pumpkins to harvest in the fall! We will be observing, sketching and journaling about the process. We have some carrot tops propagating. They have already started to grow new leafy greens. And we have some leaves of a Christmas Cactus that will begin to grow roots to generate new plants. Tennis was amazing and the students skills improved steadily over the ten days of instruction. They were excited for gym each day. Several people came to talk to us from the Calgary Homeless Foundation, the charity we have chosen for our Entrepreneurial Adventure Program. It was really nice for the students to put faces to the charity and be able to ask all of the questions they had. Friendly letter replies keep rolling in bringing joy for the students. Morgan's letter to A&W returned with coupons for the class. Your child has a coupon for a free root beer and free french fries for the next time you go to A&W. Thanks Morgan and A&W!
Reminders:
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Karen Cooper
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