Week in Review: April 3 - 7

Welcome back everyone to the school year's home stretch! Time has most certainly flown by and there are a mere three months of grade four remaining.

With this week occasionally the first week back after a longer break such as Spring Break can sometimes be a challenge, as the daily routines and classroom expectations have taken a break and "normal" at-home schedules (ie. bed times) are being re-instituted.  With this year's crew that wasn't the case as we once again had a very productive week and didn't really experience any lull in energy.  New units were kicked off in Math and Science, another two forms of poetry were studied in Language Arts, we met the Voyageurs in Social Studies, and we got to test some amazing crane projects in Science!

In terms of curriculum this week...

In Math we began our study of linear measurement and completed numerous activities getting the students use to using their rulers for something other than drumsticks.  Working primarily with centimeters this week, we will be expanding our learning by beginning to make conversions to larger and smaller units beginning next week, before moving into the calculating of perimeter towards the end of the week.

In Language Arts we continued to work with our weekly spelling words, and were using them to identify part of speech, improve phonic skills, and obviously increase sight word vocabulary and spelling fluency.  With our writing assignments this week, we continued our study pf poetry and worked to compose examples of both picture poetry and couplet poetry.

In Science this week we introduced our new unit, Light and Shadows.  With our activities this week we worked with identifying natural and man-made sources of light, and then examined the qualities of materials in relation to light rays.  We learned about how opaque, transparent , and translucent materials all interact differently with light rays and consequently all create different forms of shadows, if at all.

Lastly a big thank you goes out to everyone for assisting your children with their box crane projects.  It was great seeing the various creative designs having the kids being able to describe how their cranes worked and explain why they used the designs which they did.


In Social Studies, our study of Alberta's fur trade and the immigration of new people into the province continued.  We began looking at the influx of French traders and the role of the Voyageurs within the fur trade.  In examining the Voyageurs this week we had the opportunity to listen to some Voyageur folk songs and learned how these songs and the stories of these men helped to shape the existing culture of some cities and towns with a French heritage within Alberta such as Lac La Biche, Lacombe, and Beaumont.

Upcoming Calendar of Events

Tuesday, April 11 - Class Photos today
Thursday, April 13 - Spelling Test #28
Friday, April 14 - Good Friday: No School
Monday, April 17 - Easter Monday: No School
Tuesday, April 18 - PD Day: No School
Wednesday, April 19 - 4H BAKE SALE - PLEASE REMEMBER TO SEND YOUR BAKING FIRST THING IN THE MORNING AS PER THE EMAIL/NOTE SENT HOME LAST WEEK.