This morning we had a special visit from Wendy with Inside Education. She taught us about air quality and we had the chance to go outside and use Air Beam devices to test the quality of the air around our school. She mapped our results and as you can see today we had good air quality all around the building:)

Constable Mattice and Constable Baker came in to talk us this afternoon. They talked to us about the things we have to keep us safe. We learned that we have everyday tools, things you need to be prepared for success, tools for communication that help you tell others where you are to keep you safe, tools for remembering like taking notes to remember things. Some tools have rules like scissors, and some tools require you to act with more responsibility. We practice keeping ourselves safe by doing fire drills and making evacuation plans in the case of emergency. We were reminded that we all have the responsibility to keep our community safe. To do this we need to listen to our hearts.

Where can we go if we need help?

-       Parents

-       Teachers

-       Trusted adults

What can we do to make a difference?

-       Be kind

-       Be responsible

-       Be respectful

-       Clean up after yourself

-       Help others

-       Stand up for each other

-       Talk to each other

-       Seek other options

-       Include others

-       Be helpful

-       Be nice

-       Be honest

-       Have patience

-       Show you care

-       Get help

-       See the best in others

-       Treat others the way you want to be treated

-       Stand up for the right thing

-       Do the right thing

-       Understand that everybody makes mistakes

-       Use kind words

-       Think about what we say before we say it

Guiding questions parents can use tonight to help discuss what we learned today:
- What happened in the story you read? 
- What did the story make you think about?
- What did the feathers in the story represent?
- What should you do if you hear a rumor?
- What did you put on your apples? Why?
- Who can help you when you ask?
- What can you do to navigate friendships when issues arise?

Reminders:

- No School tomorrow!

Happy Wednesday!

Today we read 3 of the 4 stories we are going to choose from for our Storytelling work with Mr. Stockton. Tomorrow we will read the 4th book and select the one we each want to focus on.

We did a book look focusing on the beginning of the story. We discussed how to Begin with a Bang!  by using dialogue, action, a question, or a sound effect to start our writing. Then we had a chance to practice creating our own starting sentences. Wouldn't you like to read a story that starts with one of these:

Click, click, click, click...thunk. 

"Where is my hotdog?" grumbled Monster.

Have you ever seen a swordfish? They are the long fish with the pointy nose.

May pushed off hopping around the class, Michael tripped and fell on a broom. May gasped and ran over to Michael and asked him, "Are you ok?"

Whoosh! A wave hit the submarine and the man sunk into the deep, dark abyss with the missile like submarine.

We also had a special treat and joined the Kindergarten class for a little dance break this afternoon. Thanks Ms. Lysak!

Tomorrow we have a busy day planned with an educator from Inside Education coming to work with our class. She will be teaching us about air quality and about the CARS (Clean Air Responsible Schools) initiative. Part of the program will involve testing air quality outside. Please remember to dress appropriately for the outdoors!

Did you know that our school has it's own link on the Weather Network? Click the link for the temperature and advice on how to dress for the day:

New Brighton School Weather 

Tomorrow afternoon we have Constable Mattice coming in to talk to us about how we can work together to keep our community safe. Parents please plan to discuss this visit over the extended weekend.

Reminders:
- No School this Friday
- We are collecting materials upcoming for building projects please send in: plastic lids, cereal boxes, paper cups, yarn, popsicle sticks, cardboard tubes, etc

Happy Monday!

It was a busy day in Grade 4!

We started our day with a class meeting and talking about the word “said”.  Then we spent some time looking in books to find synonyms for "Said."  Some words we found were: confessed, gulped, called, conferred, screeched, mumbled, inquired, whispered, etc.

We had an assembly to kick off Jump Rope for Heart. We are bringing home an envelope to tell you all about it! We will be skipping in PE so please make sure you are dressed appropriately!

In Math we worked with the book One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab. We were drawing pictures of the feet on different creatures to match a target number. We used multiplication to document our work.

This afternoon we learned about rollers! We had fun acting as rollers to move our friends from one side of the room to the other. Then we worked with our new table groups to move a bin from one end of our table to the other using items found in our classroom. Some things we noticed were: some of our rollers got bunched up and that we needed to add some space between some of the rollers we used, that the rollers moved at the same speed, if there were uneven rollers the bin would fall off.



HOMEWORK: 
- Bring a your favorite book for us to use for our "Book Look" tomorrow!
- Teach your family how to spot a stroke using F.A. S. T.

In Math today we looked at the art work of Piet Mondrian. What math do you see here?

Do you notice the shapes?

How many different rectangles are there in this piece?

What is interesting about about the colours?


We were challenged to become Mondrian inspired artists, but instead of randomly drawing rectangles and colours we had to follow these rules:

1) The entire canvass must be covered with rectangles.

2) Every rectangle on the canvass must be different... so you cannot paint both a 4x5 and a 5x4 rectangle.

3) You must try to minimize your score. The score of a painting is the area of the largest rectangle minus the area of the smallest rectangle.

4) When coloring, you must use as few colors as possible. Colors cannot touch along edges or corners.

This was pretty challenging, but most of us were able to complete a 4x4 grid following the rules.

Help please!

We are looking for donations to support our science. Items needed include:
- plastic lids (any size)
- cardboard tubes
- yarn
- elastics
- cereal boxes
... and any other supplies that would be good for a building project

Today in math we continued working on multiplying by 9 and some of us learned a new math game. All you need to play is a deck of cards, dice and a few blocks. You can learn to pay if you click on this link: Multiplication Spirals

In Science we discussed how wheels and axles can generate usable energy by reviewing our windmill build from Monday. Another way wheels and axles can be used to generate usable energy is by using moving water. You can find instructions for a project at home: Waterwheel (bottom of page in the "Going Further" section)

We also had a chance to work with Mr. Stockton, drum in music, and practice juggling in PE. 

Reminders:

- we play outside unless the weather is below -20

- Fun Lunch orders can be placed on Healthy Hunger's website

- No school on February 1st

We had a Terrific Tuesday!

This morning MH shared an arrow head that her grandmother gave her and ZM also brought in an arrow head crafted by her uncle (sorry no picture today). Having the chance to look at artifacts and hearing the story behind them helps to bring our learning alive - Thank you for sharing!

In Social Studies we continued working on our ABC's of Alberta Before it was Alberta project. Today we learned about berries and how the First Nations people collected and used the berries for food, dried them for future use, and also for dyeing and painting. We were inspired to draw some of the berries they would have used and used crushed berries to color them.

We had our second session with Jeff Stockton this afternoon. He started to explain what we can expect on the evenings of March 13 & 14. Save the date families as your child will be performing one  of those evenings! We also did a fun activity making Kooky Cookie dough - we put kooky things in like a refrigerator, pickles, pepper, onion, mushrooms and soap! Delicious?!?! 

Today we watched a video of the story The Dream Catcher. Then we wrote a retelling of the story in our mini visual journals. Things that we were trying to include in our retell included the characters, setting, beginning, middle, end and important details from the story. Over the weekend ask us to retell it to you.

In math we continued to work on multiplication. Today we worked on our 3 times tables and were challenged to complete a multiplication chart with the numbers in a different order.

We have also been playing a lot of math games to practice our skills. One of the games we have been playing is Multiplication War. You can watch a video to learn how to play by clicking here: Multiplication War.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Today we started our day with the and eye opener question. Our teacher challenged us to use pictures and words to explain:

3+0=3    but… 3x0=0

We worked with our new Literacy Groups and have been learning about antonyms. We also have had the chance to sketch a dream catcher, read fractured fairy tales, write stories using story sticks and explore the Prodigy math website. *All students brought home a sheet explaining how to login from home.

In science we watched a video about Wheels and Axles. Some things we learned:

- If you have a small wheel and a big wheel on an axle, you only have to push the small one a bit to make the big one move

- If you have a big wheel connected to a small wheel with a chain the small one will move faster

- Gears are a type of wheel 

- If you have 2 wheels that are the same size they will both move at the same speed

- If you attach 2 wheels with a belt they will both be on their own axle

- One wheel needs to move the axle and the axle will move the other wheel

- With the same force the small wheel will go faster but travel shorter distances, larger wheels will go slower but travel greater distances

- If you have a large wheel and a small wheel on the same axle, when you turn the big wheel fast the small wheel will have greater force

We ended our day with PE.

REMINDER: We play outside everyday unless it is below -20. Please send appropriate outdoor clothing (hats, mits, snowpants, etc) for us to play outside :)

- Thank you to families who ordered Fun Lunch. Remember to order Popcorn for next Wednesday!

- All book orders must be in by Friday

- Mr.Stockton will be working with us Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday next week in the afternoons :)

Happy Wednesday!

We had a change to our routine by starting our day with PE.  We juggled and then played barn yard tag. We also had music today and continued working on drumming.

In Social studies we have started a project we are calling The ABC's of Alberta before it was Alberta. Today we learned that many different First Nations lived all over Alberta including the Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, Stoney-Nakoda and Tsuut'ina. We discussed the Acknowledgement of the Land that is shared at our school assemblies and why that is important. 

In Science we had a chance to reflect on the "build a car that rolls" challenge we started on Monday. We talked about what worked well and what we could improve on next time. We tried "racing" our cars and observed what happened. Many of the students were able to successfully construct cars that rolled ☺

We finished the day with our first session with Mr. Stockton.  He used his harp to help him tell us an amazing story! Ask us about it!

Important Dates:

January 17 - Fun Lunch

January 23 - Popcorn Snack Day

February 1 - No School

*Kindergarten registration and planning for next year is underway. If you have a child who will be starting Kindergarten in September, or have a planned change for a student currently at New Brighton please contact the school office. 

Happy Friday!

We ended our week reviewing what we know about multiplication and sharing some strategies we know that can help us when multiplying. We watched a fun video that reviewed some skip counting and multiplication strategies. You can watch it by following this link: Multiplication Mash-up

We also started using a new online math site called Prodigy. Every student has a username and password that can be used to access this for extra practice at home. Parents can connect with the program to get updates on their child's progress. An information sheet was sent home today.

Looking ahead to next week:
- We will be starting a new focus in science by learning about Simple Machines
- First Storytelling session with Jeff Stockton, try to be at school on Thursday afternoon :)
-  Pizza fun lunch on Thursday (orders need to be in by Saturday)
- Grade 4 Intramurals are on Thursday at lunch

Happy Wednesday!

Today we started our day with a Word Scramble. This is when Mrs. Cose takes the letters from a word and we try to find the "mystery word" and make as many other words as we can using the letters. We did a really great job finding 5 letter words today. Can you find any using these letters:

afiinnorsstt

In the afternoon we started reading a new novel called Finders Keepers it is about a boy living in Alberta who finds an 8000 year old arrow head. After that we had a chance to observe and sketch some artifacts Ms. Maher brought in to share with us. What do you think these were used for? What is their story??

Reminders:

- Book orders were sent home today. Due January 17th

- Fun lunch orders can be placed on the Healthy Hunger website

- Gymnastics in PE. Dress for success!

Today in Music we started drumming! We learned about “goon” and “doon”, and “go” and doe”. We did a pre-test in multiplication. Most of us did a great job and remembered everything we learned in Grade 3. We played Multiplication War with cards - Do you think you could win against us??

This afternoon Mrs. Goodall read us a story called Buffalo Stone and we worked in groups to brainstorm what we think we know and questions we have about the Indigenous people of Alberta. Here are some of the things we shared:

Reminders:

- In PE we are starting Nanatastics (gymnastics). Please remember to wear socks and people with long hair should tie their hair back or bring a hair elastic. 

- There are 3 fun lunch/snacks in January - pizza, popcorn and tacos - please pre-order ASAP