May 11th - 15th

Dear Families,

I hope that all of the mums had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday! I had a great time with my family. I was served a delicious breakfast in bed. Then we enjoyed a long family bike ride which is a bit of a tradition for our family each Mother's Day. We also played some board games together.  It couldn't have been a better day (except perhaps a bit warmer).

We are entering our 8th week of distance learning. The health and well-being of everyone is an on-going priority. Families must make decisions about daily schedules and distance learning that suit their individual needs.

Here is the link to the current slide deck which outlines daily learning goals:
Gr.4 Weekly Work (May)
This document has also been uploaded into student Drives (within the  Language folder).  The April Google slide deck is still available for reference.

In Language we are wrapping up work on our speeches. At this point, students should be at the editing phase. On Friday of this week's slide deck there is a link to a Flip Grid whereby students can share their final product. In addition to speech work, there are several reading and writing tasks outlined for this week. All of the details are outlined in the slide deck.

In Math our focus has shifted to the Measurement of Time. The learning concepts covered in this topic will be using a clock to read and estimate the passage of time. Students will also be learning to estimate and measure elapsed time (time that has passed) within a 24-hour period. Another goal of the unit is recognize and consider a variety of factors when chooing units to estimate or measure long amounts of time (months, years, decades, centuries, etc.).

We had another fun and productive Google Hangout this past week. We had fifteen students join our Google Hangout which is our biggest turn out so far! We had a special guest at the beginning of our hangout: Mrs. OBrien! It was so great to have her join our hangout. After Mrs. OBrien left our hagout, we had our 'sharing circle' and got to hear eachother's news. There is a lot going on! Here is what we learned: Ms. Carisa is dealing with a wasp infestation on the outside of her house and we hope she is able to get that sorted soon! Iviya is moving to a new home and is pretty excited about it. Jessica's family has plans for a veggie garden.  Nicky's has been enjoying virtual visits with all of his cousins.  Kristen may be getting a new family dog (fingers crossed). Jacob and his family have been having fun exploring around Hog's Back Falls.  Remi has Judo lessons over Zoom. He was also happy to report that Loki (the new dog) was found after esaping the yard and that they now have plans for a fence. Naomi has been having online soccer practices. Mircuel thinks her cat is going to have kittens. Julia has been enjoying playing with her family and using her new outdoor ninja course. Mila told us that her friend got a dog. Maryam said things are pretty much the same but she really wants the social distancing to end. Mrs. Heagle continues to work away in her garden. 

After we each shared all of our news, we had a math 'Number Talk.'  This was our second Number Talk and it worked quite well. We will continue to do this each week during our hangouts.  Students are reminded to bring paper & pencil, or a mini whiteboard/chalkbaord to the meeting! Invitations for this week's hangout were sent out on Friday. Students are asked to show up for the hangout no more than five minutes prior to the start time of 10:00 a.m.

Please remember to continue share photos with me so that I can put them on our class blog! It's a wonderful way to share all of the interesting things that are happening at home!

If there is any way that I am able to support learning from home, please contact me via email: ruth.stratford@ocsb.ca 
I will continue to be availiable each morning.    

Mrs. Stratford