Mrs. Pols' Fantastic Fours

September is an important month for learning and commemorating the truth of our history with The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th and the CBE Truth and Reconciliation Week. It is a time where we can learn and reflect upon the history of residential schools in our country as well as working to learn, understand and honour Indigenous ways of being, belonging and knowing. This learning is  strongly connected to our social studies curriculum and the learning outcome; recognize how stories of people and events provide multiple perspectives on past events.  We used a variety of picture books as a springboard for rich conversations about Alberta's Indigenous people and their experiences. The students learned about the Medicine Wheel and it's importance to Indigenous people. We created our own Medicine Wheels representing our connections to our mind, body, spirit and heart.   We then worked on extending our understanding of what a treaty is. Next, we lo...

  In our first weeks of school, the students have been engaged with our first whole class read aloud, A Wolf Called Wander. It is a wonderful book based on the true story of wild wolf who made an extraordinary journey of more than 1 600 kilometers. The book connects beautifully to our first topic in Science where students are learning about animals and how they sense and respond to their environments to support their growth and survival. As we read, the students listened for evidence from the text that showed how wolves grew and survived, recording their ideas on a web. Next, we learned about the different ways that wolves communicate. We watched videos of wolves communicating through howling, recording our scientific observations. Then, we looked at the different sensory organs of animals, learning how the skin, eyes, ears, nose and tongue help animals to grow and survive. The students worked to read and identify important information on the sensory organs of wolves within a non-f...

We had a wonderful week of growing and learning together as we continue to build our classroom community. We began our work with our whole class book, The Magical Yet. It is a wonderful story about overcoming challenges, teaching us that we can learn new things and achieve our goals and dreams with patience, hard work and practice. After reading the book, the students created webs about all the things that they once were unable to do that they now can do. We discussed how the "yet" helped to get us there. Next, the students selected one item from their web to describe in a written paragraph. They worked to add details by thinking about questions such as: What was it like when you first started? Why did you want to learn or get better at this skill? What did you do to get better? What did you say to yourself when it was really hard? We then worked to publish our written pieces using the Chromebooks. The students were excited to have the opportunity to utilize technology in the...

Welcome to our grade four class blog. We have had a fantastic first couple weeks of learning in our classroom. Our focus has been on getting to know one another and building a positive classroom community. The students have engaged in a variety of tasks where they worked together to meet a common goal. Tasks included a collaborative piece of art, the pyramid cup challenge, the marshmallow challenge and the game Yoshi. These connected to our Wellness Curriculum. Our guiding question has been: How can we develop healthy relationships that are mutually supportive? Throughout the week, the students reflected on the following statements: I can communicate respectfully. I can compromise. I can reflect on actions taken. I can make repeated efforts to solve a problem. In a connection between our Wellness and Mathematics curriculums, we looked at the question, Our class should be ... everyday. After students shared their ideas, we discussed how this was a form of data. Students then worked toge...