Mrs. Pols' Fantastic Fours

We had a fantastic time on our field trip to The Calgary Zoo. After learning all about animals and their sensory organs, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to see a variety of animals in action. We were able to compare animals within the same region as well as those in differing regions. For example, how does the skin of animals in the Canadian Wilds compare to those in the African Exhibit? Many groups had the opportunity to examine the fur and claws of polar bears and to see the feeding of the gorillas. A huge thank you to our parent volunteers who joined us for the trip. You helped the students to have a fantastic experience and we could not have done it without you! Learning Outcomes:     I can relate sensory organs of animals to their survival. I can relate the external structures of animals to their functions. Questions to ask your child: What was your favourite animal to see and why? What did you see that surprised you?

This week, the students were engaged in a variety of activities connected to our whole class read aloud, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. The students did an incredible job representing their understanding of different elements of the story by creating a variety of artifacts. They created found poems on a page from the book, highlighting different words to create a poem to represent that part of the main characters journey. It was interesting to see how different each poem was when all the students had the same words to work with. Next, they created recipes to represent how Edward had changed throughout the first part of his journey. Their ideas for recipes included Happiness, Learning, Friendship, Love and Kindness and included ingredients such as a dollop of looking and constellations, and dash of Pellegrina's laughter, a pocketful of Nellie's stories. We then began to put our artifacts together to create a timeline of Edward's journey. Learning Outcomes: I can cr...

This week, in math, we continued to build on our understanding of place value. The students have been excited to be challenged with decimal numbers. First, we discussed where we find decimal numbers and why they are important. We began with decimals to the tenths and then moved to the hundredths. We learned how to represent numbers in a variety of ways including standard form, written form, expanded form, in base ten and on number lines. Students then worked with a place value chart to develop their understanding. Following the lesson, they travelled around the room finding and solving math riddles involving decimal numbers. The clues to the riddles helped the students to review a variety of math vocabulary and skills including multiplication and division. The students then had the opportunity to create their own decimal riddles. Next week, we begin adding and subtracting decimal numbers Learning Outcomes: I can express decimal numbers in words, numerals, base ten and expanded form. I ...