Student Writing Samples Coming Home Today

The student will be bringing home sample of a narrative today, as well as a sample of an appropriately written piece from another grade 4 student in New Brunswick.  The studenst were to write down the following instructions on their page, and we discussed the steps in class.

1.  Read your story to your parents (rough copy)

2.  Parents are to read "Butterfly Dancer" (photocopy)

3.  With your parents, compare both stories

4.  Directions will also be on the blog (and here they are)

First, I would like to draw you attention to the fact that the "Butterfly Dancer"  meets the expectations for the end of grade four.  We can use this example to help gauge the progress of each student, and make recommendations as we move forward with the lessons about writing.  With this piece of writing, there is a description of each of the 6 writing traits we are working on, and the rationale for "Butterfly Dancer being labeled "Appropriate".

In this assignment, student began with a comic strip to organize their ideas into a beginning, middle and end.  As well, they were instructed to create a problem and a solution.  From here, students used each block of the comic to generate paragraphs for a story with each paragraph focusing on only one block of the comic.  In some cases, students had to combine more than one block in a paragraph.

Students, with the exception of a couple, are bringing home a hand written rough copy.  This is a valuable piece of the writing process as it allows you to see the revisions and edits that may have been made.  If students were able to complete this process in due time, they were able to use Microsoft Word to publish it and/or an internet based program for publishing comics.

There have been numerous conferences with peers and the teacher during this writing process.  Students bringing this sample home is a continuation of this process since it is an opportunity to evaluate their own work.  Please return the signed writing samples, and on Monday the students will write in their journal about the home conference to record their thoughts.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Have a great weekend.

Mr. Carr

Friday Tests...

We will have our Spelling Test tomorrow, and we have also be having a multiplication test tomorrow as well.  The students have started learning about multiplication and about different ways to represent a multiplication equations using arrays and word problems.  Tomorrow, Students will have 3 minutes to answer 25 questions that have 3 as one of the factors.  Good Luck!

Healthy Snack

Every Tuesday at the beginning of our first recess we tally our healthy snacks in the classroom.  We did pretty well today, but there was some tough competition from the Halloween treats.  Congratulations to Mrs. Genge's grade three class, and to Mrs. O'Neill's Kindergarten Class to taking the October Healthy Eating Trophy.

See our Health Snack Guide by clicking here.

Announcements

UNICEF

During the days leading up to Halloween, we would like to encourage fund raising for UNICEF by having the following special activities/ days:

Tuesday, Oct. 25 - Colourful, Mismatched Socks Day

Wednesday, Oct. 26 – Halloween Face Day (no masks)

Thursday, Oct. 27 – Wild Hair Day

Friday, Oct. 28 – Crazy Hat Day

Monday, Oct. 31 – Black and Orange Day

Students will need to pay 50¢ to participate in each day’s event (total for all five events would be $2.50). We hope everyone will be able to take part in the activities.

It has been a busy start to the year for fundraising, but your support is greatly appreciated.  If you would like to take a more active roll in fundraising for UNICEF, pledge forms are available in the classroom upon request.

Students are encouraged, however, to bring in some spare pennies for our class penny drive.

Spelling Test on Thursday

before, into, I'm, off, our, reading, Social Studies, writing, gym, French

Student Blog Posts!

Our students have begun posting to the Class Blog!  Please check out the kind of Math we are doing in class by reading the post from our class reporter Jade.  Her post is one example of the kinds of word problems our students created today - see if someone in your house can explain how to solve it.  Great job today everyone!  One Last question for the day...Can you help Calvin out a little bit?

Book Orders Due Wednesday

A reminder: book orders are due Wednesday, September 14th. Part of the morning routine includes the students coming into the class and placing their communication folders on their desk with any contents taken out and placed on top. This helps facilitate efficient and effective communication. The orders will be submitted to Scholastic on Friday.

Lunch orders are due Friday, the 16th. The order forms were sent home on Monday so please contact me if you did not receive the order form or have misplaced it. No late orders can be accepted.

Thanks.

Mr. Carr