Explore In Grade Four With Mrs. Pols

T oday was truly a Canadian morning! Our Grade 4 students spent time with their Grade 2 buddies to watch Canada’s exciting win against Finland. The room was full of cheers, smiles, and shared excitement as students celebrated together. After the game, both classes had the opportunity to share narrative writing they had been working on. It was wonderful to see students proudly read their stories and listen to their buddies’ ideas. These moments help build confidence, strengthen literacy skills, and foster a deeper sense of community between our buddy classes. In math, students have been working on adding and subtracting decimal numbers to the hundredths and thousandths. They are learning to carefully align decimal points, use regrouping strategies, and verify their answers for accuracy using rounding—important skills that support their overall number sense. It was a special day filled with Canadian pride, meaningful connections, and learning.  Buddies and hockey—it doesn’t get much ...

This week in Grade Four, we wrapped up our work inspired by the book The Barnabus Project . What began as a story about unique and unusual creatures quickly turned into a creative and scientific adventure of our own. Students began by designing their very own original critter. They carefully thought about what their creature would look like and how its body parts would help it survive. From sharp teeth designed for tearing food, to large eyes for spotting danger, to strong legs for climbing or escaping predators, students explored how structure and function work together. Using what we’ve been learning in Science about animal adaptations, they wrote detailed descriptive paragraphs explaining how their critter’s physical features supported its survival in its environment. We then stepped into the role of scientists. Instead of simply describing our critters, students wrote field notes as if they were observing them in their natural habitats. They carefully recorded behaviours, movemen...

In Science, our Grade 4 class has begun learning about the Earth’s spheres and how they are all connected. We are discovering that changes in one part of Earth can cause changes in many other parts as well! To begin our learning, we watched the video How the Wolves Changed the Water . This video helped us see how one animal can have a big impact on the land, plants, water, and even rivers. We talked about how wolves affected the biosphere , geosphere , and hydrosphere , and how everything worked together as a system. This helped us understand that Earth’s spheres do not work alone—they are connected. Next, we shifted our thinking to humans and discussed how people can also impact Earth’s spheres. We shared ideas about how human actions can change the land, air, water, plants, and animals. This led us into conversations about climate change and how changes in temperature can affect living things and environments around the world. To deepen our understanding, we began reading the ...

This week, we began learning about area ! The students learned that area is the amount of space inside a shape, exploring this idea using hands-on materials and visual models. To start, students measured area by using square units and tiling . They covered shapes completely with squares and counted how many squares were needed to fill the space. This helped students understand that area is measured in square units and that there should be no gaps or overlaps when measuring. Students compared different shapes and discovered that shapes can have the same area even if they look very different. Using tiles allowed students to explain their thinking and see how area stays the same even when shapes are rearranged. Next, we will connect this concrete learning to a more efficient strategy by introducing the formula base × height for finding the area of rectangles. This will help students move from counting individual squares to using multiplication as a faster and more accurate way to c...

Our zoo field trip on Monday was a huge success, and we were lucky to have perfect weather for the day! Students had a great time touring the zoo and learning more about animals in real-life habitats. One of the highlights was examining owl pellets, which was a fun and engaging way to wrap up our learning about animals. This activity helped students apply what we’ve been studying in class about animals’ sensory organs and special structures, and how these features help them survive. Students were able to make strong connections between their classroom learning and what they observed during the trip, making the experience both exciting and meaningful. We are now moving on to our next science unit on Earth’s spheres. In this unit, students will learn about how the Earth’s different spheres work together to support various environments, as well as the plants and animals that live within them. A big thank you to our wonderful parent volunteers who helped make the day run so smoothly — y...

  Our Grade 4 students are beginning a creative writing project inspired by the picture book . This story helped us talk about big ideas like belonging, kindness, and how being different can be a good thing. Students connected with Barnabus and his journey, and it encouraged them to think about what it really means to be “perfect.” Using the book as inspiration, students are creating and writing about their own . Each student is designing a made-up creature that may look unusual or have surprising features, but is special in its own way. Just like Barnabus, these pets might not be perfect, but they are lovable and important. In their writing, students are describing their pet’s body parts and explaining how they move and what they help the creature do. They are also choosing strong describing words to show the pet’s personality. Next week, the students will work to write their ideas into clear, organized paragraphs, adding details so their reader can really picture their creature. ...