Explore In Grade Four With Mrs. Pols

Thank you to all the families who were able to join us for our assembly in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconcilation. The students put a great deal of effort into contributing their ideas in as we collaborated in preparing music, song actions, and speaking notes. They were so proud to share their learning with you. We hope the assembly highlighted the importance of reflecting on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and reminded us all that we can move forward together through reconciliACTION. In class, we connected our assembly to our work in Social Studies. This helped students deepen their understanding of history while building creativity in music. Last week, our “I can” statements were: I can reflect on the impact of colonization on Indigenous peoples. I can improvise, create, and play rhythm patterns to accompany songs and stories.

This week, our class has been busy preparing for our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation assembly. We’ve been learning about how Canada became a country and exploring the effects of colonization. Through reading different stories, students have gained insight into the impact of residential schools and how we can all work toward a better future through reconciliation. Looking ahead, our focus this year will be on connecting to the land. We’ll be observing clues in nature—such as animal behaviors and changes in vegetation—just as Indigenous cultures have done for generations to guide their lives. We are using the Cree Calendar book When the Trees Crackle with Cold to guide our learning. We hope that families will be able to join us in recognizing this learning at our Celebration on Thursday, September 25th. If you are happy to have photographs of your child shared on the blog or during our celebration, please remember to complete the online permission. Learning Outcomes: I can ref...

  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 a wild wolf who made an extraordinary journey. The students are learning to create sketch notes while they listen. Sketch notes are a creative way of taking notes that combine simple drawings, symbols, and key words to represent the main ideas and supporting details. This supports focus and helps develop an understanding of the story. By practicing sketch notes, your child is building important skills like active listening, identifying main ideas, and organizing information in a fun and visual way! 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 are looking for evidence from the text that shows how wolves grow and survive. Learning Outcomes: I ...

Welcome to our grade four class blog! We have had a fantastic first week 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. Throughout the week, the students reflected on the following Wellness I can 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 together to group this data into common categories before representing the information in a bar graph. Our focus in math was the learning outcomes: I can collect and interpret data. I can represent data in a bar graph. Below are some photographs from our week. ...