Global Day of Play

On Wednesday, February 3rd, room 4 participated in the Global Day of Play. The day was designed to let students have a day of simple play that was not structured by adults. Students were allowed to engage in activities of their choice throughout the day, with the only limitation being that no play was allowed using electronics.  Room four students participated in memory games, card games and imaginative play games as well as many activities that allowed them to showcase their creativity.

While inadvertently practicing many skills during these cooperative play activities, we also learned that a day of play was A LOT OF FUN!!

Marvellous Magnets!

We have worked on some fun and amazing activities this week in our study of Forces that Attract and Repel. We tested a strong magnet and discovered that we could attach 310 paperclips to the magnet before they started to drop off.

We also tried to see if we could "find" the iron in cereal. We used a cereal that contained 50% of our daily iron requirements. We ground the cereal and added water to it so that it looked like brown mush.

Then we dragged a strong magnet over the bag of cereal to see if we could attract the iron. Guess what? We did it! It was a very cool experiment!

Off To A Great Start In The New Year!

We have been very busy since coming back from our winter break!

Our class worked on a study of geometric solids with our sub Miss Peterson. Now we are working on addition and subtraction of double and triple-digit numbers. We also continue to work on daily problems solving. Sometimes that problem solving is in the form of a math story and a follow-up activity using the information from the story. Today we worked on "The Real Princess: A Mathemagical Tale".

We have started working on developing our skills as nonfiction readers and writers. We will be working on a mini research project about an animal native to Canada. We are learning how to change "book language" into our own words.

Today we created an art piece that uses magnets in a whimsical way! The students created a background scene and placed a moveable character within the scene. Please ask you child to show you their finished product.

The Buddy Bench

As you are probably aware, Linwood School has recently received a "buddy bench" as a gift from parent council and the Linwood 100th Anniversary Committee. This bench provides a place for students to go if they are looking for a friend to play with at recess. Ms. Versteeg chose room 4  to perform a song about friendship during the presentation.
Well done room 4!

Winter Concert Songs

With our winter concert fast approaching this week, Ms. Versteeg has sent us the lyrics to the songs our class will be performing. If your child would like to practice these songs at home, please click on the links below. We hope to see everyone Thursday evening for the Linwood Winter concert!


Hip Hop Reindeer Lyrics

North Star, North Pole North Pole Lyrics

What's New in Room 4?

We had a guest speaker visit our classroom in November to talk to us about what it is like to live with autism. We learned a lot of information about how we all have different feelings about different things in the world.

OFF TO THE RACES

Thank you to all families who were able to join us for parent conferences last week. The students were excited to show all of their hard work. These are photos from our "races" after we built our vehicles for our Science unit on Position and Motion.

Our "grand champion!"

Happy Halloween!

If you were unable to attend the costume parade this afternoon at Linwood School, here is a short video to show you both how lovely and ghoulish the students of room 4 were looking today!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!

The Integrated Arts and Adobe Voice

The students in room 4 have been very busy these past two weeks. We participated in an Integrated Arts workshop with visual artist Claudia Evans-Menard. We worked with some really cool painting techniques and supplies, including a type of paint called Interference Paint, which gave our work a neat, shimmering effect. Our class will be sharing their artwork with families at parent conferences.

We have recently begun using an app called "Adobe Voice" to create videos that will showcase our learning from the study of Our Community in Social Studies. The students are working independently in groups of two or three to create a video that highlights the important aspects of a community. As well as giving the students experience with creating and editing videos to include photos, icons and music, this activity has provided students an opportunity to develop cooperative group work skills with a focus on respectful decision making. The students are excited to share these videos at parent conferences.

Welcome Back!

We are coming to the close of our first month here in room 4, and the students have done a terrific job of demonstrating that they are a group of kind, caring, courteous individuals! We have been busy building our classroom community and getting to know one another better. Our new students have settled in, and our returning students have been very good role models for their peers.

Great start Room 4!! 

Here are pictures of the self-esteem portraits that the students made at the beginning of the month, celebrating our belief in ourselves.

Outdoor DaIly 5

Today we enjoyed the sunshine during outdoor daily 5!

Story On The Steps

Today we had a story read to us on the front steps of Linwood School. Our guest reader was our very own Mrs. McDonald. We learned that Mrs. McDonald does a very good "pirate" voice!

We have also been hard at work finding answers to our own "I wonder..." questions about Ancient Egypt. We are looking forward to sharing our journals with our families.

We've Been Busy in Room 4!

It has been quite a while since our last post, so here are a few highlights of some of the things that have been happening in Room 4!

We have completed a very successful unit on structures and materials in Science. I am always amazed by what the students know, and their creativity and critical thinking skills really shine when they are able to apply this knowledge to the design process!

      Building spaghetti and marshmallow structures

    Designing penny bridges and  learning to stabilize tubes

Popsicle stick bridges - focusing on strength and stability

We have also had guest readers come to Linwood to read to the students of Room 4 for "I Love to Read" week. Thank you to Nick Hernandez from the Winnipeg Goldeyes and Ace Burpee from Hot 103! We really enjoyed your stories! 

Room 4 is looking a little different these days:

We have recently begun working with Ian Mikita, a singer/songwriter/musician. Ian is teaching us how to "Beatbox" and rap. We will be using these skills to create a song to share with our families at our celebration of learning in June.