Learning about Animals

An important part of our science unit has been learning about the animals that live in certain habitats. In a few weeks, you are going to have the chance to research your own animals and write a report about them. Here is a great website that will get you thinking about animals and their characteristics. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/bottlenose-dolphin/

Many students use diaries and journals at home to practice writing. Imagine creating your own newspaper, flyer, or brochure on your computer? This website is a fabulous alternative to the traditional pen/paper writing at home and it allows you to create such things! Try making your own newspaper!!

http://interactives.mped.org/view_interactive.aspx?id=110&title=:

Multiplication is Coming!

Hello students! As you know we have been learning about patterning in math. Patterning can be found in everything from art work to clothing. Did you know that patterning is also an important feature in multiplication? If you have a good understanding of patterning you will most likely have a good understanding of multiplication. Take your time and work on memorizing the patterns of each number. Use the multiplication table posted above to help you in your goal!

2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20

3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30

4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50

6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60

Here are a few great websites for you to work on for math.

http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/cracker.cgi?A1=s&A2=1&INSTRUCTS=1

http://www.coolmath4kids.com/times-tables/index.html

The Food Chain

It has been interesting to learn about habitats for our science lesson. What is even more interesting to know about is food chains! Think about where your dinner comes from. If you are having a hamburger for dinner tonight...think about the chain that is involved. Hamburgers come from cows which in turn eat grass. That same grass gets its food from the sun! That is just the meat part...imagine the bun, tomatoes, and pickles! Here is a great website that will give you practice on working with food chains.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/games/foodchaingame.htm

What happens when you introduce a species of animal to a new habitat? Think about our reading today on St. Matthew's Island. What happened when reindeer were introduced to the island? What did that do to other animals such as voles and arctic foxes that also lived on the island? What about the lichen or plant life that lived on the island?

If you would like to refresh your knowledge of patterns....please check out this website! It goes over a lot of the material that we talked about in class.

http://www.linkslearning.org/Kids/1_Math/2_Illustrated_Lessons/5_Patterns/index.html

Tessellations

Hey students! It was great to see everyone today. Tessellations are everywhere an it was awesome to see all of the great designs that you came up with for math. Take a look around your home, do you see any tiles? Here is a website dedicated to younger students about tessellations. It is a good reference to see how tesselations work.
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http://www.pbs.org/parents/earlymath/grades_games_tess.html

Also be sure to check out this math game that deals with growing patterns! See if you can figure out what the rule is!

http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/linda/algebra/activities/pattern_grow/pattern_farm.html

Pink Shirt Day

We are back up and running! Thank you for your patience.

Just a few quick reminders for this week...

Thursday is Pink Shirt Day! Wear a pink shirt to support the message of anti-bullying at our school. This is an important issue and we should all be aware!

Report Cards go home today and interviews will take place on Thursday and Friday of this week.

Our Book Fair will be open on Thursday and Friday for you to purchase books! There are fabulous titles to be discovered!

Here is a great website for you to learn more about habitats! This website allows you to create a habitat to save an endangered specie! http://www.arkive.org/education/games/design-a-habitat

That is all for now!

Math Tricks

Here are a few cool math tricks that you can try out at home! They will help you with mental math and skills such as addition and subtraction.

The Dice Trick

Take 5 dice and roll them onto a surface. Tell your friend that you have an amazing power to read through dice. While you are using your amazing powers to read through the dice, secretly add all of the dice numbers up. Then subtract that number from 35. Yell the number out loud!Flip the bottom of dice up and then have your friend add those numbers up...and if it works correctly...it will be the number that you yelled out loud!

Magic Addition

This is a really strange trick that uses addition and subtraction. Here is what you do.

Ask a friend to write down any four digit number, but it cannot end in a 1.

Let's say they picked 5385.

Write that number on top of a paper and tell them that you will have the answer for their math question before even knowing what to write down. Put a 2 in front of the number they picked and write down the first three numbers (2538). Now the last number you have to always subtract by 2. So the last number is a 5 and 5-2 is 3. The answer to the question will be 25383.

This is what your paper should look like

5385

________

25383

Now ask your friend to pick another four digit number. Let's say they pick 2564. Subtract each number by 9. (9-2=7, 9-5=4, 9-6=3, 9-4=5). You will write your answer for each question underneath their number. This is what your paper will look like now.

5385

2564

7435

________

25383

Now repeat the same step as before. Your friend will pick another number and you will subtract through that number. Lets say they pick 3432. Subtract each number by 9. (9-3=6, 9-4=5, 9-3=6, 9-2=7). This is what your paper will look like now.

5385

2564

7435

3432

6567

______

25383

If you have done your work correctly it should add up!!

Habitats and Geoboards

Now that is a pretty strange blog title! Here is a great website to read about some of your favourite animals and to watch cool videos http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/. Think about the unique ways that animals have adapted to survive in their habitat.

There are two websites that I want to share with you for math. The first website is based on the math lesson from today's class. We used geoboards to practice our skills using perimeter and area. Here is the website that I used http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_172_g_2_t_3.html . Here is another great website to practice your math skills while having fun at the same time!! This website was created by the University of Waterloo http://cemc2.math.uwaterloo.ca/mathFROG/english/kidz/Games4.shtml .

Important Items: Interview Forms, Math Quiz on Friday, Math Club Tomorrow

Awesome Websites

Hello students!! You have all worked really hard this week in school. Relax and have a wonderful weekend. Happy Eid to my students who are celebrating this special occasion this weekend!

I wanted to post the student link website that we use in school. This website has lots of great links for the subject areas that interest you most!

http://www.board.hwdsb.on.ca/infotech/stulink2/grade_4.htm

See you on Monday!!

Reading Goals

Congratulations Grade 4 students on your Reading Goals this month! You have read just over 12,500 pages. Our goal for next month is to read 13,000 pages! Some of you forgot your forms and duotangs back in the classroom. Be sure to take them home tomorrow.

Here is a pretty cool spy game that deals with reading and comprehension. Let's see if you can put the clues together...

http://www.discip.ac-caen.fr/anglais/documents/cottenceau/Spywatch/lar/index.htm

Perimeter and Area

Students...I am so happy that your homework books have finally arrived!! It has been a long wait, but I know that they will be useful tools for you. Feel free to write inside the books as they now belong to you!!! Just don't lose them!

Just a quick reminder about perimeter and area.

Perimeter is used when you want to find the distance around an object.

Let's take this triangle for example...

I would add up all of the sides of the triangle. (11+9+5=25 cm). The perimeter of this triangle is 25 cm.

Sometimes you run into strange rectangles that look like this...

You have two missing sides that you need to count. The missing sides have to equal what its corresponding side is if its a perfect rectangle. So the missing sides are 8 cm and 3 cm. Add up all of the numbers together (8 + 8 + 3 + 3 = 22 cm). The perimeter is 22 cm.

Area is the number of square units that fit inside a shape. Remember finding out how many cubes could fit on the surface of your desk? Sometimes you have small rectangles that you can easily fill up with cm cubes. Sometimes you have bigger rectangles that it will take a long time to fill up with cm cubes. With big rectangles we multiply (length x width) to figure out how many square units will fit inside.

In this rectangle, the length is 8 cm and the width is 3 cm. I know that 8 x 3 = 24. Therefore 24 cm squared is the area of this rectangle.

Here is a website that will provide additonal practice if you want to extend your skills.

http://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/toc_vol1.html

Mapping

Creating your own city would be a lot of fun! Think about all of the wonderful things that your city might have....an amusement park, a forest, and maybe even some shopping malls. In real life, when people are planning buildings and cities they use measurement. Area is one tool that a good measurer uses.

Check out Google Maps to gain an appreciation of how cities and towns are built. What are some of the common features all cities and towns have?

http://maps.google.ca/

Reminders:

Math Quiz Tomorrow, Reading Goals are Due, and Photo Retake is on November 4th