To end our unit on Ma Famille, grade 4 students in Madame Sylvie’s class presented their family to the class “en français” with great pride. In addition to practicing the vocabulary learned in class, they showed their computer expertise and creativity. Creating their family tree entailed listening to a short Youtube video before attempting to follow the intricate steps on their own. The end results were quite impressive coming from such a young audience. Hearing them speak French when presenting their family tree projects made me incredibly proud of them. Félicitations les quatrième année – Madame Sylvie est fière de vous tous!

Upcoming Events:

• Generations Day – Monday, May 15th
• Oren’s dress down day on Wednesday, May 17th – Wear something ‘ crazy’
• Menchies are being served on Mondays and Wednesdays after school. $4 per cup and all money raised goes towards the grade 8 grad trip.
• No school Monday, May 22nd for Victoria Day
• N0 School Friday, May 26th for Shavout.

Homework:

• Practice your speech, using Verbal and nonverbal cues. Please see the homework board for Ms.M’s Slides.

What’s happening in Grade 4:

We had a great night out for Grades 4/5 night at Fun Haven. I managed to get one snap before Lazer tag!

We have started self-directed science. Please my blog post to find out more about the whys and hows surrounding student choices in curriculum planning! Here are some snaps of students working on their projects:

Alongside their self-directed learning, there are teacher-led lessons. We ventured outdoors to collect, classify and test the rocks and minerals we found on the school grounds.

We also have students bringing their rock collections to class. This is a wonderful extension of their learning. This week we have Mr.S and Mr. G showcase:

Memorial Days in our class

In the last two weeks, we had important and significant commemorative events.

On Holocaust Day – students shared a little about their family memories at that time. And thanks and appreciation to Ari and Emma for bringing their family story to the class, writing it and presenting it to the class! Thank you very much for sharing these sad and important stories.

On the day of remembrance of fallen Israeli soldiers – we learned about a soldier – named Amit who was killed in one of the battles. We learned about his features and created a micrograph from his name and character traits.

Hello Grade 4 and Grade 4 families,

I know this event is a big one in terms of the Grade 4 journey into Public Speaking! When I say big, I mean BIG EMOTIONAL responses to it! For some public speaking sparks excitement, apprehension, butterflies-in-the-stomach, for others dread, terror, sick-to-the-stomach and the final group… complete indifference! With this in mind and as per Ms Gordon’s email, we are switching the format to relieve some of the pressure on Grade 4 students. Students will write their speech and present in class to their peers. I will mark it and then the top three marks in each class will be awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. At a later date they will present to the Grade 3 class.

What can you do at home to help?

Most of the written work will be completed in class. Each student has received a planning pack to chunk down the planning with sentence starters and key vocabulary. We use the PEEL paragraph structure to build our points with evidence and students will be typing their essays on Google Docs so feel free to take a peak!

I will be encouraging students to present at home to practise their verbal and non verbal speaking skills. Here is some resources you could use at home:

HELLO…. TESTING… 1, 2 TESTING…. IS THIS THING ON?! Grade 4 are about to embark on the creation of a book podcast! Students begin to get ready for Grade 5 with a ‘Book Club’ unit where they read a book with a group of students and come together and discuss the book. This year instead of just sitting around a table and doing a reflection task each week, they will be recording 4 episodes talking about their book! Books from authors such as Lemony Snicket, Louis Sachar, Kate DiCamillo, Jacqueline Davies and more! I find that the concept of Book Club novel studies allow for greater book exposure and resulted in students choosing other book choices after the book club finishes! You will notice that the books are purposefully shorter chapter books as the focus is on more than just reading skills. We are developing both oral communication discussions and media literacy!

Each week, students take on a new ‘role’ such as a discussion director or story mapper or investigator (See my guideline slides below for more info about these roles!) and they need to bring their questions, connections, thoughts to the Podcast table.

Watch this space for our Grade 4 Book Podcasts which will be displayed and available to listen to in the Library and on our Grade 4 blog main page.

A reminder about the grade 4 Model Seder :

Dear Parents,

This year Kitah Daled will be having a Model Seder 

on Monday, April 3rd at 2:25

For the day of our Model Seder each student is to bring to school the following items (in addition to snack/lunch):

• 1 Hard boiled egg (peeled and wrapped please) 
• 1 or 2 small celery sticks
• 1 Leaf of romaine lettuce

The remainder of the Seder ingredients, such as egg matzah, horseradish, NUT-FREE charoset, and grape juice, will be provided. 

We also ask that each student come to school dressed in holiday clothing. If they wish to change out of their nice clothing, they are welcome to bring their uniform.

Have a wonderful Pesach Holiday! 

Sincerely,

Grade 4 team.

אוֹצָר מִלִּים דֶּרֶךְ

Learning a new language is always an exciting experience; our latest unit focused on the Hebrew word “דֶּרֶךְ” or road. This unit introduced new vocabulary related to the streets and traffic, including words like “רְחוֹב” – street,  “כְּבִישׁ” – for road, and “רַמְזוֹר” – traffic light. They also learned words like “מֻתָּר”- do it, and “אָסוּר”=don’t do it.

At the end of the unit, The students needed to make advertisements in Hebrew by using the words they had learned during this unit.

The results were impressive. The students used their new vocabulary, and creativity, to design posters and flyers that conveyed vital messages about road safety. One poster featured a red traffic light with the words “אָסוּר לַעֲבֹר” = do not cross written in bold letters. Another poster showed a picture of a pedestrian and a car with the phrase “עֲצֹר עֲבוּר הוֹלֵךְ רֶגֶל”=  stop for pedestrians, written in clear Hebrew letters.

Learning a new language is more than just memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules. These advertisements were a testament to the student’s language learning progress but also their understanding of the importance of road safety.

In conclusion, the “דֶּרֶךְ” unit was an enriching educational experience for the students. They learned new Hebrew vocabulary related to road safety, allowing them to express their creativity by designing their advertisements.

Here are some examples:

Bernie

Ethan

Asher

Nathan+Ari

Eloise+lyla+sam

Maia+Emma

Morha Dana

Please see the attached image with what your child needs to wear for the Franco-fête evening on Thursday, March 23rd 2022.

honour of Tu Bisvhat we had the grade 4 make a “giving tree” book and gift it to the jk students. It was so beautiful to see them reading together in both Hebrew and English .

They are creating strong relationships while learning together