Exploring Grade 4 with Mrs. Colhoun

  Thank you to all the families who were able to join us for our assembly yesterday. The students put a lot of effort into preparing their music, song actions, and speaking notes, and they were 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 learning to meaningful goals. These 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. I can reflect on the impact of exploration and colonization. I can appreciate how Indigenous people possess an understanding of Earth Systems that sustain life, including the interconnectedness of all things.

  This week, our class focused on using sketchnotes in our visual journals. Sketchnotes combine simple drawings, symbols, and keywords to capture important ideas in a creative and memorable way. They help students listen carefully, make connections, and organize their thinking while also boosting recall. We practiced sketchnoting during our whole-class read-aloud of A Wolf Called Wander . Students used images and words together to highlight what stood out to them in the story, helping them understand the events more deeply and remember key details in a fun and personal way. I can examine elements of fictional texts, including main plots, characters, and points of view.  The work examples below are from students who wanted their work included on the blog.

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 curricula, we looked at the question, Our Class Should Be ... Every Day . 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. ...