Exploring Grade 4 with Mrs. Colhoun

This week, students explored how Indigenous communities in Alberta use the land, weather, animals, and seasonal changes to understand time. We read The Trees Crackle with Cold and discussed how winter can be understood through sound, light, movement, and signs in nature. Students then visited our outdoor learning area to make their own observations—listening, looking, and noticing clues about the season. This learning supports our school’s commitment to Truth and Reconciliation by helping students appreciate Indigenous ways of knowing and strengthening their connection to the land.

This week, students have been learning about how Canada became a country by exploring different perspectives from the past. Using loose parts, students worked in groups to build models that represented the wants, concerns, and viewpoints of French settlers, British officials, Indigenous Nations, and British merchants. After building, a photo was taken of their creations, and they reflected on what each part represented and why. This activity helped them think deeply about how different groups experienced historical events and how those perspectives influenced the development of early Canada. I can demonstrate an understanding of how Canada became a country by reflecting on various events from the past.

Our Grade 4 students have begun an exciting new research project! Last week, we modeled the full process together as a class—reading a nonfiction text about wolves, taking clear point-form notes, and planning and writing a well-organized paragraph. Students are now moving into independent practice, applying these skills to research an animal of their choice. As they read, students are working toward the outcomes: “discuss a variety of facts expressed in nonfiction text and explain how animals use their senses to respond to their environments.”   You’ll see them exploring how different animals use sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing to survive and meet their needs. Students will be proud to share their work with you during conferences at the end of the month. You’ll be able to see their note-taking, planning, and writing progress firsthand. We’re excited to see the creativity and curiosity coming through in their research!

Over the past week, the students have been very engaged in The Case of the Greedy Gnome! This exciting math mystery has the students practicing their addition and subtraction skills and applying their knowledge of graphing to solve the mystery of which gnome stole food from the supply room. First, the students identified key information in the graphs and questions, highlighting necessary information. Then, they interpreted different types of graphs with differing scales, including bar graphs, line plots, pictographs, and pie charts. After doing this, they answered the questions and eliminated suspects to identify the guilty gnome. We are very excited to solve our final clue next week to finally reveal the identity of the greedy gnome!  Learning Outcomes: I can interpret data represented in various forms, including pictographs, bar graphs, and dot plots. I can understand the use of scale to share data in different graphs.