"Unpredictable" Learning

In math we learned that music is involved with math. We learned a song that reminds us about a line segment , a line and a ray. Next, the hailstone sequence. It's a sequence that you start with with a number: if it's even you divide it by two and if it's odd you multiply it by three and add one. It will always end with the number one. Also we learned that speed doesn't matter in math!

   
In language arts we learned what is writing territories. It's when we write a list of stuff that is on our mind lately. Also we learned how to interview a book and ordered our class library. We also talked about why people abandon books.

In the park we learned really unpredictable things. For example we learned teamwork in the tree by one hula-hoop getting stuck in a high tree! Everybody started throwing things on the tree. In the end we got three hula-hoops and one ball stuck. Then we got a long sunflower and took down two hula-hoops. Then one classmate started throwing somebody's water bottle and we got the ball down and two hula hoops but not the last one. 

In unit in PE we imagined everyone was on an island and we had two mats and 3 frisbees. We needed to cross to the other side of the gym without touching the floor. We did pretty well but we still are working on improving making a plan as a team. 

by Nora & Yigit

It's been another wonderful week together in grade 4L! We welcomed a new classmate and friend, Shourya, from the UK. 

Our highlights this week seemed to come in the form of unintended learning, which was a new concept for a lot of us. 

In Unit, we continued to work on the goals we set for ourselves:

• FULL team participation 
• Respect each team member
• Listen to everyone's ideas
• Make a plan BEFORE beginning a task

Though we were able to organise ourselves to create a plan before beginning our team challenge in PE, we struggled to give every member the opportunity to share their ideas before jumping into action. We rated our teamwork quite high at the end of the lesson, and then were very surprised when we watched ourselves on video! We then re-evaluated our teamwork using the rubric after seeing the lesson from a different perspective.

We continued to practise teamwork during the week as we worked in small groups to agree on ways to organise our classroom library and create a system for lunch helpers and cleaners. Both jobs took us much longer than we thought they would because it was difficult to get everyone to agree! We're learning daily about the importance of listening to other's ideas and ensuring that each member of our team/community feels valued. Our big learning was "We don't have to achieve our goal or win in order to have good teamwork!"

During our trip to the park this week with 4A, we played a game called "Chuck the Chicken Egg." We got some free play time. We didn't realise how much learning could come from a trip to the park!

In mathematics, we began our first unit of Everyday Math which is geometry. We investigated lines, line segments, points and rays. We even learned a song about them. Just ask- we LOVE to sing it and show the hand motions! We learned that singing often helps information "stick" in our brains, even when we didn't realise it was hidden there! We also discovered that two rays together make an angle. We constructed some different geometric shapes with straws and shared our thinking about these shapes. We also played "Addition Top It" to polish up our mental math skills. 

In reading this week, we learned to interview books by reading the back blurb, looking at the cover, reading some pages inside and getting a real feel for the book before deciding whether or not it's the right fit. We visited the library and interviewed as many books as we liked and even took a few home. We're working on building stamina by reading the same book at school and at home until it's complete. 

In writing, we created our "Writing Territories" page and talked about how good writing comes from our beliefs and experiences. We realised that good writers put the two together to create compositions we most enjoy reading. 

Last, but certainly not least, we got to take a trip to Cathedral Square to see the record breaking LEGO ship made by DFDS. It had over 1 million LEGOs! We even got popcorn, cotton candy and balloons! What a way to end the week!