Grade 4 Curriculum Newsletter September-December 2017

How can I develop my resiliency to grow, learn and contribute to a community?

Introduction: Students will be immersed using the Alberta Program of Studies curriculum and identified outcomes to investigate and engage in the overarching statement below. We will be reading The Hugging Tree by by Jill Neimark and using this text as a way to engage in rich, meaningful learning connected to resilience. The lime tree we will be taking care of in our classroom will also facilitate student interest and appreciation for resiliency. As we move towards the end of the term in December, students will be able to enter into conversation around the statement from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Overarching Statement: Students will explore how resiliency supports survival and success throughout all curricular areas. Our guiding question will be, How can I inspire and encourage resilience in others, and how will this contribute to my own resilience?

RESULTS:

Personal development:

● Students will engage in learning with confidence and persistence, by approaching new learning situations with positive expectations ● Demonstrate interest in and curiosity about ideas, objects, events and resources ● Work and collaborate effectively with others through communicating with others to build understanding Citizenship in learning:

● Demonstrates appreciation for individual and cultural differences. ● Students will demonstrate respect and appreciation for diversity by using diverse viewpoints in a learning context ● Show concern for the dignity and equality of all Character in learning: ● Treat others with respect and compassion ● Show respect for the contributions and achievements of others

Language Arts Through our classroom inquiry into resiliency through our questions, How can I inspire and encourage resilience in others, and how will this contribute to my own resilience?, students will enter into a deep exploration of how their expression of thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences can foster strength and resiliency in themselves and others. Students will explore a wide range of techniques to share their own stories, such as non-fiction writing including opinion and fact pieces, diary writing, picture prompt writing, visual journal responses and responding to our provocation book, The Hugging Tree by Jill Neimark.

Express ideas and develop understanding • compare new ideas, information and experiences to prior knowledge and experiences • ask questions, paraphrase and discuss to explore ideas and understand new concepts • share personal responses to explore and develop understanding of oral, print and other media texts Express preferences • select preferred forms from a variety of oral, print and other media texts Use Strategies and Cues Use prior knowledge • use ideas and concepts, developed through personal interests, experiences and discussion, to understand new ideas and information Use textual cues • distinguish differences in the structural elements of texts, such as letters and storybooks, to access and comprehend ideas and information Use references • use alphabetical order by first and second letter to locate information in reference materials • use junior dictionaries, spell-check functions and electronic dictionaries to confirm the spellings or locate the meanings of unfamiliar words in oral, print and other media texts Respond to Texts • identify and discuss favourite authors, topics and kinds of oral, print and other media texts • discuss a variety of oral, print or other media texts by the same author, illustrator, storyteller or filmmaker • retell events of stories in another form or medium Create Original Text Generate ideas • use a variety of strategies for generating and organizing ideas and experiences in oral, print and other media texts Elaborate on the expression of ideas • select and use visuals that enhance meaning of oral, print and other media texts Structure texts • produce oral, print and other media texts that follow a logical sequence, and demonstrate clear relationships between character and plot • produce narratives that describe experiences and reflect personal responses

Mathematics Students will engage in rich, meaningful problem solving tasks, connected to research and design. In the exploration of our overarching theme of resiliency, students will take on the design and management of the maintenance and growth of our classroom lime tree, as well as the management of waste in our classroom. While exploring and gaining a sense of Alberta’s land, students will consider issues such as land mass, population size, temperature and resource allocation. Students will access their developing number sense skills in order to achieve success in this work.

Number Sense ● Represent and describe whole numbers to 10 000, pictorially and symbolically. ● Compare and order numbers to 10 000 ● Demonstrate an understanding of addition of numbers with answers to 10 000 and their corresponding subtractions by: ○ Using personal strategies for adding and subtracting ○ Estimating sums and differences ○ Solving problems ● Apply the properties of 0 and 1 for multiplication and the property of 1 for division. ● Describe and apply mental math strategies such as: ○ Skip counting from a known fact ○ Using doubling or halving ○ Using doubling or halving and adding or subtracting one more ○ Using patterns in the 9 facts ○ Using repeated doubling ● Understand and apply strategies for multiplication and repeated division facts to 9X9 ● Recall multiplication and repeated division facts to 7X7

Patterns and Relations ● Identify and describe patterns found in tables and charts ● Represent, describe and extend patterns and relationships, using charts and tables, to solve problems

Science Students will engage in an authentic exploration of how the impact of waste in our world, and human response and initiative in managing waste, can impact our resiliency. Students will work to investigate and demonstrate purposeful action, and will work to determine how taking action can build resiliency.

Waste in Our World ● Students will recognize that human activity can lead to the production of wastes, and identify alternatives for the responsible use and disposal of materials ○ Focus: ■ Ask questions that lead to exploration and investigation ■ Identify one or more possible answers to questions by stating a prediction or hypothesis ○ Explore and investigate ■ Identify, with guidance, ways of finding answers to given questions ■ Work independently or with others to carry out the identified procedures ■ Identify, with guidance, sources of information and ideas and access information and ideas from those sources ○ Show curiosity ○ Inventiveness and willingness to consider new ideas ○ Willingness to work with others in shared activities ○ Respect for living things and environments and commitment for their care

Social Studies Students will investigate, through the lens of resiliency, the landscapes and environments of Alberta. The students will gain an increased understanding of the resiliency of both the land itself, and the people from the past and present who inhabit varied landscapes in their home province of Alberta. Students will delve deeply into how allocation of natural resources impacts resiliency. Students will immerse themselves in these communities through their use of maps, local and current affairs, and information sources such as the internet, libraries, books and experts.

Alberta: A Sense of the Land Students will demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of how elements of physical geography, climate and paleontology are integral to the landscapes and environment of Alberta. Value Alberta's physical geography and natural environment: • appreciate the diversity of elements pertaining to geography, climate, geology and paleontology in Alberta • appreciate the variety and abundance of natural resources in Alberta • appreciate the environmental significance of national and provincial parks and protected areas in Alberta appreciate how land sustains communities and quality of life Examine, critically, the physical geography of Alberta by exploring and reflecting upon the following questions and issues: Where is Alberta located in relation to the other provinces and territories of Canada? • What are the major geographical and natural vegetation regions, landforms and bodies of water in Alberta (e.g., prairie region, forests, rivers, hoodoos, Rocky Mountains, oil sands)? • What are the factors that determine climate in the diverse regions of Alberta (e.g., latitude, mountains)? • What are the significant natural resources in Alberta, and where are they located (e.g., mineral deposits, coal, natural gas and oil, forests)? • How are Alberta's provincial parks and protected areas and the national parks in Alberta important to the sustainability of Alberta's natural environment? Examine, critically, how geology and paleontology contribute to knowledge of Alberta's physical geography by exploring and reflecting upon the following questions and issues: • How did archeologists and paleontologists discover the presence of dinosaurs in Alberta? • What geological features make Alberta unique (e.g., hoodoos, Rocky Mountains, foothills, oil sands)? Analyze how Albertans interact with their environment by exploring and reflecting upon the following questions and issues: • In what ways do the physical geography and natural resources of a region determine the establishment of communities? • How are natural resources used by Albertans (i.e., agriculture, oil and natural gas, forests, coal)?

Social/Emotional: ● Students will continue to work on participating in social skills programming through teacher instruction, Alberta Program of Studies health curriculum, informal conversations and resources such as PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) designed to increase knowledge and enhance control and understanding of emotional states.

Assessment ● The teacher will utilize a variety of formative and summative assessment tools to assess student achievement. These may include but are not limited to: exit slips, teacher and student generated rubrics, standardized reading assessment and spelling tools, and anecdotal notes.