Hello.

REMINDER: We'll be having our classroom spelling bee on Wednesday. The winners from grades 3 and 4 will then participate in the finals with the other winners from the other grade 3 and 4 classes. If your child is participating, remind them to brush up and practice! :)

In math we began wrapping up the year by reviewing what we've been learning. One way we did this was with math games that asked up to think critically about mathematics. This pulled in our number sense as well as our capabilities with recalling basic facts.

We played a game called magic square. Each row of the square has to add up to the same number and only certain numbers are allowed. We used this as a launch pad to talk about balancing numbers, for example as in a budget.

via GIPHY

If your child did not get to do the problem below, why not try playing it with them this weekend?

We discussed how memorization of basic facts, though important, was not truly what math was about. We discussed how much of what we've learned needs to be applied to specific situations. We discussed how arithmetic is not all there is to mathematics. Computational competency is not the goal of math learning; rather, computational competency is a tool to use toward deeper math and problem solving. The calculation is actually the smallest and final step of a math problem, with most of the brain power going into the problem solving itself, deciding what calculation needs to be performed.

In science, we used the computers each day to research and write about an animal. Each group got to choose their own animal and then research it as we had been doing all year in our Field Guides. They are now working on a Google Slide presentation that discusses the description, life-cycle, and adaptations of their animal.

Did you know the pangolin is the most trafficked animal on earth and that its scales are actually made of keratin, the same material that makes up human hair and nails?



We also did some tidying up, cleaning bookshelves, and generally wrapping things up.

We also finished our final classroom read, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We complimented each day's reading with a 5 minute viewing of the comparable scene from the three film versions (BBC's live action tv mini-series from the 80s, the animated film from the 80s, and the 2005 big budget blockbuster). We then discussed the similarities and differences between the book and films and why these differences existed, critically examining the differences between text and film.