Grade 4 Piet Mondrian Cartoon Art

I wanted to share some of the art that my Grade 4 students created last week. They did an incredible job, I am always blown away by what they can create. Especially when you give them the freedom to do so!

Here is the Success Criteria for this project:

Practice with VOWELS

It is important to create a variety of different ways to learn! I am currently working with a Grade 1 student who needs help recognizing long and short vowel sounds to improve her ability to decode words. She is a kinesthetic learner who loves to move around. She really enjoys making hand motions that are associated with each vowel. Here is what we have been doing:

Together we looked at different sounds that vowels make. For example, the letter A can make a short sound (ant) and a long sound (way). I have a list of words. I read one word out loud for her. I give her time to think about the word. She will make the hand motion that is associated with the vowel sound she hears. Then she writes the word under the correct vowel on this sheet. I ask her to circle the vowel in the word. Choose your list of words carefully. Use words that only have one vowel in them. For example, sand, tent, fun, hot, bat. 

Cootie Catcher: Study Tool

How can we make studying for a quiz fun and interactive! This is what we made in Grade 4 to study for our Science Check-in on Sound. We made cootie catchers. Each students made their own cootie catcher. Then they paired up and took turns asking each other questions. The Grade 4's really enjoyed this, and they even took them home with them to study. you can either create the template, like I did. Or you can have students make their own. This gets them thinking about what topics were most important in the unit!

Geoboard App: Transformational Geometry

Here is a great online Geoboard App that you can use with your Grade 4 students to practice creating and reproducing reflections and transformations. My students loved this App. Students worked in pairs, each pair with a Chromebook. When they created their reflection, they needed to draw it on paper as well. They handed in their work at the end of the period. This was an opportunity for me to see how much they understood reflections and what we needed to work on next. Using the real geoboards and elastics in a great way to practice making reflections, however in today's digital world, online geoboards are a great way to draw in the attention of young minds!

http://www.mathlearningcenter.org/web-apps/geoboard/

Fantastic Art Idea Integrating Grade 4 Math: Transofrmational Geomtery, Grids and Coordinates

Hello Everyone,

If you are looking for a cool way to integrate Art and Math, here is a project that can be done with your entire class. The grade 4's and I created a replica of Noval Morrisseau's 1980, "Warrior Pass Into Direction." He is a Canadian Ojibway artist painting myths and legends of the native peoples. Colour was very important to him. Each colour has a different meaning.

Each student gets a square of the painting. Each square has coordinates that will help us piece together all of the squares when we are finished. Students enlarged their the square onto their paper using pencil. When they completed their drawing, they used pastels to colour in and match the colours of his painting. Remember! Use light colours fist, followed by dark colours to avoid smudging.

When we put everything together, the final product was huge! We posted it in the school hallway for everyone to see. It really brightened up the hallway! Even though pastels can be messy, it was well worth it in the end! This took four 30 minute sessions to complete and students were truly engaged and WOWed by the final product.

Vocabulary Used: 
Elements of Design: line, shape, form, space, colour, texture, value.
Principles of Design: contrast, repetition, rhythm.
variety, proportion, balance, unity, harmony, movement, pattern, emphasis.

Oral Communication in Ontario

Fundamental to the Development of Literacy Education 

This infographic that I designed represents the key messages related to the Oral Communication strand of the Language Arts curriculum. Oral Communication is fundamental to the development of literacy education (Language Arts Curriculum, 2006). Real purposeful talk provides students with opportunities to understand ideas, explore concepts, discuss problem solving strategies, make connections, clarify, and organize thoughts. The process of oral communication is a combination of listening and talking. This ongoing process is illustrated in the top right corner of the infographic. The instructional strategies for oral communication are listed in order of the amount of teacher support provided for each strategy. Teachers explicitly teach and model skills students need to become proficient in literacy. Students learn through shared and guided practice. The teacher provides an array of opportunities to practice independently and demonstrate their achievement of the learning expectations. Independent practice is the goal of instruction. The skyline of the city reflects the idea that oral communication “skills are essential for social interaction at home, at school and in the community” (Language Arts Curriculum, 2006, p.9). In addition, listening and speaking skills are vital tools to help students understand what they are learning in other subjects. Math, science, social studies, and the arts are highlighted in my infographic as subjects that require students to communicate what they have learned as well as what needs clarification. My infographic describes differentiated instruction in the bottom left hand corner. Differentiation depends on the individual student, their experiences, perspectives and background knowledge. Visual supports, providing additional time and technology are ways to accommodate to individual needs. There are three body figures, each a different shade of blue. This reflects the idea that the level of challenge depends on each individual student. All students are different and require different needs to be successful. The magnifying glass represents the teacher’s responsibility to discover what works best for each of their students. Assessment of oral communication is depicted in the bottom right hand corner of the infographic. I have highlighted assessment opportunities for, as and of learning illustrating how they differ and why each of them are necessary in the learning process. In conclusion, the purpose of my infographic is to visually illustrate the importance of the Oral Communication strand and how the development of listening and speaking skills are fundamental to education.

Building Community in Your Classroom

Here is a great idea to build community in your classroom. Use one of the bulletin boards in your classroom...assign each student a CD disc envelope and staple all of them to the board. Students and teachers can write positives notes about each other. This is an excellent way to encourage students to think positively about each other and develop a respectful and supportive environment in your classroom. You can have your students write to each other about something they think another student in the class did well at during a lesson as an Exit ticket. Perhaps a student is having a bad day, you can write a note to that student showing your support. There are so many things you can do with this board. I would definitely recommend creating something like this in your classroom!