Lochside Division 16

Welcome to our class website!

This site is meant to serve as a window into our classroom as well as provide students with resources and supplementary learning materials.   

The Extra Resources page contains many wonderful resource links available through both the Saanich school district or government of BC websites.

Please use this website along with classroom emails to stay informed during the school year!

Oct. 23

It’s been a busy and creative week in our Grade 4/5 classroom!

Paragraph of the Week:
Students have been working through the full writing process as they developed their Paragraph of the Week. We began by brainstorming ideas, then moved on to adding supporting details and explanations. Next, students focused on crafting strong topic and closing sentences. Finally, they put everything together into a complete, well-organized paragraph with smooth transitions. This step-by-step process is helping students build confidence and independence as writers.

Triple Scoop Words:
To expand our vocabulary, students have been creating Triple Scoop Words—groups of synonyms that help make their writing more descriptive and precise. This activity encourages students to choose “juicier” words instead of simple ones. You can see examples of their creative word collections below.

October/Halloween Silhouette Art:
In art, students created striking Halloween silhouette pieces using colour blending and contrast. These seasonal artworks are visible here as well—be sure to take a look to see the spooky creativity on display!

Thank you for your continued support at home. We’re excited to keep learning, writing, and creating as we move through the fall season!

Oct. 17

To start, I’d like to introduce our wonderful class rep, Lindsay Holland! I’m very grateful to Lindsay for taking on this role to help with organizing volunteers, sharing information about upcoming events, and more. Lindsay would like to create a class contact list to stay in touch with families by email. If you’d like to be included, please send her a short message with your name, your child’s name, and the email address you’d like her to use. Please note that your contact information will not be shared with others and will only be used to communicate class news and updates directly with you.  

Although the week was short, it was crammed with a lot of learning! In literacy, we worked on brainstorming and topic sentences before moving onto vocabulary development.  Students worked on the idea of turning a basic word into a Triple Scoop word to make it more engaging to the reader.   Next week students will brainstorm, draft and revise entire paragraphs as we focus on organization.

Students also had a great lesson on researching, paraphrasing and citing work from World Book Kids with myself and Ms. Molloy in the learning commons.  These are great and important skills as students move towards research projects that will occur later in the year.  Ms. Molloy has also given students a number of lessons on internet safety, the latest being the importance of checking your sources to ensure that information is from a good source.

Some other highlights include:

*Our first spelling quiz.  Please remember to check agendas to help your child prepare and complete homework.

*Class lesson on Diwali and Diya painting check out the class website for pictures!

*Place value in grade 4 math.  Students learned about representing numbers in the expanded form or with base ten blocks

*Completing our Raccoon art

*Making Rangoli's with found materials outside with our buddy class

*Learning about our upcoming field trip to the Center of the Universe Observatory!  Our class has been learning how Earth’s axis, rotation, and orbit create local changes such as day and night and the seasons. We’ve also explored how the relative positions of the sun, moon, and Earth cause phenomena like tides and moon phases. The field trip will take place on Oct. 29 and will be a great opportunity for students to complete the unit with a real world experience.

Oct. 10

It was wonderful to have a full week of learning in Division 16!

In writing, we continued our paragraph unit with a focus on topic sentences. Students explored different ways to open a paragraph, learning that list statements and number words are both strong options. We also discussed how effective topic sentences grab the reader’s attention and set the stage for the rest of the paragraph.

In science, students have been working hard to understand local changes caused by the Earth’s axis, rotation, and orbit. Our most recent lesson explored the effects of the moon—and to a lesser extent, the sun—on Earth’s tides, including lunar, solar, diurnal, and semi-diurnal tides. We were especially fascinated to learn why the Bay of Fundy experiences such unusually large tides due to a combination of unique geographical conditions.

Other highlights from the week include:

• Continuing our new spelling unit (booklets are due Tuesday!)

• Exploring place value in Grade 4 math

• Playing soccer in gym, with a focus on game skills and strategies

• Creating raccoon art (ask your child to tell you more!)

• Working on a fun STEM challenge, building unique structures with pipe cleaners and straws

Please note that Monday, October 13 is a holiday, and there will be no school in session.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support!

P.S. I’ve truly appreciated your engagement with the Book of Thoughts. The responses to your child’s letters has been so encouraging—it really reinforces that learning is a shared experience between home and school.

Sept. 26

I hope this message finds you well!  Students have started a unit on paragraph writing by working on a colour coding activity.  We've discussed how paragraphs are organized; containing topic sentences, details/explanations, and finished with a closing sentence.  Students worked in groups to make their own paragraphs as well.  The class has also started working on an art project in the style of Ted Harrison.  These are looking wonderful with each child adding their own person touches to make them unique.  This art will be used for the Card Project.  Stay tuned to find out more about this!

Another big event this week was our first trail walk.  We started by discussing safety considerations and appropriate behaviour before setting off.  It was great to get some fresh air, discuss some of the seasonal changes and make observations in the community.

Some other highlights of the week include:

*Playing Numbers in soccer.  Ask your child to explain the game!

*Finishing up the Terry Fox booklets (Almost all are finished:)

*Spelling.  Thank you to everyone who helped their child complete their spelling homework!

*Making nature art with our little buddies

Sept. 19

I want to start by saying how nice it was to see everyone who was able to make it to our open house yesterday! It was a great opportunity to connect, share what we’ve been working on, and learn a little more about what makes your child unique. 

We're off to a great start on a number of our units.  Students started a spelling booklet this week and continued working on sentence writing.  We will be moving onto paragraphs next while learning about topic sentences, supporting details, and closing sentences.  We've also worked on some mapping and lessons related to Terry Fox in social studies which was capped off with our run today.

Another big event of the week was our bike lessons with Capital City bikes.  Our presenter, Nicholas, did a great job of explaining and demonstrating skills and safety tips.  Students worked on signalling, shoulder checking and understanding a number of road signs.  Ask your child if they can remember the ABC quick check of their bike or the 2 V 2 check of their helmet!

Some other highlights of the week include:

*Soccer skills in gym.  We worked on passing with a game called bumpers

*Meeting our Buddy class and making friendship bracelets

*Starting Mathletics in Math **Please check your child's To Do list this weekend to ensure that they are up to date.  These activities supplement what we do in class and are considered home work.

*Making "word Art" during our Tech time with Mrs. Molloy

Have a great weekend!

P.S. A reminder that Monday, Sept., 22, is a non-instructional day.  No school for students.

Sept. 12

What an awesome first full week of the new school year we've had!  It was great to look over our sticker survey to see some of the things that makes this group of learners unique.  You can check these out below!

Students have started units in a number of subject areas and taken the time to organize supplies and set up learning booklets.  We've had great discussions and completed activities about our class beliefs and expectations that will carry on through our entire school year.  As you've probably already heard, grade 5 math will be taught by Mr. O'Connor and I will be teaching the grade 4's from both of our classes.  Both classes have completed a "Math About Me" activity as an initial task.  Grade 4 students will be working on patterns and place value as our first unit.

Students have also completed self-portraits in the style of Amedeo Modiglianni.  These are on display in the class but I've also uploaded them onto our class website for you to check out.  See if you can spot your child and ask them about this style of art!  Also, please remember to bookmark our class website.

In Literacy students have received their reading logs and are starting to record each morning reading time.  We've discussed the importance of a quick morning transition and how that translates into more reading time.  We've also started a unit on sentences.  Ask your child if they can tell you what a subject, predicate and verb are and why they are important in sentences.

Some other highlights of the week include:

*Starting a soccer unit in gym

*Beginning our new read aloud book

*Completing Summer re"CAP" activity.

*Starting a mapping activity in social studies

*Participating in a library orientation.  Students can start signing out books next week!

*Setting up and writing in The Book of Thoughts.  These should be in your child's backpack and are ready for you to read.  There is a description of the activity on the inside cover which includes very important information for you.  In a nutshell, this is an opportunity for your child to share some highlights from the week in the form of a letter.  This is not a time to discuss spelling accuracy or punctuation and grammar.  We have plenty of other opportunities to practice these skills in the classroom.