Learning Updates

Dear Families,

Thanks for a great 2010. I look forward to all the work ahead with your students and you in 2011.

We've had a very busy final week of school before the break. Here are a few highlights:

Science/Social Studies

• We finished our studies of the different types of water erosion
• Students took two separate land & water assessments
• Began studying Lewis & Clark, within the context of exploration
• Steve Taylor made an entertaining, humorous, and educational presentation about Lewis & Clark. Thank you for your support in making this enrichment activity possible!

Steve Taylor's Lewis & Clark presentation involved talking puppets, magic, jokes, and audience participation!

 Math

• Learned a new algorithm (partial products) that is helpful conceptually in developing your child's understanding of the place value that occurs in multiplication
• Combines our work lately with a game called multiplication wrestling with extended multiplication facts, and estimating with large numbers--ask your child to explain these three things and how they connect in the partial products algorithm
• Will learn lattice algorithm for multiplication method Friday--this one is a favorite of students!

Writing

• Students typed their clean copies & brought to school on USB stick or emailed them
• I scanned their images in, & students imported/compressed them in MS Word
• They saved the files as PDFs for our blog
• We had an Author Chair Celebration--see separate post below!

Reading

• Read Leah's Pony--a story about the dust bowl of the 1930s. Ask your student how the story connected with our land/water studies
• Read about exploration broadly, and then more specifically with regard to Lewis & Clark, and exploration of Washington State
• Mrs. Lederman read a story to our class
• Started Mountain Language word work program
• Read Aloud--Where the Red Fern Grows--we made some more progress. Ask your student what Billy's great challenge has been lately. How does the author stretch small moments? 

Choir Concert. Choir students performed some great jazz numbers on Thursday!

Author's Chair 12/15

Our second Author's Chair Celebration was a great success! We started by having a couple students share their small moments personal narrative pieces with the whole class. Ask your student what we did instead of applauding after each piece. Then students broke in to four smaller groups around the room and the sharing continued. We had some treats and a toast to all our hard work with some bubbly apple cider. Finally, students put their pieces on their desks and went to sit at others' desks. They quietly read through other students' stories and provided positive feedback on notecards. We even had a couple visitors--our Principal, Mrs. Otley and Program Assistant, Mrs. Lederman.

Click to view all of the students' stories electronically!

View pictures of the author's chair event. Thanks very much to Michelle Enebo for taking these great shots and sharing them with us!

Lewis & Clark

This morning we were visited by Steve Taylor and his friends Rudy (Sacagawea) and Rocky. Thank you parents for this terrific enrichment learning opportunity. We loved it!


In your blog post, please respond to the following questions.

1. What were two of the challenges that Lewis and Clark faced on their journey?
2. How do we know so much about a journey that occurred over 200 years ago?
3. Name 2-3 ways that Sacagawea helped Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery.
4. What was you favorite part of the presentation? Why?

Learning Updates

We had a great week packed with learning!

A major highlight for the class was Market Day. It was a great success! Thank you for all your support at home in preparing for this experience! Click here to view some great photos of Market Day. Thanks to Michelle Enebo for taking/sharing these!

Students observe the effects of water flow on different stream bed models. We wanted to know in which model would water have the greatest impact on the land--low water flow, high water flow, or high water flow with an incline. Ask your student what we found.

High flow stream with incline. Ask your student how this model compared with the other two we studied. Also, did water change as it interacted with the land? If so, how did it change in each of the three models? In which model did water carry the biggest/heaviest particles?

Science

• Did two other experiements
• One we looked at the absorbancy of different types of soil. Ask your student which was most/least absorbant.
• 2nd experiment we looked at whether sprinkling a liter of water over a landscape model (like rain) would have an impact on the landscape and whether the water would change after interacting with the land

Math

• Learned about/practiced doing extended multiplication facts
• ie 60 * 40
• Do 6 * 4 = 24, then add the two 0s from the factors --> 2,400
• Took Unit 4 Open Response

Writing

• Everyone revised/edited their personal narratives, had revising/editing conferences with Mr. Herzberg
• Finished clean copies of stories
• Typing up stories over the weekend
• Students will insert .jpg scanned image of their illustration in their typed piece early this next week
• Pieces will be published online on our blog!

Reading

• Students read and became experts on a specific type of erosion
• Mrs. Otley (our principal) came to read a story to us--ask your child what the theme was, and the lesson of the story
• Miss Jane (our counselor) finished part 2 of her point of view lesson with the class & related point of view to the work we do as writers--ask your student about this connection

Market Day

Today we had our first Market Day. Think back and reflect. Please answer these two questions: What did you learn from the experience today? What will you do differently next time? Please write your answer to each question as a separate paragraph. Try to stretch your stamina and write in depth. Elaborate with good details and examples.

Learning Updates

Dear Families,

It was great meeting with so many of you to talk about your child's progress during parent conferences last week. Thank you for all that you do to support your child's learning at home!

Here's what we've been up to, even before our snow days:

Math

• Finished Unit 4, focused on decimals
• Took test on Friday
• We'll take the Open Response separately sometime mid-next week
• Parent letter for Unit 5 available here. These are a great resource!
• Starting Unit 5 Monday--Big numbers, estimation & computation

Reading

• We've been building our stamina again with read to self and read to someone
• Ask your student about building stamina and these two Daily 5 choices
• When does it make sense to back up and reread?
• How can readers activate their prior knowledge? Why would that be important to do as a reader?
• Started a new read aloud Where the Red Fern Grows, one of my all time favorites
• How has Billy Coleman shown great determination so far?

Writing

• Discussed story arcs, the pattern most narratives follow in some way where life starts out good, then there's some sort of problem or tension that builds. There's a climax or turning point, followed by a resolution and a sense that life is good again.
• Students made their own for their seed story
• It was powerful because they could quickly re-envision their story in a different way
• This has been helpful as a revision tool for their seed stories
• Revisited elements of powerful endings and that they should relate back to heart of the story
• Students are now in the process of revising, editing, and publishing this second round of personal narratives

Science

• Examined and classified pictures of erosion
• Focused on one picture within table groups--made an observation, asked a question about it and made a prediction about the question
• Learned about underground erosion and caves
• Did a water cycle reader's theatre where each student had a script and part.
• Ask what part your child played. What did they learn?
• Learned about the water cycle with a guest teacher--Miss Cowgill
• Built an actual water cycle model--ask your student about this
• Did two hands on investigations
• Of humus, clay, sand, rocky soil--which had the biggest organic and which had the biggest inorganic particles?
• After shaking up these four soils in a graduated cylinder--which was heaviest (settled on the bottom)? What was the order they settled? (Gravel, sand, clay, humus floating on top)

Art Docent

• Thanks to Leigh Karvasek and Lynne Varner who did a great Art Docent Lesson on Rousseau and his use of foreground, middle ground and background.

Enrichment. Kate Poaster worked with our class on water ecology. We had some great ties with our studies of ecosystems and land & water

Ask your student to explain Kate's sketch.

Students perform lab tests on water samples. They had to match the color to determine things like PH.

Recording data on their lab sheets 

Water Cycle reader's theatre

Guest teacher Miss Cowgill taught the class about the water cycle

Market Day prototypes. Students shared prototypes with the class and I called on a few students to say what they'd be willing to spend on the item. This helped with getting a sense for pricing.

Point of View. Our counselor, Miss Jane had students taking different points of view in the classroom. We'll have the second part of the lesson this Friday.

Ask your student what they had to do with the pictures of our room that they were given. What was challenging about this? What strategies did they use to figure it out?

Learning Updates

Last call on our classroom communication survey. Thanks to all who have participated. It's very quick to complete and your feedback is appreciated. Click here for the survey

Here's what we've been up to the past week:

Reading

• Finished reading our novel study of Owl in the Shower
• Focused on the skill of using context clues. Test your student's skill when you come across an unfamiliar word. See if they can supply a reasonable guess of a word or phrase that could be plugged into that sentence for it to make sense
• Talked about how often it can take upwards of 60 in-context exposures of a new word before it's cemented in your brain
• Students took the Owl in the Shower test
• Started a new read aloud, (One of my favorites), Where the Red Fern Grows
• Ask what the book has been about so far. What does the main character want more than anything? What are some ways the author shows us he wants this so badly?

Writing

• Focused again on developing great leads, and practiced the strategy of looking to published authors for examples in books of our own
• Mr. Herzberg directed a "great writing" symphony. Ask your child how this worked.
• Learned about how great writers maintain the point of view with them telling the story from inside the skin of the main character (which is normally your child at a different time/place in their life)
• I told a story about a bike crash. I paused every few lines and students gave me a thumbs up if I maintained the point of view and thumbs down if I lost it
• You might have your child verbally tell their seed story to you. Have them stop in places and you can give thumbs up/down. See if they can demonstrate briefly losing the point of view

Math

• Continued our work with decimals
• Ordering decimals, rounding decimals, comparing decimals with base 10 blocks, understanding real-life applications when we use decimals, adding/subtracting after rounding decimals
• These are all things we've focused on in the past week
• Students reviewed their Unit 3 test. I'll hang on to it for report cards and share it with you during parent conferences
• Ask about the two new games we played: Product Pile Up, and Decimal Top It--how do you play? What's the point?

Science

• Returned ecosystems, web of life, and glog assessments to students. We discussed them and students brought them home
• Revisited and revised our list of what thought we knew and what wanted to learn about ecosystems
• Started our new unit on Land & Water
• Watched a film on erosion
• Took a water cycle pre-assessment
• Interacted with images of land and water--making observations and asking questions

Writing fast and long. Students began writing their seed story, starting with a lead outside their writers notebooks. We're getting close to publishing again! 

Story Plan. I asked students to write on a notecard the topic of their seed story. This could be a story they've already started or a new one they want to write. Next was the tricky part--what are you trying to say, or show through the piece? We've been talking about how what you're trying to say will drastically impact how you write about an event.

Friday we had a whole school assembly in honor of our Veterans. One representative from each fourth grade class read a piece they wrote about freedom. There was a flag ceremony led by Cub Scouts, singing, reading, and sharing about the history of Veteran's Day.

Learning Updates

Mountains to Sound Greenway in class enrichment session about the real life choices we face with how we manage our forests.

In small groups students were assigned a particular interest to represent. They had to brainstorm the pros/cons of their approach and give a short presentation to the group. Some interests were developers, lumber companies, low impact recreation, etc.

Web of Life. Students researched a particular organism of the forest at home. At school we started with a producer (plant) and traced the web of life between every organism, finally ending back with the original plant. Students could pass the ball of yarn to another organism who they eat/they depend on, or who eats them/depends on them. 

Ask your student which is more stable--a system like our food web with many parts or a system like a food chain with few parts.

Math

• Finished Unit 3 and took the test
• On Friday we started Unit 4 and began exploring how decimal place value works
• Ask your student how they programmed their calculator to skip count. Why did we do this?
• Also, how does the game Polygon Pair Up work? What's the point of the game?

Science

• Finished Ecosystems unit and took the final test
• Did a Jeopardy review of the unit, and a vocabulary word cloze (fill in the blank) they could take home to study
• Conducted our Web of Life (see above pictures) and wrote about the experience
• Explored a food chain flipchart. Ask your student how we used the Activote Technology to review our learning.

Reading

• Read and discussed a number of chapters from our novel study, Owl in the Shower
• Held a debate between the two interests identified in the book--the loggers & the environmentalists
• Ask your student what's been happening lately in Owl in the Shower. How has Leon changed through the story? How does the book tie in to our study of Ecosystems?

Writing

• Students are drafting new small moments personal narrative stories
• We're building upon all the skills they've learned so far
• Ask your child to explain what a turning point is. How can turning points help you figure out what to write? How does someone listening to you tell your story help you with writing that story? How can your family help with this process?

Book Bingo

• Ask about the school-wide book bingo our class participated in. How did it work?

Learning Updates (Pictures/Captions Format)

Are Vacant Lots Vacant? Ask your student about this inquiry science lab we did today in the vacant lot above the Grand Ridge parking lot. What biotic and abiotic factors did they observe? What elements there supported plants and animals? What would happen if one of those elements were taken away?

One of the creatures we observed in the vacant lot--a Mantis!

Athena the Barred owl from West Sound Wildlife shelter paid a visit to 4th graders. Ask your student what they learned about owls. How did her visit tie in to what we've been studying about ecosystems? Be sure to check out the comment your student wrote in response to the blog question below.

Students dissected barn owl pellets during our Owloween on Thursday. We studied two different questions by examining the bones. First: what do barn owls predominantly eat--rodents, insectivores, or birds? Second, we measured the length of the femur bones contained in owl pellets. From there we did a mathematical calculation to approximate overall body size of the prey so we could answer this question: what is the average size of prey that a barn owl eats? Be sure to ask your child for the answers.

Students laid out the bones they found in the owl pellets on paper towels. This group labeled the different bones they found.

We began our new unit in writing, focused again on personal narratives, but on expanding, deepening, and improving their quality. We've created a couple new charts to help us generate great ideas for what to write about. Have your student explain these to you.

Please check our class photos tab for more photos from Owloween of Athena the Owl and our owl pellet dissection.

Athena the Barred Owl

Today, a West Sound Wildlife Shelter presenter and their ambassador, Athena, visited our classroom. During the presentation you learned many interesting Barred Owl facts. You learned about its habitat, hunting habits, and unique characteristics. Tonight, please respond to at least 3 of the 6 questions below. Make sure you use complete sentences and correct conventions. Don't forget to put your first name only at the bottom of your comment before your post.

1. What are 2 unique characteristics of Barred owls that make them good hunters?

2. What type of habitat do Barred owls need?

3. What animals are part of a Barred owls diet?

4. How does this diet compare to that of Spotted Owls?

5. What is a crop and how is it used?

6. What are 2 other interesting things you learned today in our presentation?

Learning Updates (List of Questions Format)

What is Your Child Doing in 4^th Grade?

Well ask them…

Math

•  Tell me about multiplication math facts shortcuts or patterns
• What is the 50 facts multiplication test? What’s the difference between the 1 minute and 3 minute scoring?
• How did you graph the results of the test?
• What are some other ways to think about 27/3? (How many 3s in 27? or 3 times what equals 27?)
• Explain the game “Multiplication Beat the Calculator” to me. What’s the point of the game?

 Reading

• You’ve been doing a new novel study as a class with the book Owl in the Shower. How does the book connect with what you’re learning about Ecosystems?
• Who are Borden, Leon, and Enrique?
• Which side are you leaning toward at this point—the loggers or the environmentalists? Why is making a firm decision so difficult?
• How are the needs of the loggers and their families similar to the needs of the spotted owls and their families?
• What’s your favorite part so far?

 Writing

• Tell me about the Author’s Chair Celebration you had on Friday
• What are you most proud of in your piece? What was your writing partner impressed with in your piece?
• Who was the special guest that joined the class?
• Tell me about the toast
• How have you grown as a writer through this writing unit? What things are you noticing now in your writing and in others’ writing?

 Science

• What is an ecosystem (An area in which all the plants, animals, and micro-organisms interact with all the non-living things)
• How do food webs compare to food chains?
• Give me some examples of inputs and outputs
• Tell me about the root beer energy transfer experiment. How does this help us understand how energy transfers between the sun, producers, and consumers?
• Tell me all about the SOAR Raptor presentation. What’s the amazing story of the bird: D1? What was your favorite part of the presentation and why?

 Art Docent

• I understand you had your first art docent lesson with Mrs. Karvasek and Mrs. Varner. Tell me what you created. How did you produce it?

Pictures from the Week

Let's Toast with Bubbly Water--Author's Chair Celebration

After an introduction from their partner, students read their small moment pieces

Students also shared the images they drew on each page

Root Beer Energy Transfer lesson. Be sure to ask your student about each of the roles these students played

How does this diagram relate to the Root Beer Energy Transfer lesson?

SOAR presentation. How do the red dots show why the Perigren Falcon nearly went extinct due to the chemical DDT? What happened to their egg shells and why?

D1, the Perigren Falcon

Ecosystems Home School Connection

Get permission from your parent or caregiver to go into your backyard or some other outside place. Spend 15 minutes sitting quietly in the outside place, noticing the sounds, sights and odors that surround you in nature.

Write about as many of the plants and animals you noticed in nature. Tell about the odors you smelled and/or the sounds you heard.

Remember to follow the blogging rules at right of our page. Also, push your stamina and try to write longer and in greater detail this time.

Learning Updates (Bullet Points & Pictures Format)

Making a comprehension salad. It takes text + THINKING. Ask your child about this.

Mrs. McGraw (our literacy specialist engaged us in a comprehension lesson last week

Dear Families,

I can’t believe it is already the middle of October. Time is flying and we sure are having fun!

Math

• We completed the Unit 2 test, it’s coming home with your child 
• Began Unit 3 yesterday
• Goal of coming weeks--finish memorizing x facts for single-digit numbers
• We’re taking a series of 50-facts tests for multiplication.
• Correct answers are counted only up to the first mistake (and not counted thereafter), so your child may at first receive a low score. If this happens, don’t be alarmed. Before long, scores will improve dramatically. Help your child set a realistic goal for the next test, and discuss what can be done to meet that goal.
• You can use the x & / fact triangles (in their math tab) to quiz your child on the basic facts and test your child’s progress
• In this unit we’ll get an early start in algebra, which is integral to the Everyday Mathematics philosophy.

 

Reading

• Integrating with Ecosystems study in Science, we started the novel: There’s an Owl in the Shower by Jean Craighead-George.
• Book about a boy named Borden ( he’s the son of a logger)
• Borden’s father laid off during timber ban to protect Northern Spotted Owl
• Allows for great comparing/contrasting the different perspectives of loggers/developers and environmentalists
• Used a literature based GLAD pictorial to activate students’ prior knowledge about Northern Spotted Owls and loggers.
• Nearing the end of our class read aloud, Maniac Magee. Ask your child what’s been happening and ask for examples of how Maniac “paid tuition” for the boy’s he’s been living with.

Owl in the Shower Pictorial now hanging on our wall

Writing

• We’re deep in to the revising/editing/publishing process for our first unit
• I’ve been conducting revising and editing conferences with each student on their piece
• Ask your student about the story they’re publishing and about their progress in relation to the writing process
• We’ve talked about different proofreading marks to use when editing. Ask your child to show a few
• Once everyone has published we’ll have an author’s chair celebration of all our work

Science

• Studied the words ecosystem and predator on our class CCD (cognitive content dictionary) Ask your child about the routine we follow with vocabulary words on the CCD
• Played an outdoor game: the Food Chain Game. Have your child explain what we did and learned from the game. 
• Involved each student being a seed, mouse, or owl.  Object was to learn dynamics of how food chains
• Had fabulous hands-on Science to Go in school enrichment lab called “Washington Wildlife.”  Students examined many forest animals, discussed how they adapt to their environment, keys to survival, and how they fit in a food web.

 

Learning Updates (Narrative Format)

Students worked hard to get text entered on their Region of Washington Glog this week

It has been another terrific week in fourth grade. Here is our weekly classroom update:

Math – This week students practiced organizing and displaying data with tally charts and line plots. We also reviewed how to find the range, maximum, minimum, and median in data sets. Ask your child what data we used – the answer should be ‘at the top of their head’ :).  Students reviewed the partial-sum algorithm to solve multi-digit addition problems and were introduced to the column-addition method which is similar to the traditional addition algorithm.  Addition practice was coupled with subtraction practice of multi-digit numbers using the Trade First and Partial Differences methods.  If you have questions about these methods, check out the online version of the Student Reference Book at http://www.everydaymathonline.com  Next week, students will be assessed over the content from Unit 2 and we will move onto Unit 3: Multiplication and Division.

Reading – In Reading this week, we finished our first novel study, Horse’s Tale.  Ask your child about Julie's Story (1960's, Seattle at the World Fair), Amone's Story (1970s--in a bilingual classroom), and Eduardo's story (1980s in Yakima just after Mt. St. Helens erupted). We've had some rich discussions about Washington history and about the regions of Washington.

Writing – We've been doing lots of writing! We've entered the revising/editing phase of our first unit, which is focused on writing Small Moments Personal Narrative stories. The pieces are turning out great and it's so good to see students using many of the strategies we've learned that make great personal narratives. In addition, we're working to finish up a fictional narrative prompt--a story about what would make the best birthday party ever. We'll be doing a few prompts like these through the year for assessment purposes and also to help students gear up for the experience of writing on the state MSP (Measurements of Student Progress).

Social Studies – Students continue to work on their Washington Region GLOGs. Many have their five paragraphs typed in, and we'll soon edit and put final touches on the project. We took the regions assessment earlier in the week. Also, students have been working on individual tasks related to our study of regions. Ask your student which ones he/she has worked on.

Class News

The Year at a Glance:

As a grade level team we would like you to know ahead of time what some potential costs may be throughout the year. Please keep in mind they may change due to unexpected opportunities, and we will also have additional opportunities for you to support our classroom by donating specific items for class celebrations.  Our hope is to help families with planning and budgeting.  The costs outlook at this time is as follows: $15 February field trip, and $35 March field trip.  Please let us know if you have concerns or needs in order for your child to participate.

School News

WORKROOM TRAINING FOR VOLUNTEERS – If you plan to help with clerical work this year, I would appreciate it if you would attend one of the following Workroom Trainings:

October 19^th @ 9:30, 1:00, and 5:30 or October 25^th @ 9:30, 1:00, and 5:30

Please meet outside the school office. You will be shown where the supplies and materials are located and how to use the copy machines and die cutters.  Please come if you plan to volunteer at school.

School Pictures & Picture Re-take Day – Friday, October 22

If you ordered a school picture package, it will be sent home via “kid mail” (backpack) before October 22. If you wish to have your child’s portrait re-taken, simply send the photo package back to school with your child on October 22.  

If your child has not already had his or her picture taken and you would like to purchase a picture package, order forms are available in the school office.  They are due Friday, October 22.

Reflections Art Competition: Join the Fun!  Enter your artwork in this year’s Reflections Art Competition, October 11 ~ 22, 2010. The 2010-2011 Reflections theme is:  “Together We Can…”  Please take the time to read the rules for your category at http://www.grandridgeptsa.org/programs.html

If you have any questions, Please contact Theora Dalupan at grptsavpprograms@gmail.com

 

Vision and Hearing Screening October 28th

Vision and hearing screening at Grand Ridge Elementary will be on Thursday, October 28th. If at all possible, please have your child at school on screening day to minimize the number of re-checks later. If you would like your child to be excluded from the screening, please send a note to your child’s teacher the day of the screening specifying if your child is to be excluded from all or part of the screening. If your child wears glasses, please be sure that they bring their glasses to school on the day of the screening. Students failing the initial screening will be re-screened by the school nurse before referral notices are mailed home. The re-screening process usually takes at least several weeks to complete.