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
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| 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! |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
