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.