Learning Update 1/27/2012

Dear Families,

It's been another busy week here in Room 264. It feels good to be back in the swing of things and back to our routines. Here's a bit about what we've been up to...


Art Docent: Big thanks to our Art Docent, Lisa Purdon. We had a couple of great lessons. Using clay, students made a dragon mask, in line with our later studies this year of the Pacific Rim. Lisa fired the masks in our kiln and then we had one more lesson involving glazing the masks. We'll have a quick final lesson where we add decorations.

Art Docent Lesson. Glazing our clay masks. Students learned what you see is not what you get--read the label. Purple actually looks pink as you paint it on!

FQR. Students compare notes on their fact/question/response charts during our reading materials adoption field test.

Coding text. Partners work together to show their thinking on a Revolutionary War text and map of Paul Revere's ride.

Math

• Went from using full circle to half circle protractors for measuring angles
• Worked with map coordinates, scale, and the global coordinate grid system--ie. latitude/longitude
• Extended our partial quotients division algorithm to two digit divisors, ie. 160 / 12

Reading

• With my involvement on Issaquah's Reading Materials Adoption Committee, we have the great privilege over the next few weeks to field test, or try out, four potential comprehension resources programs. One or more of these will be the standard for whole class instructional lessons next year. We're getting a sneak peek and the chance to try these great resources, which align with our current reading standards and goals for fourth grade.
• Focused on finding the main idea
• Practiced using an FQR chart to record facts, questions & responses (our thoughts) from non-fiction, historical fiction, and our own independent reading texts
• Learned to code text, showing evidence of our thinking, ie questions, background knowledge, paraphrasing, important information, etc.
• Practiced using an important information/interesting details/my thinking chart to pull important details from a non-fiction text on the revolutionary war

Writing

• Learned about different ways to support a thesis statement claim, ie kinds, parts, reasons, ways, or times
• Learned that the three ways should be categories, they should be different, and something students know a good deal about/are interested in/can write lots about
• Held a thesis clinic as a class, looking at boxes (thesis statements) and bullets (supporting reasons) that were working well and ones that needed some tweaking. We brainstormed ideas, setting each student up for success with topics and reasons they'll be able to write knowledgeably about in the coming weeks

Social Studies

• Read, discussed and wrote about the clash of cultures in the 1800s between Native Americans living in WA and Europeans who were here for trading and trapping
• Partner read about fur trapping and mountain men, discussed the Hudson's Bay Company
• Students began to research a notable figure in WA state's early history. They worked collaboratively and took notes in preparation for a short presentation with their group next week

Learning Updates 1.13.12

Happy Friday!

Here's the latest from our classroom. Monday is a holiday--Martin Luther King Jr. Day and so we'll resume school on Tuesday.

Researching & taking notes on explorers of Washington State

Presenting explorer research to the class

Taking turns writing information under the document camera so the rest of the class can record too

Communication Game. Trying to sign "fish" by wiggling silently on the ground

More sign language. Afterward, students came up with ideas for how to improve silent communication: drawing, facial expressions, props--actual things Lewis & Clark did too. What the "listeners" often heard and later reported to the class was hilarious!

Math

• We worked more on the partial quotients division method, introduced the U.S. Traditional method of multiplication, studied degrees and angles, and practiced using a half-circle protractor

Reading

• Read and discussed about petroleum and oil spills. Students took a quick quiz
• Read about explorers who came to WA state
• Continued reading and discussing Horse's Tale

Writing

• Learned about conversational prompts (sentence stems) like "For example..." "The reason for this is..." etc. for pushing our thinking deeper
• Looked back through our essay and narrative writing for great thoughts that could become a thesis
• Brainstormed thesis statements and held a thesis clinic where students helped each other revise thesis statements to be stronger and more clear

Social Studies

• Small groups read about various explorers, presented that information to the class, and we all recorded the information
• Examined, analyzed, discussed, and responded in writing to actual explorers' journal entries from Lewis & Clark's corps of discovery group
• Played a hilarious and fun sign language communication game--ask about this! The game simulated the difficulty of the communication between Lewis & Clark and the Native Americans they encountered

Learning Updates 1.6.2012

It's hard to believe it's already 2012. We started off the new year with a number of new units of study. Here's an important announcement before I tell you about the week:

Biztown—a highlight of the year for our fourth graders. The Disneyland of economics simulations.

Want to join us? Volunteer slots are filling up fast! We can only take a small number of volunteers from each class.

• Mandatory parent volunteer training, Thursday February 9^th in the Grand Ridge Multipurpose room, 6-8pm (for all parents who have not been to Biztown before)
• Biztown field trip, all day Friday March 16^th

If you would like to join us or have questions, please email our Biztown field trip coordinator, Michael Herzberg at herzbergm@issaquah.wednet.edu

 

Math

• We began Unit 6 this week: division, map reference frames, and measures of angles
• Practiced solving multiplication and division story problems, talked about division strategies
• Learned the partial-quotients algorithm of division. As I told the students, if this method had been around when I was a student it would have been my favorite!

Reading

• Revisited and worked some more on our Mountain Language program
• Talked more about thinkmarks (recording our thinking about our books on sticky notes and bookmarking them in our books). We pruned out thinking that wasn't very deep by revisiting notes we've written
• We'll do some reading response writing with one of these thinkmarks soon!
• Started a new read aloud: Horse's Tale, focused on short historical fiction vignettes through Washington's history from 1890s to 1980s. We've already had some great discussions.

Writing

• Started our new essay writing unit
• Learned about ways to generate ideas for essay entries
• Wrote short entries comprised of an observation--something students notice, and then their thinking about that

Social Studies

• Began our unit on early Washington State History
• Read, took notes, and wrote about early Paleo-Indians that lived here over 12,000 years ago. Compared coastal and plateau Native Americans of Washington
• We'll take an open book quiz on this reading from our book on Monday (chapter 2)

Learning Updates 12/16/11

Dear Families,

Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoy a safe, fun, relaxing time with friends and family during this holiday break.

This week we finished our time in 2011 with another action packed week.Check out our all the great pieces students wrote, published and shared at our Author's Chair!

Below, please enjoy the pictures our class selected and captions that students wrote today during our writing time--they're now all accomplished Bloggers!

We celebrate our second Author's Chair by doing a toast and raising our cups of apple juice in the air.

Death. A dead fish lies on the ground, unconscious, with an upside down snail accompanying him. We're watching the decomposition process in one of our ecocolumns.

Author's Chair. This author presents his dramatic story while the class listens quietly.

Pushing buttons. Last Friday evening we had a special visitor after hours. William came to check out the classroom and our technology.

Math

• Reviewed and finished Unit 5, took the final test and an open response
• We'll start Unit 6 when we resume school in January

Reading

• Read a Time for Kids edition about the coolest inventions of 2011. Students wrote opinion journal entries about which invention was most important/why
• Learned about thinkmarks (like a bookmark, but tracks your thinking). Students practiced writing their thinking on sticky notes and placing those in the book. This will lead us to some deeper thinking/written reflection in the near future.
• Met with our 2nd grade reading buddies in Miss Evanger's class

 Science

• Finished our STC Ecosystems unit (the one with ecocolumns). Students analyzed/discussed the findings of their pollution experiments and extrapolated to what the effects might be on columns that actually contained animals
• Watched/discussed a short film and a written piece about Chesapeake Bay--a real ecosystem with pollution problems
• Took some end of unit ecosystems and engineering assessments

Writing

• Published personal narrative pieces from our second unit of writing in a picture book format (Read them all here)
• We held an author's chair and students shared their work with the class

Learning Updates 12/9/11

Happy Friday!

It's been another busy week, especially with all the great things we're trying to fit in just one week before winter break.

Market Day...
...was a huge success! Thank you for all your support at home in helping your child tackle this project. Also thanks to all the parents who assisted in setup, cleanup, making change, and helping out during Market Day. We couldn't have done it without you.

Check out lots more oil cleanup & Market Day pictures below:

Click HERE for Market Day and Science Pictures!

Math

• Worked on 2x2 and 3x2 digit multiplication with the partial products and lattice algorithms--ask your student to show you both
• Studied powers of 10 and rounding/reporting large numbers

Reading

• Discussed and wrote in our response journals about our histories as readers, and what things we've been thinking about lately as we read
• Reviewed our books finished logs and introduced a genre tracking graph

Science

• Planned oil containment/cleanup based on our hands on tests with each of nine potential materials. Students combined, altered, and changed the order in which to use these materials
• Conducted the cleanup, calculated scores, tried to improve designs/redesigned, and conducted a second cleanup/calculated new scores

Writing

• Talked about the editing process. Students finished drafts and began revising/editing
• Next week we'll conference and author's chair is coming soon

Learning Update 12.5.11

Dear Families,

It was wonderful meeting with all of you for parent conferences. I loved talking about the progress and growth your student has made, as well as the shared goals we have. Please know that you can always get in touch with me throughout the year to further discuss your child. Thank you for all of your help and support at home!

Here's a quick update:

In designing the solution, groups considered materials, how they might be combined or altered to work best, and the order in which to use them.

Principal Otley visited our classroom and read aloud to the class. We made some great connections between the story and the writing that we're doing in our personal narratives unit.

We watched the fourth and fifth grade chorus rehearsal. This was the Thriller dance!

 Math

• We've been working on a couple multiplication algorithms--partial products and today we reviewed the lattice multiplication method
• Remember to print out the parent letter that I send you each month. It has great background information, which allow you to best help your student. Plus, it makes checking your students' math homework each night very easy because all the answers are provided! Family letters are here.

Science

• We tested various materials for oil spill cleanup and containment
• We're working on the application part now where students formulate a plan and we test it out on a riverbed model containing oil

Writing

• We've made story mountains of our seed stories and are working on discovery rough drafts--ask your student to tell you their story (in story, not summary form)
• Next step on the way to publishing these pieces is revising

Reading

• Ask your student about the latest in our read aloud, Listening for Lions. Ask--What's the author's message so far?
• We've been analyzing picture book stories for story mountain/story arc structure and talking about how we can apply that to our writing

Important Dates
December 7........Market Day 9:30-10:30 Multipurpose Room
December 14.......Spirit PJ Day-Wear Your Pajamas to School
December 16......Classroom Auction
December 19-January 2.........Winter Break
January 16......Martin Luther King Jr. Day
January 31.......Planetarium (4th grade enrichment)

Learning Updates 11.18.11

Dear Families,

Happy Friday. Here's a quick overview of what we've been up to this week. But first...a reminder that report cards will come home with your child on Wednesday 11/23. Also, in your child's Friday Folder today are a number of graded assignments I'd been holding on to for report cards.

Math

• Finished Unit 4 and took the test
• We've now moved in to Unit 5, focused on big numbers, estimation and computation. Today we learned about extended multiplication facts, which help us solve problems like 40*80=? Ask your student how.
• Bonus--have your student write "pH test" on a note and give to me by Monday for 10 Grizzly Bucks. It's easy.

Science

• We ventured further in to EiE, doing some real environmental engineering
• We read "Tehya's Story," which set the stage for our work. Ask your student about the story
• Today we simulated working as environmental engineers hired by a fictitious town of Greenville, which has been experiencing pollution problems. Each small group of students performed pH tests on various water samples taken from around the town. We'll do more with this next week.

Reading

• Focused on high interest non-fiction articles in Time for Kids, and took a quiz
• Learned about and examined figurative language
• Took a mock MSP reading test, which I can show you at parent conferences

Writing

• Worked more on the components of effective leads
• Looked at adding scenes that are flashbacks of the past or flash-forwards of the future
• Examined mentor texts for how to bring more of the internal (thoughts, feelings, questions in our head) part of the story to our pieces

Examining the pH strips during EiE (Engineering is Elementary: A Slick Solution)

Taking a sample

Matching up against the pH chart. This sample from the Greenville car factory is somewhat acidic. We may have some pollution!