Personal Narrative

We are finishing up our unit on Personal Narratives this week and next week.  Wednesday, we wrote personal events that happened to us on a graphic organizer.  Thursday, we looked at examples of personal narratives from other 4th graders, and discussed why it is important to add detail (so we can get a picture in our mind).  Friday and Monday, we will be picking ideas from our graphic organizer to write 2 or 3 drafts.  On Tuesday we will work on revise one draft of our choosing and adding in more detail. Thursday, we will be editing for spelling, punctuation and capitalization.  On Friday we will have a publishing party and will write our final drafts.  We will type them on the computer and share them with the class!

Scholastic Book Order

Scholastic Book Orders went home this week.  If you are interested in ordering online please go to the Parent Resources Tab and click on the Scholastic Book Orders Link.  

Book orders will be due October 3rd.  

The link below includes the September Book Order letter.  This has the class activation code on it for ordering online :)

September Book Order

Unit 1 Math Test/ Beginning of Unit 2

Our unit 1 math test will be on Monday, Oct. 1st.  The test will cover topics like: Lines, Line Segments, and Rays, Polygons (reasons why a shape is or is not a polygon), Geometric Figures and their properties, Obtuse, Acute, Right, and Straight Angles, Circles (concentric, congruent, radius), Convex and Concave shapes and addition and subtraction with one digit.  We did a review packet in class, which was sent home.  Please review this packet as the test is almost identical :)! After the test students can elect to try the Unit 2 pretest.  If they are able to test out of certain lessons on this pretest for unit 2, they will be given extension activities.  Unit 2 Family Letter will also be coming home monday.

If you need extra copies of the Family Letter or your child has misplaced their study link packet, you can print out extra copies from the links below:

Unit 2 Family Letter
Unit 2 Family Letter Spanish
Unit 2 Study Link Packet

Check For Understanding

This week during our reading block we worked on the strategy Check For Understanding.  To start off I modeled how this strategy looks by stopping and talking out loud about what I remembered from the section I had just read.  When we check for understanding we stop at the end of a sentence, paragraph, page, or chapter (depending on how long we can go before our understanding breaks down)  and we retell the events of that section.  The next day I modeled how I could write down bits of information on a post it note to help jog my memory when I check for understanding.  The class practiced this all together with our read aloud book Fourth Grade Nothing.  Currently, the 4th graders are practicing this strategy with their independent books.  They stop at a sentence, paragraph, page, or chapter to make sure they understand what they have read and they jot down a few notes on a post it, which can be stored in their 5 subject notebook.

Buzz About Books!

Today we will start a series of mini lessons on Buzzing About Books.  Buzzing about books is the way we talk to our friends and classmates about the books we are reading.  This skill helps us to recall important story elements from the books we are reading.  It also works on speaking and listening skills! We may also see and hear about books we may want to read in the future.  Take a look at our anchor chart below.  We will put a copy of this in our literacy notebook.  Under it we will be able to jot down notes about what we may want to Buzz about!

Snack Schedule and Brain Bar

This is our Snack schedule for the whole year.  We will have a "brain bar" or food choices to make each day.  Each week 5 students will be responsible for bringing in the snacks to add to our Brain Bar.  Below is the snack schedule as well as an information sheet about Brain Bar

Classroom Schedule

The link below will take you to our classroom schedule.  We will still be running on a 5 day schedule which will have effect on when some things happen during our day.  Let me know if you have any questions!

Welcome Letter

Here is the welcome letter sent to each student before the school year. It includes a bit of information about me as well as some things you can expect to find out in the coming days and weeks. Take a look! ~

Unit 1 Math

9/19/2012

We are currently making our way through unit 1.  There are some topics that are really tricky, mostly because they come with so much new vocabulary!!! Parallelograms, trapezoids, polygons, properties, the list goes on: sometimes they all seem to run together!  We are currently working hard to come up with ways to remember them :)  Today we also talked about math extension activities for those who fully understand the concepts during a lesson quickly.  Math extension packets will be available for those who need an extra challenge.  Next unit we will start with a pre-test, to determine who may be able to work at a higher level during various lessons in the unit.  Look for the Unit 1 test to come at the end of next week!

Literacy Notebooks

Week of 9/17/2012

This week we are really getting in to our literacy notebook.  Not only are we using almost all the sections already, but we have learned almost all the routines that go with each section! Whew! I really expected it to take much longer to get the notebook going, and I am so impressed at how well the students are doing with it!

The sections in our literacy notebook include:
 Logs (reading logs, finished book logs, interest logs, genre logs etc.) : We use this section to keep track of what we are reading each day and how much, what books we are finishing, what books we want to read, our interests, and the genres we are reading.
Reading Response:  In this section the students will respond to what they are reading in letters to me each week.
Interacting with reading (Reading Strategy Anchor Charts): In this section we will be gluing in the anchor chart that was the basis for our lesson.  Under the anchor chart they will be able to show their understanding and progress in the strategies we are learning.  This section is also a great tool to utilize when we blank out on what a useful strategy might be, or how to go about practicing it..
Writer's Craft:  In this section we will practice how to develop our writing.  The purpose of this section is to break down writing and to practice different skills related to a writer's craft.
Spelling: In this section we will pull words that we are spelling wrong in our writing as well as words that we still need to practice out of the 2nd- 4th grade sight word list.  Spelling tests will be comprised of these words in the order of need.  i.e. if a word is currently being spelled wrong in a child's writing it will be entered into the notebook and will show up on a weekly spelling list to be practiced.

This weeks strategies and lessons include: thinking while we read and buzzing about books

Activities We Have Been Doing

I've been anxious to get my pictures uploaded on to my computer to share some of the activities we have been doing.  Once we have the permission forms sent for permission to put kiddos on the web, I will be sure to share very cute pictures of them in action as well.

This week we were involved in an activity called Fast Friends it is loosely wrapped around  "speed dating".  Each child had a partner and they sat facing each other.  They were given a subject to talk about with each other for 2 minutes.  At two minutes a bell sounded and they had to move to a new person and talk about a new subject for 2 more minutes.  This really worked on our speaking and listening skill, and was also a great way to get to know each other, especially with some questions that might not normally be asked.  We did a great job, and learned alot!

 

We also did an activity with post its.  Each person was given 6 post it notes and the job was to answer 6 different questions.  The post its were then posted on 6 different question posters.  We were able to see what people thought about a bunch of different topics like:  How I learn best, Why school is important, What do I still have questions, about, and What I will need to do to be successful this year.  Take a look !

Daily Routine Officially Beginning 9/13/12

I really hope your half day proved to be relaxing!  Tomorrow we will be beginning what will generally be our normal routine and daily schedule.  New tomorrow will be the beginning of our Cardinal Time groups.  This will allow us to get on schedule for reading and writing as well.  We spent a good portion of the first few days building our classroom community and practicing different routines and classroom expectations.  We did such a great job and now we are ready to begin to dive in to our normal schedule.  

Literacy Page Updated: Building Stamina

Week of 9/4/2012

Today we started building Stamina in reading.  Building Stamina means we are training our brains to be able to read for an extended period of time.  We started this by exploring examples and non examples of how we build stamina.  Examples included: staying in the same place, continuing to read and track the words with our eyes the whole time, saving our conversations with others for another time.  Non examples were fun to demonstrate!  They included: moving all over during the reading time, talking to a friend, flipping through the pages instead of reading them, and looking around the room instead if at words/pictures/pages.  As a class we did an extraordinary job!  We were able to read for 3, 4, and 5 minutes showing great examples a good reading for the entire time.  We will continue this week and next week building to longer and longer periods of time!

Classroom Information Page Updates

The classroom information page has been updated to include information about Brain Bar as well as our Snack Schedule for the whole year.