Snowflake Similes

Today we learned all about similes and how they are used to compare two unlike or unrelated things.  We talked about how similes use words like as or like to help connect and compare those two things.  The students then created similes about snowflakes from descriptive words we came up with to describe the snowflake.  Some of our awesome examples include:

The snowflake is as relaxing as the sunset.

The snowflake is as white as snow.

The snowflake is as light as a feather.

The snowflake is as fragile as glass.

The snowflake is as breakable as I am.

We attached these similes to snowflakes we created and they are now hanging up in our classroom!

Come take a look :)

Changes to Spelling

I have decided to make some changes to spelling based on updated materials and curriculum we are now using in 4th grade.  Your son or daughter may have come home in the past weeks talking about cutting apart words and sorting them by different characteristics, sounds, or patterns.  They may also have mentioned that they are able to pick different activities based on these words to work with in the word work section of their literacy notebook.  We will now be melding this with spelling to make it more seamless and relevant.  Each week or so (dependent on specials schedule, days off, etc.) we will get a new word sort.  Your child will sort these words into predetermined characteristics, sounds or patterns to identify why these words sound and are spelled the way they are.  The next day we will again sort these words and enter them in to the word work section in our literacy notebooks.  On this day students will be given 5 of these words from the sorts as spelling words.  The other words will come from a variety of places.  Each child has been separated into spelling groups based on their current spelling needs.  These groups will get words from different locations based on these needs.  For example one group might concentrate on getting the rest of their words from their writing, some may need more experience with 4th grade high frequency words, or academic vocabulary words, and some students may need a challenge with higher level words or spelling bee words.  These groups will be flexible and will change based on the needs of each individual student.  These lists will then go home as normal spelling lists as in the past.  We will test on a determined dated based upon when we made our list.  The rest of the week we will work on different activities to strengthen our knowledge of the word sort words we are working with.  I will also meet with groups of students to work on words that may have similar characteristics but are not already a part of our sorts.  We will conclude our study each week (or set of days) with a test on the words that were sent home.  As always if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call or email!

Disguise the Turkey Project

Before Thanksgiving the 4th graders were tasked with disguising a turkey at home with their families to ensure it was not eaten for Thanksgiving dinner.  We teamed up with Miss Price's class to award each turkey with special Thanksgiving ribbons.  The students also wrote about their turkeys and either gave a description or wrote about their turkey as a character in a fiction story (as a book blurb).  Later the students were able to voice over their turkey picture with their writing and their products are below!

Take a look at the fun we had with Miss Price's class as well as our Turkey writing!

Belle's Turkey Writing

Peyton's Turkey Writing

Tavian's Turkey Writing

Trent's Turkey Writing

Battle of the Books!

We are excited to start participating in Battle of the Books this year in Marshall!  We kicked off this endeavor on Tuesday when Mrs. Landers our TAG coordinator came in to our classroom to introduce Battle of the Books and give us the book list!  I will have copies of as many of these books in our classroom that I can get my hands on, but they can also be checked out in our library as well as at the public libraries in the area.  Check out the parent letter below, or print off a copy to see specifics :)

As an extra incentive I have place a graph on our data wall to keep track of how many of the books each student has read.  I will also be reading the books and will post which book I am reading in our classroom.

Let the battle begin!!!

Battle of the Books Parent Letter 

Paragraph Writing

This week we really got in to what makes a sentence a good sentence, and how it should start (most of the time).  We reviewed how great sentences use subjects and predicates, start with capitalization and end with punctuation.  We really practiced using subjects at the beginning of our sentences and leaving *and* *but* and *because* to connect our ideas together, instead of to start our sentence.  Take a look at the blog post we made, answering the question.....WOULD YOU RATHER.

Character Traits

Over the past two weeks we have been working on using character traits to determine what a character feels and why the character may act a certain way.  This is leading us to the characters role in a stories plot.  It is important to fully understand the characters we are reading about as it helps us understand the plot of the story with deeper meaning.  In our notebooks this week we discussed the learning goal and what we already understand about characters and their traits.  We also glued in a character trait tool to help us keep track of the traits our characters possess.

Students Explain how to Subtract

This week the students used the Show Me app on our Ipads to explain the process they use for subtracting.  Take a look at what we know!

Sean's Subtracting Method

Maggie's Subtraction Method

Skyla's Subtraction Method

Tavian's Subtraction Method

Tyler's Subtraction Method

Blayde's  Subtraction Method