Hey 2014-15 students! We've only been out of school one week and I miss you! I promised I'd post the link to the lip dub here. Thanks for the reminder, Deanna. Enjoy!
I am in New York City (thinking especially of Alexa). I am taking a class at Columbia University about how to be a better writing teacher. I am writing a lot-there is lots of homework. One amazing fact is that there are 1200 students (adults like me-teachers or principals mostly) taking this class. We are here from forty one different countries and forty three different states.
Today Matt wrote the first blog post about his summer reading. It is a great one! I encourage you to check Matt's post out on Stupendous Stewart Students. Please remember if you do not see your summer reading plan on the blog it is likely that it has too many errors in things you know how to do correctly. If your last post has not been posted, please make some corrections. It's not too late!
Enjoy the rest of June and don't forget to read and blog!
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
May 8th Post...Delayed
Now that the weather is warm there is no denying that we are in the final weeks of this fine school year! We have so much going on at school and I know that you all have a lot going on at home. We hear about it at school. Listening to each other about what is happening in our lives outside of school is a favorite pastime of ours. We know that two people are moving into new houses (brand new, hard not to envy them from my 1889 pad), one family has a new dog, another family has a seating arrangement around their fire pit, still others are juggling new jobs, and that is what I can easily remember without even mentioning the various sports, musical and dance endeavors you all are supporting!
There is no end of too much to do at school either! Outside our class there are busy workman. They are working to improve the drainage system around the school. Inside we have worked on SBAC testing every day. It seems that many students are finding it interesting and even fun but it is rigorous! in addition to that we are composing the rough chapters of our informational pieces. Most students have finished at least four of the five chapters they need to write. Today we looked at informational text features that help writers convey their emphasis or use to help readers learn about something.
One of the changes I’ve noticed in teaching the informational text writing unit is that we are not developing a research paper. Students are actually writing about what they know. They are writing as if they were teaching others about their topic. We have only just begun to look up a few facts based on very specific questions to enhance the writing. The purpose of this shift is to focus primarily on aspects of writing rather than on research. Also we are incorporating fact finding into all kinds of our work-it can be an essential part of any kind of writing.
Next week we will likely put a pause on this work while we develop our informational writing on Peacemakers. Students are working using focus questions to scan texts for the information they need. This fits nicely with the writing they are doing (described above). We will be having an open house on the morning of May 27th to share the Peacemaker work.
Third graders focused on attributes of quadrilaterals this week. Students worked collaboratively to create and share “shape posters,” identifying and describing the unique characteristics of squares, rhombuses, rectangles and parallelograms. Our May number corner “workouts” take area and perimeter to the next level on the calendar grid, and offer a “chance” for students to explore probability by rolling 2 dice five times each school day, multiplying to find the product, and analyzing odd vs. even products. Fourth graders are working on unit 6 as well. Students worked through problem strings involving ratio tables while solving problems about packs of pens and cases of water. It is amazing (even to the teacher in the room) to use new strategies, such as ratio tables and known facts to solve multidigit multiplication problems. Eventually we will get to standard algorithms but by the time we do, students will really understand what the steps mean.
I apologize for not having posted this Friday, when it was written. I hope you all had a great weekend!
Sunday, May 3, 2015
The Week in Review
When you see this format, you know I have lifted the message, in large part, from Ms. Schoolcraft!
Literacy: Students are reading various texts, including fiction and nonfiction selections, and are practicing oral reading fluency and comprehension strategies, specifically summarizing and inferences. Most students are perusing at least one biography. The emphasis in our library times is on this genre.
Literacy: Students are reading various texts, including fiction and nonfiction selections, and are practicing oral reading fluency and comprehension strategies, specifically summarizing and inferences. Most students are perusing at least one biography. The emphasis in our library times is on this genre.
Math: Third and fourth graders are beginning unit 6. Fourth graders finished their work with geometry and angles with a unit 5 assessment on Friday. In grade three, unit 6 focuses on geometry and in grade four, the unit is about multiplication & division, data & fractions. Third graders completed and reflected on a pre-assessment for the unit, and finished April number corner activities with a bang! Please encourage and remind your mathematician to practice his/her math facts at home.
Theme: After constructing a working definition for what a ‘peacemaker’ is the week before break, students learned about large-scale peace efforts over the past several decades. Students have looked for three facts about a number of peacemakers and soon will choose one to study more extensively. Each child will be completing a research project over the next several weeks. This project will culminate in a celebration with families.
Writing: Our informational text pieces are becoming more and more sophisticated each day! Students are working hard develop their tables of contents so that they include some elaboration. Further, they have begun to draft chapters. Students are expected to have first drafts finished by next Friday. The next two weeks will include revision, editing and opportunities to add nonfiction text features (photos and captions, diagrams, maps, glossary, etc) to their finished product.
SBAC: Third and fourth grade students will be taking SBAC tests beginning next week. Thank you
for remembering to have consistent, early bedtimes next week, as well as encouraging your third or fourth
grader to relax and do their very best in the testing sessions beginning next Tuesday. Stamina, stamina, stamina!! Please help make sure your child has plenty of water and a protein-rich breakfast and snack(s) especially over the course of the next few weeks.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Have a great vacation!
Hello Families!
Here’s a double dose (two week) update!
In writing we are working on informational texts. Some of the themes we are working on currently are:
- choosing a topic you already know a lot about!
- organizing your information in a variety of ways
- creating several tables of contents to explore the above idea
- determining sub topics for each chapter
- ...and that is as far as we have gotten…
Students continue to write blog posts and to answer questions in writing about their reading. We have a strong emphasis on RESTATING the question when we are answering one in writing. We also had students respond to a written prompt on Wednesday. They we used the same prompt in November to assess their skills and their growth. There has been a lot of growth!
In fourth grade math we have been learning about area and perimeter. We have discovered the formulae and what each one means. Students have worked with measuring tools and with tiles. We also spent two days engaging in an SBAC practice test.
In third grade math students have also been learning about area and perimeter.
We have been learning some Geography lately too. It came up recently that most students love maps but didn’t know a lot about geography. I have also observed that students really want to use Google Maps but need some structure to their use. We started learning about the seven continents last week. This week we have been finding names of the European countries. We also found the area of some of those countries. Next we have studied a huge map of the United States. Students found the area in square miles for nineteen countries in the US. We compared those in size and found them on a large map in our Kiva. We learned about New England and we noticed the four corners area of the south western US. We will continue with these conversations.
Another fun shift in our work has been sharing books through playing Charades! So fun. We brainstorm book titles we all know and then we act them out and guess the titles.
We will begin reading biographies together after break. Have a wonderfully joyful time with your children over the vacation!
Friday, April 3, 2015
The week in Review
I have so enjoyed meeting with you and your children during our conferences. It is always so interesting to see my students show off their place and their work to their parents. Their abilities to describe their learning and act as hosts is an important piece of their learning. I also enjoy getting to know each of you more.
As you may know, I was out of the classroom at a math training on Wednesday. The Guest Teacher is someone who was last in our classroom sometime in 2014, last fall or early winter. She was really impressed by the growth in the students. She has a great time with them. Abe did a wonderful job as the Assistant leading Morning Meetings.
Students have been working on their second persuasive/opinion writing. This time they wrote about their favorite Red Clover books. These pieces are almost finished. Next week we are moving into informational (report) writing. The blog posts are requiring much less supervision from me. I can see lots of improvement in the students' writing. Remember, if you do not see a blog post any week, please ask your student why. I post all submissions that meet this basic criteria: Titles must have appropriate capitalization, sentences must have proper punctuation and no run ons, and the post must make sense. Students are able to revise and submit from home too!
One game we played this week involved naming countries. I learned that we have not studied enough geography! Many students do not know the difference between a state, country and continent. I'll continue infusing our work with some learning about Geography!
In math, fourth graders have begun to study geometry. They have learned to measure angles, figure out perimeter and today we distinguished between parallel, perpendicular and intersecting lines. The third grade program seems to run parallel to GR. 4. I'll speak with Ms. Ward for further detail about their work this week.
I feel so fortunate to be working with your children in the remarkably wonderful setting that is WCS. As teachers here we are often noticing how overbooked we are with incredible community building (Minute to Win It) fun, enriching (Concert, Sound Waves, Engineering, etc.), and important (all of the preceding plus BAND) offerings here. We are having a ball and learning all the way. It's a privilege to be teaching in Equinox this year!
As you may know, I was out of the classroom at a math training on Wednesday. The Guest Teacher is someone who was last in our classroom sometime in 2014, last fall or early winter. She was really impressed by the growth in the students. She has a great time with them. Abe did a wonderful job as the Assistant leading Morning Meetings.
Students have been working on their second persuasive/opinion writing. This time they wrote about their favorite Red Clover books. These pieces are almost finished. Next week we are moving into informational (report) writing. The blog posts are requiring much less supervision from me. I can see lots of improvement in the students' writing. Remember, if you do not see a blog post any week, please ask your student why. I post all submissions that meet this basic criteria: Titles must have appropriate capitalization, sentences must have proper punctuation and no run ons, and the post must make sense. Students are able to revise and submit from home too!
One game we played this week involved naming countries. I learned that we have not studied enough geography! Many students do not know the difference between a state, country and continent. I'll continue infusing our work with some learning about Geography!
In math, fourth graders have begun to study geometry. They have learned to measure angles, figure out perimeter and today we distinguished between parallel, perpendicular and intersecting lines. The third grade program seems to run parallel to GR. 4. I'll speak with Ms. Ward for further detail about their work this week.
I feel so fortunate to be working with your children in the remarkably wonderful setting that is WCS. As teachers here we are often noticing how overbooked we are with incredible community building (Minute to Win It) fun, enriching (Concert, Sound Waves, Engineering, etc.), and important (all of the preceding plus BAND) offerings here. We are having a ball and learning all the way. It's a privilege to be teaching in Equinox this year!
Monday, March 30, 2015
Reflecting on Last Week
Three of the high points of the week occurred on Friday. Students went to Jump Rope for Heart. Those who went expressed pride for having raised money to help people affected by heart disease. Meanwhile back at the ranch, so to speak, students participated in their math class. Next they had seventy minutes to create a slide show about a topic of their choosing. I suggested a slide show to accompany their persuasive essays but encouraged them to choose a topic they were interested in. The only stipulation: students could not choose a topic they'd already used many times (hockey comes to mind...) This student centered, self directed project brought out the best in students. They produced some of the best work they've done. Soon I'll post their slide shows but first we need to learn about and create source lists.
In other writing news students have been working on their second persuasive essays. We will use these ones to assess students ability to construct a well organized persuasive essay. Students have used a graphic organizer to plan for these essays. The topic is "My favorite Red Clover Book."
Fourth grade math students started a new unit this week on Geometry. We used pattern blocks to problem solve measurements of different angles. Our new vocabulary includes: right angles, acute angle, obtuse angle, straight angle and zero angles. Third graders continue to work on measurement and calculations.
Reading groups have continued to meet and we did plenty of SBAC preparations. In grade level groups students met to take practice tests. This week we had one session of collaborative work. Students in grade four had discussions about what animals need to survive. Third graders discussed ideas related to our solar system. The following day each group entered the 'secure portal' to take a language arts test related to the topic of their age groups. Student encountered nonfiction complex texts and were asked to answer questions about the texts. Some were multiple choice while others were essay questions. The tests are rigorous and interesting. It is good that we have these practice sessions!
In other writing news students have been working on their second persuasive essays. We will use these ones to assess students ability to construct a well organized persuasive essay. Students have used a graphic organizer to plan for these essays. The topic is "My favorite Red Clover Book."
Fourth grade math students started a new unit this week on Geometry. We used pattern blocks to problem solve measurements of different angles. Our new vocabulary includes: right angles, acute angle, obtuse angle, straight angle and zero angles. Third graders continue to work on measurement and calculations.
Reading groups have continued to meet and we did plenty of SBAC preparations. In grade level groups students met to take practice tests. This week we had one session of collaborative work. Students in grade four had discussions about what animals need to survive. Third graders discussed ideas related to our solar system. The following day each group entered the 'secure portal' to take a language arts test related to the topic of their age groups. Student encountered nonfiction complex texts and were asked to answer questions about the texts. Some were multiple choice while others were essay questions. The tests are rigorous and interesting. It is good that we have these practice sessions!
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Vernal Equinox Today
Our Morning Meeting leader, Avery, eagerly told us that today (Friday) marks the vernal Equinox. It is especially fun to talk about the Equinox when one is part of a group with the same name. We wish the real spring would arrive soon! We'll be learning more about what the Equinox is on Monday.
In writing this week students tinkered with the final drafts of their persuasive essays. Many students posted them on their blogs. Students shared them in class in a 'round robin' sort of arrangement. In our class meeting after the shared readings, students clearly articulated that reading each other's work helps them reflect on their own. Other themes emerged too. Students were able to reflect on the whole process-how long it was and sometimes discouraging and the delight they now feel in having a finished piece. That is helpful as we return to our realistic fiction and then move on to a report writing piece. More about that later!
In math, Ms. Ward reports, "Third Graders are exploring measurement concepts including volume, mass and length this week. An adventurous work place was introduced; focusing on hands-on opportunities for estimating amounts and measuring to find the exact quantity. Number Corner involves measurement of time intervals and ideas about fractions." In Grade Four students learned about metric conversions. Specifically they learned about conversions from grams to kilograms, meters to kilometers, milliliters to liters. They also reviewed all of the math content in Unit 4. This included many methods for calculating multi-digit addition and subtraction problems, elapsed time, using data from ratio tables to solve problems and measurement. On Friday, students completed the Unit 4 assessment.
We have renewed our interest in expanding our vocabulary. We are using words that come up in Red Clover books as well as those identified in reading groups.
We look forward to our parent teacher conferences which begin on Monday. Please remember, no regular school for students on Monday.
In math, Ms. Ward reports, "Third Graders are exploring measurement concepts including volume, mass and length this week. An adventurous work place was introduced; focusing on hands-on opportunities for estimating amounts and measuring to find the exact quantity. Number Corner involves measurement of time intervals and ideas about fractions." In Grade Four students learned about metric conversions. Specifically they learned about conversions from grams to kilograms, meters to kilometers, milliliters to liters. They also reviewed all of the math content in Unit 4. This included many methods for calculating multi-digit addition and subtraction problems, elapsed time, using data from ratio tables to solve problems and measurement. On Friday, students completed the Unit 4 assessment.
We have renewed our interest in expanding our vocabulary. We are using words that come up in Red Clover books as well as those identified in reading groups.
We look forward to our parent teacher conferences which begin on Monday. Please remember, no regular school for students on Monday.
2015 Be Money Wi$e Poster Contest, submitted by Ms. Baker
2015 Be Money Wi$e Poster Contest
Each year the State Treasure's office and the VT Bankers Association have a poster contest to celebrate April as financial literacy month. The poster is judged on expressing the theme, artwork, content, and creativity. The theme of this year’s contest was, “To Build a Money Plan, I will . . .” The State Treasurer will recognize the student poster contest winners at an April 9thceremony. Students placing first in each division win a $100 cash prize and their school a $100 cash prize.
When I spoke with the contact from the treasurer's office, she told me that WCS artists have really outdone themselves. She stated that WCS artists showed perseverance and grit. She said that it was obvious that our students read directions, understood the theme, and pushed themselves.
3 honorable mention students:Friday, March 13, 2015
Writing, Writing, Writing
Phew! Students made a huge effort to complete their persuasive essays this week and most were able to! Today they shared their work with some of their peers and a short 'round robin' of reading. As you may have noticed, the expectations (standards) for third and fourth grade writing are rigorous! In this case students had to compose a four paragraph essay with a strong internal structure and persuasive language. What do I mean by a strong internal structure?
Introduction: The introduction needs a background information, a strong claim and two reasons supporting the claim.
First paragraph: This paragraph needed a topic sentence about the first reason and evidence to support it.
Second paragraph: This one was to prove the second reason supports the strong claim.
Conclusion: The conclusion restates the introduction and adds a little final thought.
See what I mean? That's a lot. Add to it persuasive language, correct spelling and punctuation and you can see why this unit has taken eight weeks. Some students may choose to post their essays on their blog. At any rate you'll see the essays with the scoring rubrics attached at our conferences.
Speaking of conferences, I hope you have received a link to the sign up document. Please let me know if you are having any trouble with that.
Students have also been doing some great writing that you can read on our blog. There you might read about March Math Madness, The Red Clover books being read to us or how students shared their persuasive essays.
All students are now in guided reading groups. The titles we are currently reading are Charlotte's Web, The Anybodies, Twister on Tuesday, Ralph S. Mouse and Frindle. In addition, we have finished The BFG which we LOVED and we have begun Flora and Ulysses. With guest readers reading Red Clover books almost every day, silent reading, group work and Read Aloud, we are getting some great literature studies in. We all love stories, that's for sure.
In math grade four is practicing measurement. We have worked with measurements of time, length and volume. Students are consistently asked to make computations of these measurements. They are also constructing ration tables.
We continue to talk as a class about mindful behaviors, the quality of our work and how we interact with each other. Students have taken over running Morning Meetings and our Theme Shares were a great success.
Reminders:
Here are two FAP fund raising opportunities for you to contribute to! (FAP helps fund our programming. Specifically those funds help with field trips and special projects such as building instruments with the engineers.)
Enjoy the weekend!
Introduction: The introduction needs a background information, a strong claim and two reasons supporting the claim.
First paragraph: This paragraph needed a topic sentence about the first reason and evidence to support it.
Second paragraph: This one was to prove the second reason supports the strong claim.
Conclusion: The conclusion restates the introduction and adds a little final thought.
See what I mean? That's a lot. Add to it persuasive language, correct spelling and punctuation and you can see why this unit has taken eight weeks. Some students may choose to post their essays on their blog. At any rate you'll see the essays with the scoring rubrics attached at our conferences.
Speaking of conferences, I hope you have received a link to the sign up document. Please let me know if you are having any trouble with that.
Students have also been doing some great writing that you can read on our blog. There you might read about March Math Madness, The Red Clover books being read to us or how students shared their persuasive essays.
All students are now in guided reading groups. The titles we are currently reading are Charlotte's Web, The Anybodies, Twister on Tuesday, Ralph S. Mouse and Frindle. In addition, we have finished The BFG which we LOVED and we have begun Flora and Ulysses. With guest readers reading Red Clover books almost every day, silent reading, group work and Read Aloud, we are getting some great literature studies in. We all love stories, that's for sure.
In math grade four is practicing measurement. We have worked with measurements of time, length and volume. Students are consistently asked to make computations of these measurements. They are also constructing ration tables.
We continue to talk as a class about mindful behaviors, the quality of our work and how we interact with each other. Students have taken over running Morning Meetings and our Theme Shares were a great success.
Reminders:
Here are two FAP fund raising opportunities for you to contribute to! (FAP helps fund our programming. Specifically those funds help with field trips and special projects such as building instruments with the engineers.)
- Next week is the last week to contribute to our Backyard Fun Big Basket.
- The Lucky You raffle takes place next week only. Please see the School Bell for details.
Enjoy the weekend!
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Hello Families,
While the snow and cold weather outside is getting tiresome for some, it was great to return to school and your children this week. It has been a very busy four days!
In writing we continue with our Persuasive Essays. Now that most students have four paragraphs which include an introduction (with background information, a strong claim and two reasons for the claim) two persuasive paragraphs (evidence) and a conclusion, they are working on editing their work in partnerships using checklists for things like punctuation, language and structure as well as a rubric for the standards applying to the persuasive essay at each grade level. These essays will be finalized next week.
Blogging this week focused primarily on our schoolwide immersion in the 2014-2015 Red Clover Awards. With that as a subject, we focused our attention on refining the writing, in the areas of grammar and punctuation. Some students also learned how to add links to their posts. We are in the process of critiquing these posts so they will be finalized for posting on Monday. Feel free to urge your child to review his or her post at home this weekend. We did a lot of revising as a group on Friday but not everyone got to correct the errors found by their peers.
We have had a very strong emphasis on literature this week. The 2014-2015 Red Clover Award (Vermont’s picture book award for children, voted for by children in grades K-4) was launched in our school under the direction of Karen Hennig with the help of many on staff.
Each of the ten books will be read to our class by a staff member who does not have his/her own classroom. So far we have heard books read by Ms. Rossier, Ms. Nadine and Ms. Parks. This project is a great way to build our school community, enjoy great literature and learn about the world together. As a whole group and in small reading groups we are looking closely at author’s craft (a nice fit with our writing), making inferences and the overall message of a passage or a book.
In both math classes we are working on subtraction, subtraction and more subtraction! In the fourth grade class students are learning to assess problems to determine the most efficient strategy for solving the problem. This is very different fromt the way we adults are used to thinking of subtraction but it has been challenging, fun and illuminating to discover new ways to look at numbers together! Next week we will be working with more measurement of all types in Grade 4.
Many students continue to struggle with fact fluency. In school many of them find it difficult to devote three minutes of focused work on Xtra Math. I am encouraging students to put in their practice time at home where there are fewer distractions. Because this program is online, they have access to it both at home and at school. Please let me know if this would be a problem for your child.
This week we have also revisited our norms for SMART behaviors at school. Each student set a goal for herself or himself which you can see and review with your child on Monday. These goals are written on the purple ‘to do’ sheets that will come home in their folders on Monday.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions, concerns or comments.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Weekly Review
It seemed like a crazy short week - in large part due to the Snow Day on Monday, I think. Amoung the week's highlights was the Winter Concert put on by the third and fourth grade chorus led by Ms. Trasciatti-Holmberg. We attended the concert on Wednesday afternoon. As you may know, it was also held on Wednesday evening. I was struck by the varied repertoire, the precision of pitch and of enunciation. The singers looked so joyful! It was thrilling to see and hear the performance.
We are honing in on our blog posts a bit, as I mentioned last week. Students did some revisions on old posts and posted them. This isn't exactly how blogging works-posting old news-but I'm hoping we can raise the standards for grammar, usage and mechanics even for unchecked work! Please encourage your children by reading their posts, noting when there is no new post and generally inquiring about their school lives with specific questions. Hopefully this blog gives you some starting points.
In other writing news we did some work with pronouns and plurals in our Daily Language Review and we took further steps in persuasive writing. We are looking at organization and author's craft in particular. Students are working on a persuasive essay about a favorite candy, game, book or TV show. This is a great way for me to connect with students about what is important to them. One favorite topic is Minecraft. It is helpful for me to read what they think about this game and why it is so important to them.
In fourth grade math we are revisiting place value, measurement and computation of multi digit numbers. The Bridges Math Program does take an innovative approach. I find that students are able to build a much stronger conceptual understanding through the work we are doing than I have seen with other programs. In third and fourth grade math both there is a need for more work on basic math fact practice. We do this at school with our work on the program Xtra Math. The problem is that it is a skill and drill kind of program that has lost some of its luster lately. It would be great if you could encourage your child to work toward mastery at home with flashcards or by him/her using Xtra Math for 5-10 minutes here or there. Actually, even just asking him or her where she is in the program would be helpful.
Yesterday we determined the kind party we will have on Friday to celebrate Valentine's Day. We will be having a card exchange and some special snacks. Students created a menu and signed up to bring in food items. They have access to this list in Google Drive so they can show it to you. The menu is Fruit Rainbow, Class Made Trail Mix, and a few other special snack items. If you would rather not supply what your child signed up for, that's fine. I'm sure we will have enough food items. We will build a fruit rainbow and the trail mix together. Our Stone Soup experience was very successful; we are eager to make and eat food together again! I have put a link to the sign up doc in the upper right hand corner of this blog. It is not a doc you can edit but you can see what your child signed up for. Please let me know if you have questions or concerns.
Other things to note:
We had the second of four science workshops this week focusing on the topic of matter.
On Thursday our school mascot, Einstein visited to invigorate our commitment to SMART behaviors.
NAEP testing was rescheduled for Tuesday, February 10. All fourth graders will participate.
We are honing in on our blog posts a bit, as I mentioned last week. Students did some revisions on old posts and posted them. This isn't exactly how blogging works-posting old news-but I'm hoping we can raise the standards for grammar, usage and mechanics even for unchecked work! Please encourage your children by reading their posts, noting when there is no new post and generally inquiring about their school lives with specific questions. Hopefully this blog gives you some starting points.
In other writing news we did some work with pronouns and plurals in our Daily Language Review and we took further steps in persuasive writing. We are looking at organization and author's craft in particular. Students are working on a persuasive essay about a favorite candy, game, book or TV show. This is a great way for me to connect with students about what is important to them. One favorite topic is Minecraft. It is helpful for me to read what they think about this game and why it is so important to them.
In fourth grade math we are revisiting place value, measurement and computation of multi digit numbers. The Bridges Math Program does take an innovative approach. I find that students are able to build a much stronger conceptual understanding through the work we are doing than I have seen with other programs. In third and fourth grade math both there is a need for more work on basic math fact practice. We do this at school with our work on the program Xtra Math. The problem is that it is a skill and drill kind of program that has lost some of its luster lately. It would be great if you could encourage your child to work toward mastery at home with flashcards or by him/her using Xtra Math for 5-10 minutes here or there. Actually, even just asking him or her where she is in the program would be helpful.
Yesterday we determined the kind party we will have on Friday to celebrate Valentine's Day. We will be having a card exchange and some special snacks. Students created a menu and signed up to bring in food items. They have access to this list in Google Drive so they can show it to you. The menu is Fruit Rainbow, Class Made Trail Mix, and a few other special snack items. If you would rather not supply what your child signed up for, that's fine. I'm sure we will have enough food items. We will build a fruit rainbow and the trail mix together. Our Stone Soup experience was very successful; we are eager to make and eat food together again! I have put a link to the sign up doc in the upper right hand corner of this blog. It is not a doc you can edit but you can see what your child signed up for. Please let me know if you have questions or concerns.
Other things to note:
We had the second of four science workshops this week focusing on the topic of matter.
On Thursday our school mascot, Einstein visited to invigorate our commitment to SMART behaviors.
NAEP testing was rescheduled for Tuesday, February 10. All fourth graders will participate.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Leaving January Behind
Last week was a great one. We did not have special events so we were able to hunker down in our subject areas and our science workshops, focusing on matter, began.
In math, fourth graders finished up Unit 3 with an assessment. The assessment revealed that all students made great progress in their learning about fractions and decimals. Students really applied themselves to the tasks, worked with a great deal of perseverance and experienced success! They had a second assessment on Friday which was cumulative - questions and problems relating to any concepts presented this year. We had less success on that one but still, students showed they are making steady progress. Unit Four has a focus on place value and multidigit computation.
In writing we continued our work on persuasive writing. You'll remember that students wrote their first pieces presenting a need for change. We are now working on making appreciative claims. Students have used the scoring rubric to look at a sample essay and are gathering topic ideas. We continue to practice work on grammar, syntax and semantics through our Daily Language Review. Students struggle to apply their learning from work on these isolated worksheets to their own authentic writing. Which reminds me, if you are not seeing blog posts regularly from your child, that means the basics have not been corrected (by your child) in his or her posts. What I mean by that is capital letters in titles, periods and sentences that make sense. I noticed this weekend that there are a lot of unpublished, uncorrected posts. I'll work on a system to support students in understanding this condition for posting and accepting the responsibility of correcting their work.
As I mentioned in the opening, we have begun our Wednesday science workshops. It is a series of four workshops regarding properties of matter and states of matter. We have combined the students from all core classrooms to create four new groups. These groups are cycling through the workshops. The workshops are Properties of Matter (Ms. Schoolcraft), Properties of Gas (Ms. Ward), Properties of Liquid (Ms. Weegar) and Conservation of Mass (Stewart). These workshops are designed to give hands on inquiry science experiences.
The snow day today will throw a bit of a wrench in the NAEP testing plans. NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) also known as The Nation's Report Card happens every year in a random sampling of schools across the country. The test is administered at the fourth and eighth grade levels. When a school is tested, the test is given by outside professionals and the school's teachers (i.e. your teachers on Equinox, except for support staff and special educators) have no part of it. Given the selection process it has, I'm not sure there will be a make up day. We'll keep you posted.
Coming up we have the chorus concert on Wednesday. We are very excited about that. We will talk about and decide what kind of party we will have on February 13th to celebrate Valentine's day. We may do another Stone Soup type of experience. Students are encouraged to bring cards with an emphasis on the message rather than on toys and candy. As always, the rule is if you bring a card for one person in our classroom, you must bring one for everyone in our classroom. Skiers will have an opportunity to give and receive cards but the actual party will be at the end of the day.
I hope you will enjoy the new slide show in the side bar. This highlights the work in our Science of Sound with the Create It Engineers.
In math, fourth graders finished up Unit 3 with an assessment. The assessment revealed that all students made great progress in their learning about fractions and decimals. Students really applied themselves to the tasks, worked with a great deal of perseverance and experienced success! They had a second assessment on Friday which was cumulative - questions and problems relating to any concepts presented this year. We had less success on that one but still, students showed they are making steady progress. Unit Four has a focus on place value and multidigit computation.
In writing we continued our work on persuasive writing. You'll remember that students wrote their first pieces presenting a need for change. We are now working on making appreciative claims. Students have used the scoring rubric to look at a sample essay and are gathering topic ideas. We continue to practice work on grammar, syntax and semantics through our Daily Language Review. Students struggle to apply their learning from work on these isolated worksheets to their own authentic writing. Which reminds me, if you are not seeing blog posts regularly from your child, that means the basics have not been corrected (by your child) in his or her posts. What I mean by that is capital letters in titles, periods and sentences that make sense. I noticed this weekend that there are a lot of unpublished, uncorrected posts. I'll work on a system to support students in understanding this condition for posting and accepting the responsibility of correcting their work.
As I mentioned in the opening, we have begun our Wednesday science workshops. It is a series of four workshops regarding properties of matter and states of matter. We have combined the students from all core classrooms to create four new groups. These groups are cycling through the workshops. The workshops are Properties of Matter (Ms. Schoolcraft), Properties of Gas (Ms. Ward), Properties of Liquid (Ms. Weegar) and Conservation of Mass (Stewart). These workshops are designed to give hands on inquiry science experiences.
The snow day today will throw a bit of a wrench in the NAEP testing plans. NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) also known as The Nation's Report Card happens every year in a random sampling of schools across the country. The test is administered at the fourth and eighth grade levels. When a school is tested, the test is given by outside professionals and the school's teachers (i.e. your teachers on Equinox, except for support staff and special educators) have no part of it. Given the selection process it has, I'm not sure there will be a make up day. We'll keep you posted.
Coming up we have the chorus concert on Wednesday. We are very excited about that. We will talk about and decide what kind of party we will have on February 13th to celebrate Valentine's day. We may do another Stone Soup type of experience. Students are encouraged to bring cards with an emphasis on the message rather than on toys and candy. As always, the rule is if you bring a card for one person in our classroom, you must bring one for everyone in our classroom. Skiers will have an opportunity to give and receive cards but the actual party will be at the end of the day.
I hope you will enjoy the new slide show in the side bar. This highlights the work in our Science of Sound with the Create It Engineers.
Monday, January 19, 2015
January 16th
This week I am relying on the updates of my colleagues and I must credit them! This is a compilation!
As unit 3 draws to a close for third grade students, we finally explicitly taught students the traditional algorithm (or “carrying”) for multi-digit addition problems. Much time was spent this week evaluating the reasonableness of an answer when comparing to an earlier estimate. Finally, third graders are getting lots of opportunities to practice telling time and determining elapsed time during number corner! Fourth graders have been looking at comparing and converting decimals and fractions. They have been focusing on constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others. To prove their thinking, they use base ten pieces or quick sketches. The base ten pieces are a powerful model for decimal numbers. By using them to model different numbers and justify comparisons of those numbers, students are developing a deep understanding of decimal numbers and our base ten number system. We have also checked in on their fact fluency with one minute benchmark assessments.
On Tuesday of this week, all students completed a pre-assessment for our newly launched persuasive writing unit. All students wrote a brief persuasive piece to support the claim: "WIN should be a Free Choice block." Well, almost all students wrote and delivered a persuasive speech on this topic. One student presented the opposite claim and arguments to support it!
Almost all students have had a recent BAS (Benchmark Assessment System) assessment this past week. Information about instructional text levels, fluency, comprehension and reading rate was collected, and is used to inform reading instruction. We are participating in the whole-school read of Rules by Cynthia Lord. We submitted our first blog posts, and we’re going to be exchanging our blog link with Swift house to encourage a cross-grade level discussion and writing quality blog comments to a wider audience.
As unit 3 draws to a close for third grade students, we finally explicitly taught students the traditional algorithm (or “carrying”) for multi-digit addition problems. Much time was spent this week evaluating the reasonableness of an answer when comparing to an earlier estimate. Finally, third graders are getting lots of opportunities to practice telling time and determining elapsed time during number corner! Fourth graders have been looking at comparing and converting decimals and fractions. They have been focusing on constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others. To prove their thinking, they use base ten pieces or quick sketches. The base ten pieces are a powerful model for decimal numbers. By using them to model different numbers and justify comparisons of those numbers, students are developing a deep understanding of decimal numbers and our base ten number system. We have also checked in on their fact fluency with one minute benchmark assessments.
On Tuesday of this week, all students completed a pre-assessment for our newly launched persuasive writing unit. All students wrote a brief persuasive piece to support the claim: "WIN should be a Free Choice block." Well, almost all students wrote and delivered a persuasive speech on this topic. One student presented the opposite claim and arguments to support it!
Engineering: This was our final week having a formal workshop with Mr. Harmon and Mr. White, the engineers in residence. We were able to learn about timbre - or the voice of an instrument - with some student demonstrations of musical instruments. We connected what we learned about the travel of sound waves to various solids and liquids - which will be the topic of our next theme study! Ask your child how his/her kalimba is coming! The culminating work in the Dining Room on Friday allowed students to experiment with many instruments and use iPads to display various frequencies. We are so grateful to the Create it Lab engineers, http://createitlab.org/ and to FAP for its support of this work.
Other: Report Cards will be sent home with students Friday, 1/23.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Happy New Year!
I think January is my favorite month in the classroom! We all returned refreshed, eager and ready for new learning. It has been great. I was in a meeting for half the day on Thursday. Once again the guest teacher praised the class for their politeness and kindness. Their self assessment also indicated that they practiced their SMARTS. They actually like it better when they behave better. I'm glad they have figured that out. Their ability to reflect on their own performance is an important aspect of their learning profiles.
In writing students have done a couple of journal entries. One was a free write and one was a writing prompt. Until now, most of our writing has either been for the blog-with very little revision work or writing realistic nonfiction. We have neglected daily writing habits. We are working on focus, purpose and building stamina. We continue to struggle with what we call G.U.M., grammar, usage and mechanics. Specifically, students often forget to capitalize letters that require it. None the less, there is some great writing going on. You'll see examples on this week's blog updates.
We are also returning to daily quiet reading of fiction. We are starting up new reading groups, conducting reading assessments and enjoying our school wide read aloud book, Rules. This book is told from the point of view of a girl whose younger brother has autism. Themes of empathy, complex family dynamics, compassion and friendship are woven through the pages. We are enjoying the book.
The Create it Lab engineers continue to work with us on Tuesday. This project, by the way, has been funded by an FAP grant. Mr. Harmon, White and Griffin are volunteers but the Kalimbas that each student has made required some financial backing. That was funded by FAP and we are grateful! While the concepts are complex and somewhat difficult to grasp, the demonstrations are intriguing and entertaining. You might also read more about this on the student blog. In addition to talking about and seeing models of sound waves this week, we learned that light travels much faster than sound.
In other science news, students have become quite curious about the shocks they give and receive when touching each other or classroom objects in this winter season. We are conducting some inquiry experiences to figure out why this might be...Again, see the blog for student perspective!
From Ms. Ward: In third grade math students are just beginning unit 3 after a week of deep reflecting on their first semester learning. Ask your student about their successes with unit 2. Unit 3 involves exploring multiple strategies for adding & subtracting two and three-digit numbers. Students will work with four strategies (each involving the number line): removal (take away), differencing (count back), differencing (count up) and constant differences (change the problem). The third grade January calendar focuses on fractions, and number corner components include fact fluency - multiplication by 10 and 5, elapsed time and equivalent fractions.
In grade four we are working working working with fractions. We are manipulating fractions with similar and dissimilar denominators, representing them with money, on number lines, visual models and geoboards. We are also adding, subtracting and beginning to multiply fractions. Next week we work more with decimals. The class work in this rigorous math program really does give students multiple opportunities to grapple with and ultimately grasp new concepts.
Things are going well. If you'd like to join us at any time and see any of this in action, please let me know and we will arrange that.
In writing students have done a couple of journal entries. One was a free write and one was a writing prompt. Until now, most of our writing has either been for the blog-with very little revision work or writing realistic nonfiction. We have neglected daily writing habits. We are working on focus, purpose and building stamina. We continue to struggle with what we call G.U.M., grammar, usage and mechanics. Specifically, students often forget to capitalize letters that require it. None the less, there is some great writing going on. You'll see examples on this week's blog updates.
We are also returning to daily quiet reading of fiction. We are starting up new reading groups, conducting reading assessments and enjoying our school wide read aloud book, Rules. This book is told from the point of view of a girl whose younger brother has autism. Themes of empathy, complex family dynamics, compassion and friendship are woven through the pages. We are enjoying the book.
The Create it Lab engineers continue to work with us on Tuesday. This project, by the way, has been funded by an FAP grant. Mr. Harmon, White and Griffin are volunteers but the Kalimbas that each student has made required some financial backing. That was funded by FAP and we are grateful! While the concepts are complex and somewhat difficult to grasp, the demonstrations are intriguing and entertaining. You might also read more about this on the student blog. In addition to talking about and seeing models of sound waves this week, we learned that light travels much faster than sound.
In other science news, students have become quite curious about the shocks they give and receive when touching each other or classroom objects in this winter season. We are conducting some inquiry experiences to figure out why this might be...Again, see the blog for student perspective!
From Ms. Ward: In third grade math students are just beginning unit 3 after a week of deep reflecting on their first semester learning. Ask your student about their successes with unit 2. Unit 3 involves exploring multiple strategies for adding & subtracting two and three-digit numbers. Students will work with four strategies (each involving the number line): removal (take away), differencing (count back), differencing (count up) and constant differences (change the problem). The third grade January calendar focuses on fractions, and number corner components include fact fluency - multiplication by 10 and 5, elapsed time and equivalent fractions.
In grade four we are working working working with fractions. We are manipulating fractions with similar and dissimilar denominators, representing them with money, on number lines, visual models and geoboards. We are also adding, subtracting and beginning to multiply fractions. Next week we work more with decimals. The class work in this rigorous math program really does give students multiple opportunities to grapple with and ultimately grasp new concepts.
Things are going well. If you'd like to join us at any time and see any of this in action, please let me know and we will arrange that.
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