January 16th

This week I am relying on the updates of my colleagues and I must credit them!  This is a compilation!

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.  

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.