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.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
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.
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