It has been great meeting with you parents in the conferences over the last several weeks.  If you and I have not had a conference, please contact me to set one up.  

Reading:  We continue to read Wonder and are closely examining character development, voice and perspective.  Our Global Read Aloud (GRA) books for the past two weeks were I’m Here and Ish.  Students have engaged in rich discussions in class about the author’s message.

Math:  During Number Corner, students in Grade Three Math have been working with volume measurement using milliliters and liters. The class is creating a rainbow of colored water while practicing measuring 250 ml. Number Corner also involves an introduction to multiplication through the game, Frog Jump! Unit one math lessons have revolved around showing multiple pathways to solve two-step number problems with addition and subtraction. The finale of unit one was the assessment on Friday. Next week will be the October Number Corner assessment.

Fourth Graders continue to build multiplicative reasoning as they work with multi-digit multiplication and early division.  In Module 1, students use base ten area pieces to investigate place value patterns, as well as model and solve single- and double-digit multiplication problems.  In Google Classroom, a Doc with support games for Unit 2 has been shared.  They are welcome to use this valuable resource as their fact practice.

Theme (Science):  We are well into our science investigation - Variations and Adaptations of Living Things.  Students are really enjoying this science and literacy integrated unit, and are observing characteristics of living things that show relatedness and variation.  listening to bird calls to distinguish between songbirds and nonsongbirds was a treat!  Ask your child what birds we listened to!  Students are reading nonfiction text, observing animals in photographs, watching videos of animal movement and listening to bird calls to distinguish songbirds from non-songbirds.  We are also beginning a mold investigation!

Writing:  In writing we are guiding students into what many fiction writers consider the heart of fiction: character struggle and motivation.  We have created believable characters and now we will decide what this person wants or hopes for.  In our next writing sessions we will try to balance a combination of hopes and obstacles.  

We framed our blog updates by having each child choose a topic and each had a checklist with which to review and edit their own work.  These narrow parameters have helped us post in a more timely fashion.

Community:  We are working on internalizing our SMART behaviors whether or not an adult is present.  We have played some fun games including pictionary-ish and charades using the animals from our science unit.  We are finally beginning to get our Jobs going too!  Overall we have had a great, full week!

Next Week:  The WCS Harvest Festival will take place at school on 10/31 during the day.  Your child will need to bring a few things-please see the separate post.

Science, Global Read Aloud, Theme Time Spiders!

The week has been busier than ever!  Likely we have had more fun than ever too! We have added a science/literacy block with Ms. Ward’s class and the joined the Global Read Aloud project.  We continue to try to post a weekly reflection from every student and from me!  We have not quite figured out how to do this in the time we have and have ‘clean’ work.  

We've enjoyed the reading of two books during Read Aloud this week.  We continue to read Wonder and students have felt great empathy for the main character, Auggie as he faces  some cruel social challenges.  We are also invited to shift perspectives as we hear from his sister, Via.  I have encouraged students to draw on these moving passages as we develop our own ideas for writing realistic fiction stories.  

As members of the Global Read Aloud project we are studying the books of Peter Reynolds.  This week we read The North Star.  Students have written several reflections connected to this book. The book itself focuses on each person’s personal journey and choices.  We will all be  blogging to connect our thinking about reading Peter Reynold's books as a way to connect beyond our classroom and Williston walls!

Our class is studying science topics with Ms. Ward’s class.  We are doing close reads to learn about the variation and relatedness of organisms, adaptation, heredity and so on.  We are implementing a program called Seeds of Science, Roots of Reading as one way to address the Next Generation Science Standards.  Students have enjoyed the partner reading of these nonfiction texts with their vivid photographs and interesting concepts.  We all enjoy partnering with Ms. Ward’s class.  

As I’ve mentioned above, in writing students have spent time finding ideas for realistic fiction stories by examining small moments from their lives. noticing and collecting these small moments has been very challenging.  We are learning to find characters in our own experience that we can use. This involves some dramatic story telling on my part.  

We love using the Chromebooks.  One challenge has been figuring out how to complete the much needed editing on the first draft of blog posts.  We continue to grapple with this. Once again most posts will be published on Monday.  

In math fourth graders completed the work for Unit 1-multiplication and division.  They took the unit test on Friday.  On Monday we will begin some work on measurement.  There was no paper homework last week rather I sent links to games that will help deepen the conceptual knowledge of factors, multiples, prime and composite numbers.

That’s all for now, oh...except that we saw a spider emerge from it’s egg sack in the kiva on Friday and we had a great time at the Potluck on Thursday! Please remember that next week is a three day week for students and please sign up for a conference with me using the link I sent.

 

Better Late Than Never...

Sorry we did not get our posts up Friday!  Students used a ‘story frame’ that I posted in Google Classroom to write their blog posts last week.  This morning they were able to copy and paste their entries into Kidblog pretty independently.  It is great to see their skills build.

We are beginning our work in our Writer’s Notebooks.  Our first unit of study will be realistic fiction.  We are following  the Lucy Calkins curriculum.  Right now we are searching for small moments that can be seeds for important stories.  This week we’ll also be working on character development.

During Reading I have been conducting assessments as students read, make connections and visualize.  This is also the work we are doing and discussing in Read Aloud as we have read Wonder. With the other Equinox classrooms, we are participating in a Global Read Aloud.  With other participants around the world we are doing a Peter Reynolds author study (The Dot) and responding to the texts.  Today we read The North Star. You can learn more about Global Read Aloud via this link.

Multiplicative comparisons are the focus of our math work in my class.  We are working with multiples, strategies for ratio tables based on multiples and the phrase “X times as many as.”  We are continuing this work during the week.  We are working in Work Places playing games designed to deepen students’ knowledge and skills with these concepts.  In third grade math students are working on strategies for practicing adding and subtracting numbers.  There has been a lot of work on the concept of equivalency. They are also working with Work Places.

Starting on Tuesday our class will pair with Ms. Ward’s during Reading block to begin an integrated science and literacy program.  We’ll be studying adaptations.  

We hope to see you this week at our family Pot Luck in the cafeteria on Thursday.  It will be a great chance for us all to socialize.  

Week 5 Review

It has been a grand week.  We have spent lots of time using our Chromebooks.  As you know, students wrote and posted their first posts directly.  We discussed the standards for my approval.  Students agreed that they would prefer not to have mistakes in their posts.  This really slows down the process because at this point, editing is still such a challenge!  This week's goal was to have each student make sure all words that needed to be capitalized were, all sentences ended with appropriate punctuation and the 'our' was used rather than 'are' when appropriate!  This was hard work but well worth it.  Some students will finish this work on Monday.  

We are still decorating our Writers' Notebooks.  They are looking good! 

In Reading we have begun the book Wonder.  We love it.  We are discussing the three types of connections we use as Readers to make construct meaning: text to self, text to text and text to world.  We had several group connections today during Read Aloud.  Choosing 'Just Right' books remains quite a challenge for many students.  

In Fourth Grade math we are working hard on multiplication strategies and multiplicative reasoning.  We are using arrays a lot to construct and deconstruct numbers.  I think everyone now knows what a prime or composite number is; we know about factor pairs, multiples and we especially practice multiples of twos, threes and fours.  

We began word study this week.  We have six groups which ensures smaller groupings.  Students are assigned to groupings based on their developmental spelling stage.  We work with words in a variety of ways, depending on the group.  It has been a treat to get to know more Equinox students and to see my core students among them.  The team is building cohesion with all among its new members!

Our Responsive Classroom routines which include developing cooperative habits and all of our SMARTS (safe behavior, mindful behavior, accepting behaviors and truthful behavior-and overalls elf control are developing well.  Theys students do love to learn and are quite results oriented.  They also love to sing and play which makes Friday Team Time a real treat.  

   

Week 4 in Review

Hello!

We had a great week! As you will see, the  highlights are typcially around dramatics!  We have enjoyed using funny voices and accents.  We greeted each other in operatic voices, did book talks in fun voices and have generally enjoyed being dramatic.  This class loves to sing and act things out.  I'm looking for ways to capitalize on those passions with our learners.  They are also very pleased to be using the Chrome Books more and more.  They have been incredibly careful and responsible while using them.  Ms. Hennig, our librarian went out of her way to give us positive feedback

She wrote:
"I had to email you to tell you how AMAZING your students just were in my Library Exploratory class...They were all model students, and I am so proud of them and just had to tell you."  We loved getting that email!

Thank you for your support of the Weekly Reading and Math Logs!  We are glad to be getting that started.  We are still working out the Fourth Grade Math homework.  This week we did a better job of matching it with the work we are doing in class.  This week we spent several days building arrays and talking about dimensions, factor pairs, prime, composite and square numbers.

On Friday we had our first Kiva Awards and Team Time.  All students participated.  It was a blast!  Ms. Weegar and I also taught two parts of a four part song.

Reminders:

• Picture day is this Wednesday, 9/24
• Fourth graders may want their own bike helmets for PE this week.
• Please send a note to me with your child in the morning if there is an end of day change whenever possible.  Or send me an early morning email.  Here is why:  students are typically anxious about these changes and check in with me repeatedly throughout the day.  When I don't know about the change, it is difficult to be reassuring.  Thanks for your help with this.  
• This week we shall work on decorating our Writer's Notebooks.  We will use magazine pictures, colored paper and such.  Students are welcome to bring photos from home too.  

As always, thanks for your support!  Have a great week.

Monday News

We had another busy Monday today!  You will notice that your children came home with Reading and Math logs so that they can track their reading and math practice this week.  Third graders have not logged on to Xtra Math at school yet-I'll make sure that we do that tomorrow.

We also sent home a homework contract.  Hopefully it makes sense to you to plan a way to support homework but also to preserve family time.  I certainly do not want homework to rule your lives and would prefer it takes up a small and productive part of each evening.  Let me know how I can help.

We owe an apology to parents of fourth graders: We sent home homework that we did not prepare students for last week.  That Thursday homework was meant for this week.  Ms. Weegar and I  ARE SO SORRY. We will review it in class later this week.  Hopefully that won't happen again, but if it does (ie your child has no idea how to do the work), please send it back unfinished!

Also in today's folder you should see a flyer advertising school photos.  Picture day is next week!

Fourth graders did use bikes in PE today and they will for the next 3 classes.  Bike Safety is the topic being addressed.  Please know that there are helmets here.  If your child wants to wear their own, he/she may bring it from home.

Check back later for more photos...

We met Sage!

9/9

Today Ms. Fisher and Sage visited!  It was great to see both of them.  Students were warmly greeted and they got to touch Sage if they wanted to.  Ms. Fisher explained the susceptiblity of infants to germs so students mainly touched Sage's legs or feet with clean hands.  Ms. Fisher spoke with kids, answered questions.  She also wanted to hear about students so each took turns telling her about important things in their lives.  We showed her how to play Predator and Prey too.

It was a real treat to have those two around!

On another note, I'm still trying to share our First Day Portraits...  Maybe if you click on the link you'll get to see the slide show!