Literacy - We finished our first class read aloud book, The Tiger Rising. We made final predictions about where the story would go. After finishing, we had a great conversation about making text-to-self connections. Many students could relate to the characters struggle of coping with a lost loved one. It was an impactful conversation and the students were sad to be finished. But! We moved onto our first novel study as a class, in which we break down The Indian in the Cupboard and work through guided questions in our literacy binders.
Writing - We continue to work on weekly spelling. Our word work practice has been helping. Make sure to quiz your child whenever you can (stoplights? dinner table? practice makes perfect!) We continued our Writer's workshop and developed short narrative pieces we will edit and share with the class. We will begin our Narrative writing unit next week. Math - We continued doing our daily math fact fluency drills. Please make your child practice fact fluency. Drill, baby, drill. We began solving number stories with an emphasis on first estimating, then solving. We reviewed triple digit addition and subtraction. We played math games involving cards and dice. Anything can be turned into a math game, so try and play at home! As we look to the week ahead, we will try and finish up Unit 1 and have our first math test in the next 1-2 weeks. Science - We finished lesson 2 and began lesson 3 in our Unit, Living Things and Energy. We discussed food chains and created some food chains of our own to decorate our 4th grade class. I introduced my class to my favorite science show as a child, Bill Nye, The Science Guy. We watched an episode about food chains and webs. Everything is connected! We will continue food webs and move onto microorganisms in the following week. Microscopes are in! I will look to utilize them to try and find some real live microorganisms. MicroSociety - Job interviews began for students interested in working at agencies. Kindergarten Micro Mentor positions have been filled, and interviews were held for Warehouse. We filled out resumes and Management 101 class started for any new students who would like to be a manager of a business. Managers have a bit more responsibility, but also make a bigger paycheck! ** We had a great fourth week of school. We continue to use the "beat the teacher" board to regulate classroom behavior. Students earned 23 extra minutes this week! We continue to have small slip-ups, but overall everyone is settling nicely into our daily routines.
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Literacy - We continued our class read aloud book, The Tiger Rising. Students have been making predictions and connections to the story as we discuss the various literary elements. We are almost through with beginning of the year reading assessments, and will do a full-class novel study beginning next week. After walking through a novel study together, students will break into reading groups for their own book discussions.
Writing - We continue to work on spelling. Check the take home folder for this weeks quiz! I've seen big improvements in quiz results already. We continued our Writer's workshop by pulling out new words from a bin and trying to use them in our writing pieces. We also tried a short descriptive writing piece about a mystery classmate. Students read their descriptions in front of the class and the audience had to guess who the subject was based on the description. We worked on strategies to self-edit and proofread our writing before showing Mr. Clermont a finished product. Math - We continued doing our daily math fact fluency drills. We introduced our student reference books and finished off exercises in rounding/estimating/place value. We finished beginning of the year math assessments, and I am happy to see how bright many of my students are in math! Have a struggling child? Try using academic websites at home to practice fact fluency. I've had students in previous years make tremendous progress after steady practicing of their math facts! Science - We continued our first chapter, Living Things and Energy, and moved onto the food chain. We had many conversations about how important decomposers are in the food chain, and watched some time-lapse photography of decomposition in action. Students were amazed by the speed and growth of bacteria and fungus. Did you know there's a fungus that takes over an ant's brain? Talk to you child about the food chain! We viewed relevant clips of the program "Planet Earth" that details the life cycle of plants and animals. MicroSociety - We participated in our first vote at MACS and decided on Class Representatives and Senators. We talked about the Peace Keepers role at MACS, and had a Q&A discussion with students from last year who were part of the Peace Keepers. We talked about managerial openings in several agencies including the bank, warehouse, post office, peace keepers, and a new position called Kinder Micro Mentor. An older student will pair with some new Kindergarten students during MicroSociety time to help them get acclimated with our school. ** We had a great third week of school. We continue to use the "beat the teacher" board to regulate classroom behavior. Students have earned 14 extra minutes the first week, and 16 extra minutes the second week. Can they keep it up? We work so well as a group! Literacy - We continued our class read aloud book, The Tiger Rising. Students have been making predictions and connections to the story as we discuss the various literary elements. We completed our first literacy story in our binders together, and practiced finding evidence in the text. We continue to organize the library and check in to ensure our reading logs are staying up to date.
Writing - We completed our first week of Spelling. Check the take home folder for this weeks quiz! We continued our Writer's workshop by working on our stamina. We developed a writing plan, with strategies to keep the class on task. We finished "secret notes" to Mr. Clermont detailing the pros, cons, and anything about 4th grade we wanted to share. Math - We continued doing our daily math fact fluency drills. All students were set up with new XtraMath log-ins. Students are able to access at home, and it is a proven method of increasing fact fluency. Have them practice over the weekend, the results are amazing. We worked in our interactive notebooks, detailing numerals, word form, and expanded form. We also set up Khan Academy log-ins to further practice 4th grade skills. Another website that students have access to at home :) Science - We began our first chapter, Living Things and Energy, and have had many enlightening conversations about the world. As we work through our packet, we stop and answer questions together as a group. We also partnered up and completed vocabulary flashcards for the Unit. We learned about the "mouths" of leaves called "stomata." They breathe just like humans! Talk to your child about it. MicroSociety - We completed our voter registration cards, enabling us to vote in elections at MACS. We voted on our 4th grade class representative, congratulations to Gavin Page! We talked about voting rules, should there be an age requirement? What if someone doesn't know anything about the candidates, should they be allowed to vote? Excellent discussion between the 4th graders with some disagreement, ask your child what they think, and why? We learned how bills can become a law (with a throwback SchoolHouse Rock video "I'm Just A Bill"). Next week we talk about other government roles and vote to fill our Micro City Senate! ** We had a great second week of school. We have implemented a "beat the teacher" board to help the students regulate their self-control. If they are on task, raise their hand before speaking, stay quiet in line, etc., they earn extra minutes of free time on Fridays (either outside or playing in the computer lab). We still struggle sometimes, but there's been a big improvement already. Talk to your child about how their self-control might impact other students in the classroom. Happy first week of school! All 4th graders got to play some "get to know you" games to help create an inviting atmosphere in the class. New friendships are already budding! I will post a weekly newsletter every Friday/Saturday to let you know what happened that week in 4th grade.
Literacy - We began the school year by setting up our Literacy binders and reading logs. We discussed what types of books we like to read, what makes some books harder to read than others, and have been working on our independent reading stamina. We began our class read aloud book, The Tiger Rising. Students have used their Reader's notebook (the same one they take home for homework) to begin making predictions about where they think the story is headed. We also began to go through the many, many donated books in our classroom library to help organize our "just right for 4th grade" books. Writing - We began our Writer's workshop by discussing why we write. We set up our Writer's notebooks and created a graffiti wall full of pictures and ideas to help begin the writing process when we are feeling stuck. We completed "letters to Mr. Clermont" to help identify certain seats, people, or strategies that help the students do their best work. Math - We began doing our daily math fact fluency drills. Fact fluency is a big part of 4th grade and I have been so impressed by their skills already! We set up our Math Interactive Notebooks, complete with Table of Contents and page numbers for various math skills we will be practicing throughout the year. We started doing quick review of end of 3rd grade skills (1 digit multiplication, place value, etc) Science - (As an FYI, our 4th grade curriculum leans heavier on Science than Social Studies, so we will be doing more Science work throughout the school year. Many Social Studies standards are covered during the MicroSociety time as well). We started with a Q&A session about what the 4th graders were most interested in learning about in Science. Our first Unit is on Living Things and Energy, and already students are learning a lot of plants. Did you know that plants can think? Talk to your child about it! MicroSociety - We reviewed and signed our MACS Social Contract. We discussed types of government and why we chose a democratic government for MACS. We discussed the MACS constitution, and the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. New students to MACS got to ask older students questions about how MicroSociety time works. Who can start a business? When do you get paid? Do we have to pay taxes? Finally, each student got to fill our their voter registration card, enabling them to vote in upcoming elections. ** We had a great first week of school. We are learning new schedules and routines, and there may be bumps along the way. If there is any pressing issue, please do not hesitate to reach out to me**. |
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April 2018
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