Job Shadow

We had a visitor to our class today, Miss Klein, a senior at Bradley that wants to be a teacher when she "grows up," shadowed me. If you hear about a young girl that was watching and in our room today, this is who they are referring too.
After daily language and M4T, we sorted our words and found that this week's generalization is once again the long vowel sound but this time controlled by a silent e. In Writer's Workshop, some of us began publishing our small moment stories while others continued writing, revising and editing. Gym was fun and it doesn't matter what Mr. Burkhart says, on C-days, you need deodorant! :) In Wonder, we noticed that Auggie is really 'growing up' from chapter to chapter. We continued working on theme and also read a drama, or play, from our StoryWorks magazines, "Pandora's Box." They loved this and will be learning some mythology along with the theme and all other aspects of reading. Unfortunately, during special, it began raining so we had indoor recess. :( In Math, we continued our real world addition and subtraction practice with balancing our checkbook. I noticed HUGE improvement in their adding and subtracting! Keep practicing at home~this will make other topics easier as the year progresses. Finally, we ended our day with an Ohio Studies Weekly about Ohio and it's geography. I noticed that after working so hard during Math and Social Studies, they were really loosing steam so we took a brain break with the "Sid Shuffle." (You can google that and watch it on you tube too!)    
                               

Need some work...

I am noticing that, now that we are fully into our daily schedule, some kiddos are struggling with staying on task and choosing to complete their work during class. Interims come home on Friday and you will know if your child is one of them. If this trend continues, class work may need to come home to be completed.
We took a pre-test in Word Study and created our lists and then used Rainbow Editing to identify editing needs with our small moment stories. Some students are ready for publishing tomorrow! We'll continue working all week on these stories. In Reader's Workshop, we discussed theme and while students read independently, they tried to find the theme of their books. We also read Miranda's perspective in Wonder and why she got "sick" before her big performance. In Math, we practiced REAL LIFE addition and subtraction by balancing a checkbook and checking it against the bank statement. This was pretty tough for them but once they got the hang of it, they were on a roll. This too also showed why it is important to be accurate and precise with their answers. One mistake here or there could cause big problems when it comes to finances! Maybe they could help you at home this week with these real life skills. Finally, we discussed the balance inquiry project and what it showed/taught us and completed our map and globe review booklets.

Fabulous!

First of all, Sheldon, one of our hermit crabs changed into a bigger shell this morning! It was so cool and so gross all at the same time! (I showed them a video because it happened before they got here.) Fridays are so fun with Word Study games! Which game did your child play today? In Writer's Workshop, we learned about revising and how it is different from editing--Revising makes is SOUND better where editing makes it LOOK better. Poor Daisy, Auggie's dog passed away in Wonder today. It was very sad. On a good note, though, Auggie and Via seemed to be growing closer and understanding each other more. Then, in Reader's Workshop, we played Chutes and Ladders with inferencing, visited the library, worked with me and read independently. After recess, we practiced subtraction in Number Talks and then took a quiz (blah) and checked in on our addition fact fluency (blah) and completed some real life subtraction... We finished our balance inquiry projects in Science today!! Next week, we'll take a little test to see if they understood what they've done all this time. Our day ended by playing Homeworkopoly. 25 out of the 26 students here today did and recorded homework in their planners to play! Kudos!

Thankful

We worked with understanding what words mean today in Word Study by picking 4 of our words and writing the definition, word in a sentence, synonyms and antonyms and drawing a picture for each word. Cypress was a pretty popular word as was bylaw and defray... does your child have any new understandings after this word work? Reader's Workshop was shortened due to pictures after special but in the time we had, we learned in Wonder, that Auggie got hearing aids! We also practiced making inferences with an "I have, who has?" game. Unfortunately, we had very little time to read independently and they let me know that this was not ok! :) In Math, our Number Talk had us using mental math for subtraction. The main strategies they use are place and value (tens-tens and then what's left-ones) and adding up. We also practiced subtraction using the traditional algorithm and we are still needing practice so we'll keep working at the regrouping and trading out. Our day ended with Science and our balance inquiry.

Woot! Woot!

Some kiddos are needing a lot of reminders in the morning to get going with their work and this is beginning to get them behind from the get go... today, we completed our daily language review, began our Math 4 Today and found 10 words for Prove-it! that fit with our generalization for this week and did all of that before 9:30! In Writer's Workshop, we continued writing our small moments stories. Some have gotten to the revising part of the writing process, where I had asked them to stop, so they blogged or wrote other stories. After music, we finished up Justin's section in Wonder and will be revisiting Auggie in the next part, tomorrow. We worked more with inferencing and informational text and student's marked in their independent reads where they made inferences. In Math, we are fairly secure with addition in our Number Talks so we will be moving onto subtraction. I anticipate some trouble with this as a lot of people-adults too-have difficulty subtracting mentally. Then, we used base-10 blocks to model subtracting with regrouping and practiced a lot! We ended our day with Guidance and discussing respect.

Totally awesome!

After going over our daily language review, and working on Math 4 Today, we sorted our Word Study words and found that this week's words have long vowel sounds. We came up with the generalization that when you hear a long vowel sound at the end of a word, there is most likely a y. There are a few tricky words this week, like survey, that sound like a different letter than in the actual word. We then continued working on our small moment story. A few students are ready to start revising but we are going to wait on the majority of the class to catch up so we can talk about revising vs. editing and how important it is to revise our work, together. After Art, we read more from Wonder, this time through Justin's eyes, which is very hard to read! Justin's part doesn't have capital letters, quotation marks and has a ton of run-on or fragmented sentences! AHHHH! Anyway, it was a good teaching moment to show writer's craft. (Thank you, R.J. Palacio!) We also learned about inferences today. We used pictures and made observations first and then inferences-conclusions, informed decisions-afterwards. The observations were the proof for the inferences. We'll be working with making inferences with both literary and informational texts this week. Students were very active at recess today...this was my inference because they smelled awful after! :) We worked on our mental math and explaining our thinking during Number Talks and then played an addition game to practice regrouping. Then came the fun part. I told a story about my friends "Juan," "Tim" and "Henry" and how/where they shop... this was our introduction to using the traditional algorithm for subtraction! Ask your kiddo about my story. We transferred the story to show the mathematics behind the story but they always seem to remember the story if they get stuck. Finally, we completed our day with Social Studies and globe and map skills review--which we totally needed! Some of them thought we had 12 oceans!

Magnificent day!

What a glorious way to start the week! We took a pre-test and got our new words for word study this morning--does your kiddo know how to spell our nemesis LIBRARY?! Then, we continued the writing process with our small moment stories for Writer's Workshop. After a game of Battleship in gym, we finished Jack's section of Wonder. Jack is a good guy, we decided, he just had a small hiccup in his self-discipline and gave in to peer temptation to talk badly about Auggie. We then read The Volcano that Changed the World, informational text story in our StoryWorks magazine so that we can work closely with this text this week. Students also read independently and worked toward their 30 book challenge. We spent the afternoon in the computer lab learning and practicing using our newest math resource, ST Math. Hopefully, your child will share this with you sometime this week.
Also, students are starting to keep track of their homework in the Social Studies portion of the planner. On Friday, we will be playing Homeworkopoly for the first time!

Thank goodness!!

We made it! This morning was a little hectic and I got everyone off task a little because it was National Talk Like a Pirate Day! I was greeting them with, "Ahoy mateys!" After they completed their morning routine, they needed to figure out their pirate name by choosing a three digit number where each digit stood for a name-boys needed to have an odd number and girls an even number. Some were pretty funny! Then, we played games for Word Study and continued writing our narratives based off small moments. In Reader's Workshop, we played a game using context clues to solve unfamiliar vocabulary words called, Talk Like a Pirate. Duh...I take a theme and truly run with it!! We also read and got caught up on some unfinished work. In Math, we practiced the traditional algorithm for addition and became more secure with carrying to the next place or trading in our base-10 blocks. If your child is struggling, this is probably the step they are forgetting. We also had a fire drill in the middle of math which made getting back into working afterwards, a little more challenging. Anyhow, we finished up and then worked on our Science balance experiments. To finish out our Friday, we wrote in our reflection journals about what we did, our strengths and weaknesses and set a goal for next week as well.

Almost there...

We've almost made it through another week. Today seemed like it went by fast: daily language review for morning practice, vocabulary roll-a-word for word study and writing narratives inspired by small moments in our lives all before special. What small moment from your child's life inspired your kiddo? We earned a potato head piece for an awesome art and then read in Wonder that Jack has finally realized why Auggie has been mad at him. Uh-oh! How is Jack going to handle this situation? In Reader's Workshop, we continued our scavenger hunt for non-fiction text features, read independently and some met with me to show their comprehension on our first Story Works story. After recess, we completed our focus on flexible application of rounding numbers and began the traditional algorithm for addition. What method DID your child use to add? Can they show you the traditional method? Which is more efficient? Finally, we completed our day working on our balance inquiry project for Science.

Constitution Day

Happy Constitution Day! 226 years ago, our Founding Fathers signed our U.S. Constitution so we did many things to learn about and understand this document. In Reader's Workshop, I met with a good chunk of students to talk about primary sources, why some words within the Constitution (Posterity, Tranquility, Blessing, etc.) are capitalized as well as why the amendments are important and what our life would be like without these changes. We participated in a webcast LIVE from the National Archives in Washington D.C. (hopefully you saw our tweets and that @DiscoveryEd retweeted our tweets!) where we saw the actual Constitution and other primary sources. This was very cool-especially to those of us that have seen the National Treasure movies. I read, We, the Kids by author and political cartoonist David Catrow and (my favorite) watched the School House Rocks video of The Preamble! I think students have a better idea of our rights how important our Founding Fathers were to our country.
In Writer's Workshop, we did a shared writing based off of how R.J. Palacio began Wonder. We took a small moment from class last week where Sheldon (one of the hermit crabs) clamped on to Levi's finger and used that to springboard a story from the perspective of Sheldon. Each kiddo can go on and now add to our story using Google Apps. We also read independently and continued our work with rounding in the real world for Math.

Terrific Tuesday!

One thing I notice about this group of kids, and I've shared this with them, is that they are wonderfully verbal in go above and beyond when it comes to discussion and sharing their thinking. However, you would never know this by looking at their writing! For some reason, this awesomeness of understanding does not translate when they write. There might be some writing homework coming in the next week or so to help them with this important skill...stay tuned!
For Word Study, we sorted our words and found a very similar generalization as last week-short vowels but these words have more than one syllable. (We did not move on to long vowels as I had stated in my weekly notes.) In Writer's Workshop, we looked at R.J. Palacio's website (author of Wonder) to see where she got the idea for her amazing novel and found that this book started from a small moment in her life, getting ice cream with her children. Ask your child about this moment. Then, we decided that if she can start a narrative with a small moment, maybe we could too. So, we brainstormed some small moments from our lives to get our creativity flowing. Speaking of Wonder, we learned more about Summer and her perspective on Auggie. She seems like a genuine person that is truly a good friend to him. Then, we turned our focus from literary text to informational text and the features between them. Students have a Non-Fiction scavenger hunt that they are working on this week to find specific text features of informational text. We also had time for independent reading and library time. Our number talks are using more challenging numbers but you'd never know this from their level of understanding and explaining (verbally, not in writing) their thinking. Then, we continued our work on the exemplar-The I-Did-A-Read. This was really challenging for them so we discussed and completed this together. They also worked on independent math--a time where they can "play" around with math and enjoy it. In Science, we continued our inquiry balance project. We had better teamwork today but will continue working at it!

International Dot Day!

Happy Dot Day! We "Made our Mark" along with Darby Creek by creating a human dot! It was very cool to see all the support from students representing their grade with their colored shirts! Thank you for your help with this. Here is a picture I took of the drone flying above to take the picture alongside the moon-very cool! (HR imaging took a picture using the Norwich Fire Department Ladder truck and I'm sure there will be more pictures tweeted or released somewhere--I will let you know when I find out where to locate them.)

After we created our dot, we finished up Part Two of Wonder and can understand a little more about Via, or Olivia-which she likes to now be called. The next part will give us a closer look into Summer and her relationship with Auggie. We also worked with Informational text features through the Time For Kids. In Math, we took a 5 minute addition fact fluency check. Most kids are able to solve the addition problems with sums around 20 or less but are working to complete this more fluently. We'll periodically check in to see if they're getting more efficient with fact fluency, with all operations. We have been learning/practicing rounding but today applied our understanding to multi-step word problems. I've never, in my adult life, been asked to round a number to the nearest thousand! I explained this to them and that they will need to USE the skills in other ways, i.e. organizing a food drive, having a party, concessions stand at OSU football games, etc. Finally, in Science, we began an inquiry project where the students are investigating how a balance works.

TGIF!!

Today was a great day! We worked with combining sentences as daily language review and completed our Math 4 Today assessment to get our brains warmed up. Then, in Word Study, we played word games to show our understanding of this week's generalization. Ask your kiddo why games and not a test. We had gym outside today and it was brisk! Afterward, we got a better look at what Via goes through being Auggie's sister and although it has its highs, there are also some lows. I have been meeting with students this week to discuss their independent book choices. More than a good chunk of the class are reading books that are too easy for them. I tried to talk to them about choosing more challenging books so hopefully, next week, I'll see more variation in book choices. In Math, we completed our work with rounding...well, I hope we completed it! They agreed that rounding to the nearest tens and hundreds were a lot easier than rounding to the nearest ten-thousands or hundred-thousands. Finally, we ended our day with our electronic party!! I heard a lot of "Clash of Clans" lingo! :0)

Patriot Day

After completing and going over our daily language review, we played Vocabulary Roll-a-Word with our Word Study words. Candid seemed to cause students some difficulty today. Maybe you can sneak it into your conversation and see if they pick up on the meaning or mention anything about it. That pretty much took up our writing time. We had a little extended music today because it was Audition Day! Did you kiddo have the courage to try out for a solo? Then, in Reader's Workshop, we read a little bit from Wonder but in this part, we saw things from Auggie's sister, Via's, perspective. We also, read independently and worked on critical thinking and answering questions using the story "Silverman City" in our Story Works. After a chilly recess, we practiced extended facts in Number Talks and then finished our game of "Beat the Teacher." Students showed that they were ready to move on, so we practiced rounding to the nearest ten and hundred. They are expected to round whole numbers through millions so we will be practicing this skill for a couple days. To help remember, I created a fun story about a bossy friend and the shock of the others around--does your kiddo remember? Finally, we ended our day discussing Patriot Day. We took a close look at the "Pledge of Allegiance" and what the words we say each day means. I think they'll say the pledge a little more emphatically tomorrow. We also made ribbons and did some word work with Patriot.

Hump day!

It seems like it should be later than Wednesday... We earned a potato head piece today for walking in a perfect and quiet line to and from Art! Woohoo! One more and we earn our first celebration!
Our day began as it always does, with daily language review and then we moved into Word Study. Today students proved that they understood the generalization of this week's words--short vowel sounds. Some kids had difficulty with this basic skill but I'm hoping that they were just over thinking things. In Writer's Workshop, we discussed writing responses to questions. Instead of just answer the question, we learned that we should use part of the question within our answer. After Art, we read about Halloween in Wonder. This USED to be Auggie's favorite holiday. Ask your child why it wasn't this year. We practiced responding to questions by answering critical thinking questions during Reader's Workshop that pertained to our Story Works story. We also visited the library-if it was their day-and read independently. We made it through recess without getting rained on! Students are learning great strategies in Number Talks and doing awesome at sharing their thinking...now to get them to share their thinking IN WRITING. We reviewed the concepts we've been learning/practicing in Math and then played Beat the Teacher but this time, it is a little more than just a game because I'm assessing if they are secure with place, value, comparing, ordering and writing numbers through millions. Finally, we completed our day with Guidance with Mrs. Vidic. (Planners were not stamped because we ran out of time-sorry!)

Better!

Today was better than yesterday AND it's a full moon tonight. Huh?! I'll take it! :)

We went over our daily language review as our warm up for learning. Then, we sorted our Word Study words and found the generalization of this week's words--1) every word has a vowel sound, 2) each syllable has a vowel sound, 3) these are short vowel sounds. In Writer's Workshop, we talked about collecting artifacts for our writer's notebooks. Ask your kiddo what an example might be. We had a great gym time and then returned to take the SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory) on the computer. This is just another collection of information on how your child performs in reading. Lunch and recess went off without a hitch and when we came in from outside, we went back to the computer lab for the SMI (Scholastic Math Inventory). Overall, our class seems stronger in reading than in math, from these inventories alone. Please help your kiddo to practice math at home-just as you would with wanting to be sure they are reading. I've given them some practice sheets for their binder that they could use or can play a game or go to mangahigh on the computer. We completed our Bouncing Ball experiment in Science. What conclusions did your child make about dropping the tennis ball?

Honeymoon is over...

Well, we were pretty chatty and distracted today. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better. We reviewed our one rule, "Every student shall be safe and able to learn," and what their role as student and mine as teacher is. Our focus was that one of their biggest roles is to follow the core virtues. Please help your kiddo to remember their role as a student.
After going over our daily language, we took our first pre-test for Word Study. Then, we went to the computer lab to blog! Students should be 'playing around' with kidblog this week to help get comfortable and familiar with the site. We had a great music and then came back and read more about Auggie's first day at Beecher Prep. All in all, his day was a 5/10. He met a new friend, Summer, but noticed his differences from the other kids. Then, we read a similar short story in Story Works. I wonder if they will pick up on the similarities... We also began our daily rotation for library visits. Which day does your child go to the library? It seems like it took forever to get to lunch but we made it! After a nice recess, we completed a number talk where we are securing our efficient strategies in making friendly numbers for mental math. Then, with a partner, completed an Exemplar. Today, we worked with pips on a domino and number patterns. We ended our day with some teamwork and practice with observations and data collection in science with the Bouncing Ball Experiment.

TGIF

Today was a great day! We only need 2 more potato head pieces until our celebration! Personalizing our writer's notebooks was a lot of fun! Now, our notebooks are individualized and longing to be written in. After art, our buddies came to our room this time and we made our mark as buddies, by creating dots-complete with our pictures, signatures of course and accomplishments we'd like to make this year. Next, after they dry, we'll connect-the-dots with string to make a buddy garland. **Ms. Wallace and I tweeted this out and tagged Peter Reynolds, the author of The Dot, and he favorited our tweet! So cool! (Follow us on twitter @ADE4thGrade .) Our buddies went to lunch and we cleaned up and then had time to read, finish decorating our notebooks or visit the library. When we returned from recess, we completed a number talk on making friendly numbers, this time with larger numbers, and then continued our work with ordering and comparing numbers into the millions place. Finally, we completed our day and week by writing in our Reflection Journals. Have your child share this with you!

Typical day...

Our day started like every other, with Daily Language Review. Then, we wrote without boundaries in our Writer's Notebooks. I gave them some guidance (which some felt were boundaries) to write about things they wonder and to use their senses to write ideas. We had gym today and then read more about Auggie's first day of school. Julian is still being nice in front of adults but mean to Auggie. Also, we learned what one of my favorite sayings from the book means, "CHOOSE KIND." In Reader's Workshop, we got our first Story Works magazine. We will be using this subscription all year--thanks, PTO! Ask your kiddo what is involved with this magazine. For Math, we completed a number talk using/finding friendly numbers to help our mental math. We also ordered large numbers. I showed them an easy way to do this-do they remember? After an exit slip over writing numbers different ways and place and value of numbers, we went to the lab to familiarize ourselves with mangahigh. Finally, we completed our work with the Ohio Studies Weekly newspaper. This 'newspaper' subscription--thanks again, PTO--is a supplement to our teaching in Social Studies.

Terrific!

I had a substitute in the classroom yesterday while I assessed children on their reading out in the hall, so I didn't write the blog--sorry...

Today, we began getting caught up on Daily Language Reviews (since we didn't have school on Monday). Then, we went back and corrected our Important Paragraphs. Unfortunately, the first copies, although AMAZING information within, were not paragraphs but a collection of sentences. Anyway, I think we are good now. :) I also introduced writing with and without boundaries. We will be making our Writer's Notebooks this week so we discussed a little about finding a love for writing. After Music, we went to the Media Center where Mrs. Richardson gave us an overview of literary genres. This will help with our 30 book challenge! We will be going back next week so that we can take a closer look at some specific genres and the characteristics of these. We also read, Kathy's Hats, a book about all the hats we wear throughout our lives, including some that we don't enjoy wearing--in this case because of being sick. They decided to wear hats tomorrow to support Layth's return to school from an overnight stay at Children's Hospital. No crazy hats-just hats. After lunch and recess, we had a number talk where 10 is important with mental math and adding with 9. We then reviewed the different ways we write numbers--standard form, words, expanded form, etc. After practicing this some, we played Musical Place and Value. This was a lot of fun! (We learned too but shhhh!) I also showed them how to access mangahigh, an online web game to practice math. Each child came home with their unique login information to try it out. Finally, we took a pretest in Science and then read, wrote or practiced math.