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This week our community of learners has been working really hard. In math, students have been exploring prime and composite numbers, reviewing multiplication strategies, practiced adding partial products, and learned and played a couple of games using those multiplication strategies. During reading, students have learned to keep a reading log to see patterns in their reading, have taken notes about their books to show evidence of their reading, and some have even written a letter to me explaining the reasons why they like the book they are reading. During writing, students have gotten ideas from other books to spark their creativity, in this case from the book "Tuesday", by David Wiesner, a picture book with almost no words that tells a story of a particular Tuesday in an unknown town, where suddenly some frogs start flying. This story has made students think and wonder about the reasons behind that strange phenomena. Finally during Science, students have been looking carefully at the moment one owl catches a mouse, and paying attention at all the details of the owl's movement. Very impressive work!
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During this full week of work students have been working with Models of Multiplication, using tiles to make area models and representing the models on paper to make posters with all the factors of a number. Additionally, students have played Splat! where two teams compete for the biggest amount of points by adding the products at the end of a round. During reading workshop, students have learned to find text features on informational and fiction texts, and have compared different types of informational and fiction books. During writing, the students have continued gathering ideas by looking at the things they are good at, and making more lists out of some of those ideas. Also today we have been looking at "what's in a name", thinking about their first names, middle names, family names and pet names and the stories behind them. On Social Studies we have looked at the heroic story of the men and women that used their boats to rescue people fleeing from the area near the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks. And finally, last week we received the visit of Elba, this year's Spanish Aide that will be working with us on Mondays and Tuesdays. Take a look at this week's slideshow! One more week comes to an end. This week the students had the chance to solve some multiplication word problems together, working with a partner and in a small group with me. We have also learned about problem strings, where a series of related multiplication equations show a repeated pattern, and one equation can be used to solve the next. Through discussions and sharing strategies, the students have shown flexible thinking and problem solving skills. In our reading workshop, students have been able to choose their own books, thinking about the "just right" books for each of us, and about the topics that we like to read about, and sharing with the classroom so that we know each other a little better as readers. The students have also practiced thinking and talking about the books, writing their thoughts about their books as they read independently, and sharing later during assembly. We've also started our writing workshop, gathering ideas in our notebooks, that are the seeds for future stories. The students are growing their reading and writing stamina, and are following the routines with great attention and responsibility. Our community of learners is off to a great start!
We did it! The first "week" is finished, and even with a delay today, we were able to get some work done! Most of the time we have been going through routines and procedures in the classroom. We have talked about transitions, appropriate behavior in the line and in the hall, and today we have been practicing for the first time some independent reading. The students have been modeling what to do and what not to do when we are reading independently, so we've had a few laughs. During our math session called "The number corner" we have been working on noticing and wondering about strange symbols in the markers for the day, a mystery that has everybody excited to learn more. We have also been working on the number line, skip counting by multiples of 2, and finally today, we have been working on understanding a word problem. We've also had some time to introduce our mindfulness/growth mindset session that will take place daily during the 15 minutes of transition between recess and the special. Some students have also had a chance to share their fantastic and adventurous stories of the summer. Thank you for helping your child gathering all the fabulous artifacts. And finally we have started to fill in our "All about me" poster. Not a bad use of the time if you ask me! They have been excellent listeners, have followed directions very well, and have participated a lot during these two days of school. I think we've had a lot of fun this short week.
Have a great long weekend! |
AuthorHello! My name is Esther Willinski, and I am a fourth grade teacher in Massachusetts. Join us in our journey through 4th grade! Archives
December 2024
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