This week during our math block, students have been learning to measure different objects and materials using the metric system. Using centimeter rulers, the students have been measuring classroom materials and noticing that the length of the object doesn't change if we move the object to a different centimeter in our rulers, and that to find the length of the object they can either move to the 0 mark, or subtract the lowest centimeter from the highest one. Students have also learned to count centimeters when the objects land on halves. Using pan balances and scales, the students have found how many beans can fit in 100 grams, or the weight in grams of a certain amount of beans. Students have also weighed "bread" dough (clay) and found the measurement on the scale that marks the grams and kilograms. Finally, students have been pouring colored water from one container to another in quantities of 50 milliliters, 100 milliliters and 250 milliliters to get to one liter. The goal of these activities has been to understand the metric system and have some benchmark knowledge on the average quantity of different materials compared to their weight, mass, length and capacity. During our reading workshop students have continued working with partners, groups or independently on the strategies already learned, as well as worked on updating the book logs, and learning about how readers relate to the characters of the stories that they read. During writing workshop we have reviewed the different text features for informational pieces, and the students have had a chance to partner up to discuss how they will be using those text features in their own informational pieces, now that most of them have decided on the topic that they will be working on. During science, we have extended last week's lesson on vision, and related it to our anchoring activity on how an owl catches a mouse. Finally, we have started our Social Studies unit on maps and geography, learning about the location of the United States on a map of the world, about the equator and the prime meridian. Regarding the Halloween celebration, all fourth grade classes will be working on a STEM challenge, and the students will be creating a Pumpkin decoration to express the meaning of a given word that students will have a chance to explore in the classroom. Please read the information about the Halloween celebration on the packet that is coming home today, or find the same information on the file attached. This week's slide show is attached under the documents. Have a great weekend!
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These two short weeks in our class have been packed with learning. In math the students have been taking some checkpoint assessments, played more multiplication games, have practiced some math fluency with number strings and math talks, and have started dipping their feet on fractions and decimals. During reading workshop, our small group guided reading practice has taken off, as well as our partner reading practice, and the students have learned and practiced some strategies to improve their fluency and comprehension, like "help or time" and "check for understanding". With the "help or time" strategy, students help each other correct their reading miscues by following along the reading of the same book, side by side, and pointing at the word their friend has mispronounced, offering to help with reading the word, or asking if they need time to figure the word out by themselves and try again. This non judgmental practice of reading improves students awareness of their own reading, and prepares them for self-correction and accuracy. With the "check for understanding" strategy, students focus on the comprehension of the story by stopping after a paragraph or page, closing the book, and using the arrow bookmark as a guide to ask questions that start with "what", "who", "when", "where" and "why", while the other students respond to the questions asked. This strategy prompts summarizing, comprehending, predicting and inferencing. During group work reading we use the same strategy, and I encourage the practice of new words by asking my students to build sentences with them. Other lessons that we have started this week have to do with practicing prosody by producing the correct musicality when reading out loud questions and exclamations, and by doing the adequate pauses after periods or commas. And finally, students have been recommending books to their friends during some periods between the group and independent work, so that other students get excited about reading new and different books. During writing workshop, we have started our "informational piece" journey by talking about the things we know how to do well, or know a lot about, and by creating subtopics for a few of them, that will later become the headings or sections in our final pieces. During science, we extended the lesson on muscles and skeleton by building a robot hand, and we started the lesson on eyes, light and vision by exploring a dissection of a cow's eye, and creating our own model of a human eye using a magnifying glass as a "cornea", and an index card as a "retina". The students could see how the outside trees and clouds were reflected on the cornea when passing through the lens. And finally, the students have been working on exploring their strengths with the Thrively platform of which you will know more about. Take a look at these two week's slideshow to see the students in action! Hola! This is what we have been working on this week: During math the students have learned three new games, practicing multiplication equations, adding partial products, splitting arrays in smaller pieces, and using a ratio table. We have also finished the Number Corner activities for the month, and we have ended the week reviewing some multiplication facts. During reading, the students have started evaluating books, and some have started sharing with the class a brief summary of the book they wanted to recommend, the reason why they recommend it, and other interesting facts about it. We have added a checklist and a bucket for the recommended books, where the students can write their names and titles of the books they want to recommend, so that we can find a moment during our reading workshop for that. This week I have also been able to start working with small groups of 4 or 5 students in a guided reading setting, while the rest of the students read independently. We have been practicing the strategy "check for understanding", reading together the same book (in the group), stopping after each page, and generating questions and answers about what we just read. The students engagement has been fantastic! In writing the students have been generating ideas about one chosen word, and shared with a partner. During science, students have learned all about how muscles expand and contract to move parts of the body, and have created a model of a finger. During mindfulness practice, the students have learned the main functions of three important parts of the brain: the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala and the hippocampus, and how when the amygdala feels there is a threat, either real or imaginary, it blocks the functions of the PFC and the hippocampus, and then we cannot make good decisions or retrieve information that we have learned before. And finally, the students have been taking the ELA and Math assessments through the i-Ready platform. Take a look at the slide show to see all the learning in action! 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! 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! This week during math our scientists have been working on classifying quadrilaterals, fractions of a whole, fractions bigger than a whole, and multiplication facts. In Science they have been learning all about the different climates of the world. During Language Arts, they have kept their writing skills on fire: you can almost see smoke coming from those pencils, that is how much they are writing, confidence levels rising as they answer more and more open response questions successfully. Ask them anything about text features, character traits, compare and contrast or cause and effect, these scientists have an answer. We have also started analyzing poetry, learning to read between the lines, getting the deeper meaning of some poems. These scientists are using their investigation skills to the fullest and sharing beautiful insights. The enthusiasm for learning and the perseverance they are showing are incredible to see. There is no doubt in my mind that, regardless how difficult the state exams will be, our scientists will work tirelessly to show their best knowledge and skills, and for that I am extremely proud.
This week and a half at the lab, during Science our scientists have been having a lot of fun learning about and predicting the weather, based on the observation of clouds. They have also learned how a cloud is formed, what is lightning, what is pressure, and how to read a weather map. During Social Studies the scientists have been building a map of the New England States and have learned about their shapes and capitals with our New England playdoh project. During math we have started working on fractions of a whole, and during Language Arts, we have continued practicing the open response question, this time focusing on character traits. Last Friday, our scientists have also been tutoring their friends in second grade. Take a look at this week's slide show. Enjoy the break! For the past two weeks the scientists have been building their writing stamina, practicing open response questions after reading a passage, staying on topic, giving tons of evidence from the story, and commenting on the evidence. These scientists are getting the hang of it, and are consistently becoming more confident in their abilities to write essays and respond with comprehension. Last week we worked on text features and this week we are working on how characters interact and care for each other. In Math, the scientists keep on making strides on their multiplication facts and adding more cool lights to their fingers, through exciting 4 minute sprints. They have also concluded the unit on division strategies and finished their tests pretty successfully! This week, we have even got started on fractions! What a better way to get started with that than with a perfectly divided brownie sheet in fifteen equal parts? This was just a happy coincidence when one of our scientists celebrated his birthday on the first day of fraction learning. Also, during science, the scientists are learning all about cloud formation and how to predict stormy weather. One highlight of the week was the visit of a mystery reader, who got the scientists engaged in the book "Un caso grave the rayas", a story about a girl that starts getting color stripes when she doesn't follow her heart for fear of being judged by others. Our mystery reader's prosody and clarifications always keep our scientists completely hooked to the storytelling. And as the other highlight of these two weeks, our scientists have become reading tutors of Sra. Hidalgo's class, having each an assigned student (or two) to work on fluency and comprehension strategies that our scientists are experts on. Last Friday, after the tutoring session, we had some time to debrief, and it was fantastic to hear the insights about their students. These scientists were pretty tuned into their students' needs, and have guided them with compassion, patience and care. We can't wait for the next session. Take a look at the pictures :) |
AuthorHello! My name is Esther Willinski, and I am a fourth grade teacher in Massachusetts. Join us in our journey through 4th grade! Archives
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