I want to say an enormous thank you to the Whittier PTO for helping the Whittier staff start our year off with a bang. Thanks to their generous donation to our classrooms, I'm looking into several options to enhance our learning and learning environment this year. More to come when I decide on a purchase that's best used in 303 this year!
Reading: We continued reading the novel Chicken Boy this week. It is about a 7th grade boy with a complicated home-life who learns to become vulnerable through friendships at school. The story is both funny and inspiring and it has opened up some wonderful discussions! I'm using this novel as a tool to introduce and practice some of the reading routines we'll use throughout the year with our new curriculum, Treasures. We are working on vocabulary, phonics, word study, comprehension and reading responses.
4th Grade Math: We began Unit 1 which focuses on "Naming and Constructing Geometric Figures." So far we've reviewed rays, lines, line segments and angles. Today we classified quadrangles by their features: some were parallelograms, some were parallelograms and rectangles, etc. Ask your kids how we used our bodies to "act out" parallel lines and classifications on the rug.
Science: To kick off our year we conducted a fun little experiment following the Scientific Method. Using the whole process, the students wrote their own experiment and tested the reaction time of classmates or their teachers. Ask them about the experiment, and how Ms. K fared...
Next up we'll begin our first unit called "Ology." It teaches the kids about different types of science and scientists. Today I assigned "ology" topics at random. Typically I'll allow for choice for a research project. As a science team, we agreed that due to the topics and the short time frame of the project, we'd randomly assign this time. We will collaborate with Mrs. Conley from the library to research a chosen science using the new Netbooks and produce a creative writing piece to present our findings.
Social Studies (Ms. Wennerberg): We began our study of the regions of the United States this week. We began by working in small groups. Students were given a map of the U.S. and set of questions to try to answer. Their job was to make predictions about each region based on what they already know about the country. We will compare their responses to what they actually learn as we go through the unit. Today, I introduced them to different ways to take notes. They glued a handout of these ways into the front of their social studies spirals as a reference. As we read chapter 1 and 2, we will use each of these examples. We also discussed how we could use these different ways to take notes in most any class.
Writing: The kids are in full swing with writing workshop: they have table conferences, work in partnerships, and have really begun developing their first pieces to publish. It's been a busy little workshop in here and they're loving it. This week we discussed the actual writing process, what defines a narrative, and how to 'narrow a topic.' Try it: narrow a topic with your kids, perhaps starting with "food" or "Movies." It's fun!
Miscellaneous:
- Email me to sign up for an October conference if you haven't done so already!
