Many of our famous Ohioans are down and out and feeling blue. In an effort to give all the very important men and women from our great state the time to rest and heal, we will be rescheduling our Wax Museum presentation for Thursday, April 11th. We look forward to seeing our eager audience after Spring Break. Thank you for your understanding!
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MATH... This week students worked on looking at the relationships between fractions, decimals, and percents. Much opportunity was given for practicing with conversions among fractions, decimals, and percents as well. At the end of the week, we looked at different strategies for multiplying decimals. Next week we will continue with this and also work on dividing decimals. A review will take place on Wednesday and our Unit 9 test will be Thursday of next week. MATH MANIA...Topics covered recently: Polygons, Types of Triangles, and Lines. In addition to all of the above, we work daily on practice problems for the OAA test scheduled for the end of April. READING/LANGUAGE... Write away! Students are continuously writing across the curriculum. Some examples: -Extended response answers in Math -Reports on Famous Ohioans in Social Studies -Fictional narratives -Journaling in Science about our special spots -Written assessments about changes to our Earth's surface in Science -Written conversations about famous Ohioans in Social Studies -Letters to Pen Pals Our Reading focus has been in our content areas this week as we explored Ohio's history and our Earth's surface. SOCIAL STUDIES-Famous Ohioans and the Wax Museum... Thanks so much for helping your child organize their research into final reports. I appreciate this assistance from you on the home front! Students additionally posted their reports to our blogs and this is the tool we used for sharing. On Thursday, students had time to read each other's reports on Kidblog, comment on the writing, and record a significant take-away. Additionally, students returned to class and had written conversations about their new learning, connections, and questions. We also began practicing lines this week for next week's Wax Museum of Famous Ohioans. Thank you for helping your child rehearse his/her lines at home. PERFORMANCE REMINDER: Please come for the Wax Museum of Famous Ohioans! Thursday, March 28th 2:20 pm SCIENCE... We wrapped up our unit on The Earth's Changing Surface this week! Students used a variety of resources and class experiences to complete a written assessment over the material. UP with ART...Students enjoyed Mrs. Caley's Up With Art presentation this week on the life and work of Frederic Remington. Students created with pastels following the presentation. Check out their work! “Project work is student-centred and driven by the need to create an end-product. However, it is the route to achieving this end-product that makes project work so worthwhile. The route to the end-product brings opportunities for students to develop their confidence and independence and to work together in a real-world environment by collaborating on a task.” (Fried-Booth, 2002, 6) The Place ProjectWe ventured out in the chilly temperatures on Wednesday to visit our special spots at Elizabeth Gardens! We gathered our quantitative data first. We have been checking the air temperature, water temperature,and the water depth each time we visit. We will be graphing this data toward the end of the year and drawing conclusions about our data. Next, we headed off to our carefully chosen spots for some observing of the changes we are seeing to the environment. Finally, we paired up and went on a hunt for evidence of weathering and erosion. The exploration was enjoyed by all and the walk was refreshing and energizing. Upon arriving back at school, students journaled about their observations and recorded quantitative data. It was wonderful to see and hear students using the vocabulary and content knowledge we have been studying in Science class through our text and inquiry centers. Famous OhioansStudents worked diligently this week to gather research for the Famous Ohioan Project! Two research sessions were provided for students to gather the important information needed for the report and for the Wax Museum presentation. I have asked students to post their report to their blog on Kidblog along with an image of their Ohioan. We will use this tool for sharing our learning with each other! IMPORTANT DATES: DUE Monday, March 18th: Written lines to recite for Wax Museum and Costume planning sheet DUE Wednesday, March 20th: Famous Ohioan Report Wednesday, March 27th: Dress Rehearsal for Wax Museum Thursday, March 28th: Wax Museum Innovation DayAERODYNAMICS, POETRY, THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, FIBONACCI'S SEQUENCE, INVASIVE SPECIES, FAMOUS AFRICAN AMERICANS, INVENTING....
Students spent Friday working on their Discovery Quest Projects. I just love the energy on this day! I love being able to provide students with extended time to get into a real flow. Each student taking ownership of his/her learning is an exciting process to witness! Many students used the time for research and others used the time for creating projects to share their learning. Students successfully utilized their time in class balancing hard work with necessary and appropriate breaks. I watched students collaborate over similar topic choices and I saw other students step in to assist classmates with questions. We concluded our day with self-assessments and reflections. I have seen so much growth among this group. The level of drive, confidence, and independence I observed today was truly outstanding! Innovation Day is next Friday, March 15th! Students were asked to complete the planning form and turn it in to me for approval by Tuesday of next week. For a review of Innovation Day and my expectations for students, please watch the screencast below. Thank you! Felt more like a week in January, than March, but we'll take it! I'm all for a little unexpected beauty! Here is a recap of our week in 4W... MATH:We are deep into work with fractions. This week we looked at fractions and their decimal equivalents. We learned strategies for comparing fractions with like and unlike denominators. We also used different strategies for finding the ONE when a fractional part is given. Our test over Unit 7 is slated for next Friday. Students will receive a study guide on Monday in class and we will review on Thursday. MATH MANIA:Students reviewed and practiced data concepts this week. The focus was finding the median, finding the mean, and constructing a table. LANGUAGE:We continued work on drafting our narratives this week. It has been fun to see students experiment with characters and dialogue. We also learned three strategies for revising our writing so that we can improve our stories for our readers. Ask your child to share these with you! Finally, we wrote letters to our pen pals. We are really enjoying getting to know these 4th graders from Indiana while practicing our letter writing skills. SOCIAL STUDIESI introduced the Famous Ohioan project to students on Monday. Hopefully the information came home to you and is in your hands. If not, I have extra student packets and parent packets in the classroom. If you need another, just let me know! Students were given time on Thursday afternoon to research for this project and will be given two additional sessions in class next week for research. Refer to the "Back to Business" post on this blog for a list of important dates and resources for this project! SCIENCE:Students worked in small groups this week and rotated through four different inquiry centers to answer these guiding questions:
What are the forces that build landforms? What are the forces that break down landforms? What is the relationship between air, water, and land? Centers included hands-on explorations, short videos, non-fiction leveled reading, and photograph/caption explorations. I am hoping to get our next Place Project trip planned soon, so be on the lookout for the permission slip to come home. This will be a great to tie our learning from the last couple weeks to our special spots at Elizabeth Gardens. “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” What a great day! 4W and 3W hit the snow for a snow person team challenge. The snow felt like a gift today as we worked together, played, and just enjoyed the afternoon. So many opportunities to capture the small people on film! Please excuse the large number of images, but enjoy a glimpse of the fun we had together! It was great to see my class after a week away! Glad to be back to the business of learning in 4W. Below is a recap of our week and a look at some things coming down the pike! This week we completed our work with reading and writing about immigration in the United States. My hope is to have read all student work by early next week so it can be graded and we can put some closure on this unit! Students in 4W are studying narrative writing. Through picture books, discussion, models, and reflection, we are looking at how narratives are structured and how to include appropriate and meaningful dialogue when we are writing. Students have completed the prewriting for a fictional narrative and we are now in the drafting and revision parts of the writing process. Final products will be posted on our blogs. Ask your child to share about his/her writing! Our main focus in math this week has been on fractions. Students explored equivalent fractions and adding fractions with like and unlike denominators. This has been challenging for most students in my math class. We took Friday to review rather than move forward so hopefully students feel more solid in their understanding. I was really pleased with how students performed on the Standards Based Assessment they completed this week which focused on measuring, naming, and creating angles! In Science, we spent this week building background through a variety of print and digital resources. We are looking at the processes that shape our earth's surface Next week, students will be working in rotating centers to gain a better understanding of processes and vocabulary. We had a fabulous Up with Art presentation on Wednesday! Sandy Eisenbies shared about her work as a graphic artist. We saw some cool examples of her work and she shared with us how she thinks creatively. Students experimented with color, lines, shapes, and fonts to develop a personal logo! Check out ABCya.com for fun educational games to reinforce skills and concepts across the curriculum! COMING ATTRACTIONS!MATH MANIA... A letter came home in backpacks with students on Thursday, February 28th regarding some extra time we will be devoting to math during the week. These reteaching/revisiting sessions will take place on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:15-11:35. We are excited to give students some additional time and exposure to practice important 4th grade math skills and concepts!
WAX MUSEUM OF FAMOUS OHIOANS... Students will be introduced to the famous Ohioan project on Monday, March 4th. Please check your child's backpack on Monday for a letter to you regarding the details of this project. I am including a couple things in this post for later reference: Important dates and Important resources: IMPORTANT DATES: DUE Monday, March 18th: Written lines to recite for Wax Museum and Costume planning sheet DUE Wednesday, March 20th: Famous Ohioan Report Wednesday, March 27th: Dress Rehearsal for Wax Museum Thursday, March 28th: Wax Museum IMPORTANT RESOURCES for Student Research: INFOhio Ohio Historical Society Ohio Biographies Ohio History Central INNOVATION DAY... ...is Friday, March 15th! We will work on the planning sheet for Innovation Day next week in class and it will be due the following Tuesday. Students have been made aware of the digital resources I have collected for their use which are located on the Discovery Quest Page of this website. I'm looking forward to another productive work session for students as they study a topic of their interest! |
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