We have had a great first quarter together! Students in 4W were asked last week to write about their favorite memory from the first quarter. Topics included our trip to Elizabeth Gardens, Open House, blogging, seminars, SunWatch, and 30 day challenges. Check out our Kidblogs for all the details!
Innovation day was a wonderful success. I am thrilled with the way students spent their time and I was inspired to see how excited each student was about his/her topic of choice and presentation. Thank you for helping your child arrive prepared for this day! I look forward to seeing you all at conferences next week. Be sure to save plenty of time to check out your child's personal bulletin board, our picture/blog display of our Elizabeth Gardens trip, and our "Pumpkins have feelings too" pumpkin patch. All are posted in the hallway outside our classroom.
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Our trip to Sunwatch was filled with new learning and hands on experiences. Ask your child to share the highlights with you! Students journaled upon returning from the visit and will create a caption book this coming week as a culminating activity. The past week began with a comma intervention. It is apparent that students in 4W really want to use the comma, but are uncertain of how to appropriately put it to use. We studied the rules, created teaching posters, delivered review lessons, practiced, and will set out to use the comma in our writing with enthusiasm and discretion! Wonder has been a fabulous point of discussion in our classroom! Hopefully your child has been keeping you up to date on the happenings of this story. If not, here are some questions you can use to open a discussion: Tell me about Mr. Browne's precepts. What have you learned about Via's character? Why do you believe she sees August as the sun? Does August's appearance match the image you had in your head? How did you feel reading the Chapter "August Through the Peephole"? Team 4W learners continue to write about the thinking they do while they read. We have been practicing all quarter with supporting our thoughts, inferences, and opinions with evidence from the text. You can see how your child is doing with this skill by reading his/her Reader's Response Journal entries. Justifying our thinking is something we will continue to work on all year! Ask your child to see the tool (blue bookmark) provided to serve as a reminder and model for justifying his/her responses! Multiplication and division have been our focus in Math. We have been studying vocabulary, alternative symbols, the multiplication/division relationship, and have been working with number stories. Next week, students will have their first formal introduction to solving equations in algebra. Students should continue to work on math fact fluency at home each night. I am seeing improvement among the class in this area. THANK YOU for your help with this at-home practice! For this week's Internet Workshop, students were given an individualized menu of activities to complete. Your child's menu may have consisted of activities that provide practice for skills and concepts I have observed need revisiting. It may also have included activities that provide a preview to upcoming lessons or writing challenge work. Menus were sent home with students so you may see what your child worked on during our time in the computer lab. What a super team! Just wanted to take a moment to reflect on this first quarter. I am really enjoying the personalities, gifts, talents, and quirks (my favorite) of this class. My hope is always that a sense of community can be established so that all students feel safe, accepted, and important to the learning community. I am only part of the equation that makes this possible. The students have to want it too, and I am thrilled to say that this group does! Thank you for all you do to support your child and his/her learning. I am excited to move forward to the next quarter. Many challenges are on the road ahead, and I am certain that the students in 4W will meet these challenges with enthusiasm, perseverance, and creativity! Please listen below for information regarding Innovation Day, a "work session" day for Discovery Quest projects. Students in 4W began their Place Project this week. It was love at first sight when we arrived at Elizabeth Gardens armed with field journals, measuring tools, photo taking devices, and the desire to find that perfect spot. After locating their special places, students journaled, made qualitative and quantitative observations, asked questions, sketched their surroundings and explored the natural world around them. It was joyous! Below are some quick quotes from their writing and some pictures as well. For a different perspective, please check out Kidblog. On Thursday afternoon, students blogged about their special spots. Enjoy! "Here I am in my special spot. I am on a rock by the creek."
"If I look up, there is sunlight flooding through the trees." "I wonder what animals are all here." "Wait! I think I just heard a woodpecker." "There's lots of sunlight, pretty leaves, and a tree stump near me." "It smells like nature!" "Tons of leaves are falling out of nowhere and there is no wind." "There are rocks bordering the creek and some rocks have nets around them." "I feel so good at this spot! I see tons of trees!" "I am sitting by a stream. Luckily it has lots of stones so I can step on them instead of my socks getting wet." "I can tell a lot of people have been here before because there are lots of footprints." "There are also little puddles inside the creek." "It's peaceful and sort of quiet." "All the trees are pretty shades of red, yellow, orange, brown, and some are still green." "It's muddy, but who cares? My place is perfect, but it is hard to enter." "There were just some weird rumbling noises." "I know it's not deep, but I feel like I'm locked in a ravine." "I see lots of water spiders." "I see a stick attached to a spider web." "Shoot! I got my muddy boot on my backpack!" "I dropped my book in the water so I have to start writing here because I cannot write on wet paper." "I am in my special space on a log which is kind of scary." "It is so peaceful, awesome, but sort of gross." "The water flowing beside me is so soothing." |
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