WHAT AN AWESOME WEEK! These kids exceeded my expectations….Public speaking was never my thing. Only about 6 years ago was I confident enough to speak before my peers. I spent a lot of time avoiding classes in high school, panicking before singing on stage, and steering clear of professional opportunities as an adult due to my fear of public speaking. I don't want this fear to be any kind of road block for the kids I work with. I want my students to have as many opportunities as possible to get up and talk. It's all about preparation and practice. Hopefully with practice in a safe environment, students will leave 4th grade with the confidence to be the leaders, teachers, and successful communicators they all are meant to be! I am so proud of how all of my little people embraced this experience. WOW. I enjoyed every presentation and was so excited to see the creativity with which students shared their topics. TEAM 4W used all of the following for presenting to the class: Posters PowerPoint Presentations Keynote Presentations iMovie YouTube Whole group work Small group work Models Demonstrations Guest Speakers Tasty Take-Aways Hard Copy Take-Aways Quizzes Word Searches Games Costumes Simulations Turn and Talk Students had a big responsibility as audience members also. Each child was responsible for keeping record of their new learning, questions, and compliments for each presenter. This feedback was given to each child to assist in his/her follow-up reflection. It was so exciting to see everyone so interested in learning from each other. I was very impressed by the attention to the presentations and the questions asked at the end of each presentation. The best feedback I got was the smiles from a job well done, the questions about when our next topics would be revealed, and the many comments about how much students enjoyed this process. BRAVO, TEAM 4w! BRAVO! BOOK CLUBS! Team 4W has been busy with Book Clubs over the last two weeks. You may have seen some of this work come home, or heard about it from your little person. It has been exciting to see students applying different skills and strategies for attacking this work. We had four different groups studying four different books and doing the work of reading, writing, and discussing. Two groups are still working, and the other two are now on a different path. We will all come back together after the new year! The work and the timeline were both fairly intense and I am proud of how students handled this challenging work! Below is a list of things your child has been working on while reading his/her book: During Reading: *Notice and Note! Students are using the Signposts for Fiction Literature to help them better understand character, setting, plot, and theme. Students were responsible for documenting the signposts as they found them, and then documenting their thinking upon noticing. *Vocabulary: Students collected vocabulary while reading and determined which context clues assisted with the meaning. Students then located the appropriate definition and decided how each word was important to the story. *Summary: After several chapters, students were asked to write a written summary of the reading. Book Club Meetings: Students have met approximately four times to discuss the reading with group members. Meetings were focused around discussion of signposts, characters, theme, vocabulary, and any other point of discussion that came up naturally while discussing the book. It was a great time for the kids to ask each other questions about the reading and make predictions together! Blogging: At the midpoint and end of the book, students arrived at Internet Workshop faced with a writing prompt about the reading. Students were asked to craft a response on Kidblog and post the writing for the group. We will use this next week for discussion and collaboration. Prompt 1 (MIDPOINT): Asked students to choose a character and write an in-depth description of this character identifying traits of the character and supporting their claims with evidence from the text. Prompt 2 (END): Asked students to identify a theme from the book and write about the theme using multiple examples from the text to support the claim. Reflection: As a whole group, we discussed what worked with the Book Club process and what was challenging. Students shared what they enjoyed, and what they didn't love:). We had a great talk and I walked away with some things we will do differently next time, and students walked away with a better understanding of why they may see some of what they didn't enjoy a whole lot AGAIN. Photos below show meetings in action and I apologize as one group is not featured. Mrs. Uptegrove's group has been working hard, but I didn't get into her room with my camera to capture it! Sorry! EARTH'S PROCESSESAnother big task over the last couple weeks was an Earth Science assessment. Students were asked to create a project that required: *A written essay about what they learned about the processes that change the Earth's surface. *Using three different photographs and writing about how they show examples of weathering, erosion, and explaining how a landform was formed. This was very time consuming work! These projects will come home after break, but will need to return so they can be put in student portfolios. SNOW MUCH FUN!There is so much excitement and energy among students this time of year as it's time for holidays and an impending break from school. I hope you all enjoyed the Holiday Assembly! I have to say that I think it is my favorite one of all the years I have taught at Harman. For me, it all began last Monday when we were writing homework down in our planners at the end of the day. I reminded students of Friday's performance and asked them if they were excited. I got some hesitant responses and then one person said that they were nervous. When I asked why, many students chimed in with how they just were not getting their piece of music quite right. They continued with explaining that it was challenging and that they needed more practice. A different student explained that Mr. Forney had the lyrics on his website and that they could practice for homework. Then another student said, "We should write that in our planner for homework, Mrs. Walther." They all agreed that yes, they should practice at home. I was so impressed with how they wanted so badly to perform the piece well and make Mr. Forney proud. And they did it. They sang a difficult arrangement beautifully. Between their performance, the music from the other grade levels, the beautiful solo pieces, and the gorgeous artwork hanging in the auditorium, I thought it was a perfect way to celebrate the holiday season and come together as a school community. I hope you thought so too. That said, I didn't get any photos from the performance. But, I did take some fun ones over the last two weeks, so I have included a slideshow below. Enjoy! |
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