We have been up to so fun in room 203! Just a reminder that Friday folders come home most Fridays, please check these folders and see the great work you student is doing. The work should stay at home. I know there isn't always a ton of work in these folders, remember you can always check Google Drive and Google Classroom for more work. Ask your student how! As we are getting more and more into the digital age, there is less and less paper coming home. In Science we have been learning about waves, light waves. We have learned that they reflect and refract! Check it out! In reading we have been spending some time comparing and contrasting different versions of Fairy Tales. We started with all the groups reading different versions of Cinderella and think about how they are the same and different from the Disney version. Then we had books groups and each group read an original and a fractured fairy tale and compared and contrasted those! So fun! In writing we are continuing on our opinion essays. Remember to check your student's Google Classroom and Google Drive to see how their work is coming. In math we are continuing with our fraction learning! Check your student's Google Drive and Google Classroom Account for work like this! We have had some great mystery readers these past few weeks. Be on the lookout for more days opening up soon! There are lots of special events going on right now at Dale Street: March Madness basketball tournament Box Top Competition (class against class) Drive for the Animal Shelter Mr. Grenham came to read to our class yesterday and spread the message of Choose Kind.
0 Comments
We have been very busy so far in 2018! We started the year by thinking about goals for 2018 and reflecting on 2017. We started a new unit in Science: Potential and Kinetic Energy. We made some observations and learned a lot from our first experiement! The Museum of Science came and we learned about Animal Adaptations! Such a fun presentation. In math we have been all about the fractions! So far we have decomposed fractions, added and subtracted fractions and learned about equivalent fractions. Right now we are working on how to compare fractions! In Reading we are focusing on noticing when character change and then thinking about why they changed. What happened in the story to cause the change? We are also working on great ways to write about our reading. In writing we have been working on opinion essays. Such a fun writing style! Please keep asking your students to see their Google Drives as we are going to start typing soon. Check out some of our ideas so far: It was Patriot's Spirit Day and also Charlie's dad came to be the mystery reader! Please continue to check your students' Google Drive and ask them to show you their Google Classroom too! We have been very busy at school and a lot of our work is in notebooks or done digitally!
We have been so busy in 4th grade ! Here are some great lessons our class has experienced. We completed some Thanksgiving persuasive writing to kick off our new writing unit! In math we used Cue Think on the iPads to help us with problem solving. This is an app that walks the students through the steps of close reading math problems. We did a great job for our first try at it! Our whole school participated in a collaboration project. We worked in groups to make a design and then the whole school hung theirs up all together outside the cafeteria. We have been working hard with our vocabulary as well. Here are a few of our Pic Kids projects focusing on just one word! You can see your child's work in their Google Drive. Check the folder that says Classroom. Today was our hour of code time in the Maker Space, we learned a lot! In reading we have been working through Greek Mythology. We even completed a break out using reading strategies! We recently had a great mystery reader! I know everyone loves this part of the week! Thank you Mr. Maley! I also wanted highlight that Abby has been doing a great job keeping us updated about her Student Council Meetings!
We have continued working our narrative story writing, please check your child's Google Drive or Google Classroom and have them show you! We aren't done yet, but getting close! In reading we have been diving deep into characters. We have been tracking character actions, traits, and even looking closely for the text evidence to help us explain! Right now we are reading Fenway and Hattie as a read aloud. This helps us have a book we can use for examples and work on together before we go into our own independent reading. In Science we began look at magnets. Our first inquiry was "What materials stick to magnets?" Want to know? Ask your student!! In math have continued to work on multiplication but also have spent some time working on problem solving skills. We had a great visit to the maker space recently. This was our first open maker space time of the year. Students were able to choose what they wanted to learn and work on. So much problem solving, perseverance, and teamwork going on here. #continuousgrowth! I wanted to take a minute to thank the two fabulous mystery readers we have had so far! The kids have LOVED guessing who is coming in. We had an incredible Halloween celebration. Thank you so much to our room parents for organizing this. I also wanted to thank the additional parts that came in the help ensure everything ran smoothly. The kids had a blast. Looking forward to seeing everyone at upcoming conferences!
We have been super busy and working so hard the last few weeks! I want to start with sharing that we worked very hard to earn marbles everyday. Our jar was filled and our class reward was earned! Hard work pays off. We brainstormed and voted and got to make slime! I have to say they were the best listeners through this whole activity! In Writing Workshop we have been working hard to write realistic fiction stories. We have learned that authors get their great ideas from their own experiences. This week we practiced great story beginnings so that our readers will be interested to keep reading our story! We worked in groups to come up with some starts for stories based on pictures and then we looked at our own writing and gave it a shot. We have been typing our stories as well. Getting really good at using Google Classroom. These stories are in their Google Drives and you can see them as we work on them too! Ask your child to show you. In Science we have continued with electric energy. We have made light bulbs work, motors run, and even incorporated switches to turn them off and on. Recently, we tested for conductors and insulators. We are finishing up by learning about series and parallel circuits. Up next...magnetic energy! In reading we are working on characters. We are thinking about the characters in our own books. Taking into consideration character words and actions we can understand what kind of traits they might have! We are also working on summarizing through book reviews. In math we have really been working on our multiplication! We have learned two different strategies that work and that we can use to help us get the answer. Check them out! There have been so many fun and exciting things going on. Yesterday we got to use the iPads for the first time this year. Today we had pajama day and we had Mrs. Boylan come in and talk with us about fire safety! Thank you for your great responses to the mystery reader sign up. Also, if you have an interest of an expertise you would like to share or be a part of during our school day, please let me know! We would love to have you visit! Have a great weekend!
We have been so busy this week! In math we are finishing up addition and subtraction. We have been working in our math workshop stations. We also had a problem solving day! We were so busy I forgot to take pictures! In Reading we have been taking time to really think about the characters in our books. We made a sketch and then thought about inside and outside character traits. This was also good practice using our Reader's Notebooks! In Social Studies, we are concluding out Map Skills unit with a final project. The students are showing their knowledge and what they learned by creating their own maps and writing directions. Here are lots of hardworking students and some finished products! During Writers' Workshop we are continuing our narrative story writing. We have learned how to come up with ideas, how to plan our story, and practiced stretching our writing scene by scene. We have started our first Science unit this year and it is about Energy. We started with electric energy and worked to discover what is needed to light a lightbulb! We had a great visit to the LMC and we love the comfy Yogibo chairs Mrs. Cowell has. There was a raffle going on as well. There were so many new books that Mrs. Cowell had a raffle to see who would be the first students to get to check them out! From our class Payton and Maddie won and get to be the first to read so great selections! Some exciting new is that we worked hard to earn letters each day, at the end of the day however many letters we earned is how many marbles go in the jar. Well, we filled the jar! Next week we will earn our reward of making a little slime. Of course we will link this activity to some math problem solving as well! Please look for an email from me next week about our mystery reader schedule and sign up!
Have a great long weekend! We had a lot of fun this week and are really starting to get into our routine. We had a really fun time in the Maker Space this week finishing up our discussion about our summer reading book. We did one final STEM project where we had to design and make a prototype foot for Roz. We have also finished our first math unit this week and will be moving on to addition and subtraction in unit 2. Please know that just because we move on in math doesn't mean we are done with those concepts. We continue to use place value ideas all year long. We have also finished up our Social Studies unit on Map Skills and will be moving into a Science unit about electric energy next. In reading we have been working on talking about books and choosing books. We even had fun buzzing about books to get someone else interested in what we are reading. We have also been spending time working on our reading stamina here at school. During Writer's Workshop we have been collecting ideas for narrative story writing. We have even started writing some stories to build up our writing fluency and get our ideas out! We will be working all trimester to draft and type a finished product! Student Council speeches and elections were this week. I was so proud of all these students for stepping up and wanting to be leaders in our school. Our class voted and Abigail was elected the representative from our class and Matty will be the alternate. Have a great weekend!
This has been a busy week! This is the first week EVERYONE is able to go to their instrument or music lessons. Don't forget to check when those instruments are needed! In Social Studies we have been working with longitude and latitude. This week we used Google Earth to help us understand! The students entered specific latitude and longitude coordinates to realize that those numbers take them to an exact location. We got to see the Statue of Liberty, Disney, Pyramids in Egypt and much more! In reading we talked about character traits. Inside traits and outside traits. We used The Wild Robot as a common book we could all talk about. Then we made ourselves as robots and brainstormed character traits about us! We have also been working on being independent learners during our I/E block. There is nothing new taught during this time, so students have time to work on what is right for them during this time. In math we have continued to work on place value. This week we focused on rounding. Mr. Grenham came in this week and read a great story and had a great discussion with us! I really enjoyed meeting everyone at PIN. Remember if you have any questions please feel free to reach out. I forgot to mention one thing about homework. I will never send home something new we are learning for homework. I always try to make sure it is something we have been working on for awhile so that the students are mostly independent. If homework, especially math is ever a struggle please write a note or an email and let me know. It isn't worth spending hours frustrated. Don't forget to sign up for the Remind App you can choose to receive them as a text or an email. There are several times when I will send little reminders there and not send a whole email. A note about fidget spinners: These have become very distracting. If you child has trouble focusing or paying attention and has a fidget tool the expectation is that it is used as tool. Sometimes students have these and they don't really need them and it becomes a distracting toy. Please have a discussion with your child if they are bringing them to school so that they understand the difference. I did talk with them today about this and I hope they make good choices.
Welcome back to school! We had a busy first few days. We spent some time getting to know each other and participating in some team building activities. Core Values: At Dale Street we have 4 Core Values that help be the best learners and people that we can be. WE spent some time this week talking about them and brainstorming examples and what each value means to our class. Team Work: Working together is a big part of 4th grade. Being part of a group, helping each other and problem solving together. We completed a STEM activity where the students worked in groups to build a structure out of straws. They had to make a cup part of their structure and we tested how strong it was by adding marbles to the cups. I was impressed by all the ideas and cooperation! The students worked in groups to complete team drawings where it gave us a good visual of team work and cooperation. Each student had a color and they were the only ones who could use it. At the end, if they had great team work we would see a pretty even amount of each color. Week 2...we started our learning! In Math we started learning about place value of bigger numbers. We also started learning the routines of our math workshop time. Social Studies: We started learning about Map Skills. We also have been talking about our summer reading book and started building our reading and writing stamina! We even completed a digital breakout in groups about The Wild Robot. We also took time to visit the LMC/Makerspace this week. We were all eager to get in there and see what awesome books Mrs. Cowell has. On Friday we had our turn with class set of Chromebooks. It is exciting learning about technology and all the fun things we will be doing this year on them. We also had all of our specials this week and it was fun meeting new teachers! Instrument lessons started this week. So many new rules, routines, and expectations in the first few days but these students have done a SUPER job! Have a great weekend. I am looking forward to meeting everyone at PIN next week!
This has been a very hot week in school! Reminder: when it is hot outside, it is even hotter in the classroom. Please make sure your student has a water bottle and is dressed appropriately for the warm weather each day! We are trying our best to stay cool! :-) Social Studies State projects were due today and they look great! Thank you for all the support and hard work at home on this project! We hope to see you at the State Fair later this month: 5/31 at 9:30! Science We have started learning about rocks and soils in science. We started with some observations about different types of soils and where in the world we thought you might find each one! We have also had some great mystery readers these past few weeks! Thank you all for making me feel so appreciated last week! Lots of special things from very special kids! There will not be Friday folders this week. With MCAS we haven't had a ton of time to complete work to take home. However, we have been working hard on our Canada writing (check our google drive for that!) We also have been posting on See Saw! So enjoy some digital work this week!
Hoping for a cool down next week! |
Ms. MacDonaldWelcome to grade 4! Archives
February 2018
Categories |