Friday, February 20, 2015

News for February 20

Dear 4B Families,

We are wrapping up our poetry unit and we plan to invite you to a poetry event: an email will come out soon.

Also, our solar energy unit will be wrapping up within the next two weeks. Then, we will move on to the study of the Indus Valley Ancient Civilization. Students will take a traditional pencil and paper assessment to close up our solar e unit around the first week of March. 

The capstone project for our solar e unit is to build a solar cooker/oven. If you like these types of projects, please feel free to build one at home and bring it in. If you want your son or daughter to build an oven in class, please send in a pizza box (as clean as possible). Here is a link that you might enjoy: https://www.teachengineering.org/view_activity.php?url=collection/duk_/activities/duk_solaroven_tech_act/duk_solaroven_tech_act.xml 

MAP testing is scheduled for March 3, 5, 10 and 12 in this order: science, reading, language, and math. We are happy that math is last because this gives us more time to learn fractions!

The Importance of Stop And Jots
Above is a picture of our reading standards on the grade four report card. I post this because soon I will have students take stop and jots from earlier in the year (for inferences, point of view, and theme) and place them side by side current stop and jots. The goal is to write reflections about how our thinking about reading has changed. 

This will also provide the evidence that I need to code students as "applying" for these reading standards by the end of grade four. Note: you do not need to read on grade level to be "applying" for these standards. An English language learner reading in a level M can independently use these reading strategies to think about his/her reading just as well as a level S reader can. 

ONE each night and ONE each literacy block is all that I'm asking for. But, ONE really good Stop and Jot that has the page number, the text clue, and the student's thought. 

Sample pictures of Stop and Jots are posted on this blog.

For math homework, I find that most 4B students are not well practiced at multi digit-division and multiplication and I have sent home many links to online tools that allow for this practice. Please make sure your son or daughter practices division and multiplication for multi-digit numbers at least 3 times each week. Doing just a couple three nights a week would be great practice and not too stressful. They have graph paper booklets at home already. 

4567/7 is a sample division problem for a grade four student. Kids who are experiencing high frustration should start with 345/5 three digit dividends. 

34*97 is an example of a multi-digit multiplication problem. I have sent home big thick packets for this type of practice, but if you're running out please use an online tool. That way the answer is given right away and your son/daughter can re-do the math if he/she is incorrect. 

Note: Some kids did not get this packet because they are well practiced at these skills already and tend to have additional schooling in their home country's math program.

Thanks for reading!
Ms. T 

Sunday, February 8, 2015

News for February 8

Dear 4B Families,

Thursday the 12th of February is our all day trip to Hyundai. Closed toed shoes are essential and kids without them will have to wait in the lobby. Bring water and lunch too! We will walk to the bus from the covered patio at 8:25 upon the bell's clang, so kids should only bring their field trip essentials to school that day. French school kids will need to hustle.

For Book Week, we will participate in two workshops with Lauren Stringer. She will teach us about illustrating poetry, which is "great timing" since we have launched poetry studies in 4B. Poetry will continue for the rest of the year at least once or twice each week, so that we can dip in and out of poetry reading and writing as we work on our other units.

Our "in class" "On Demand" for information writing is finished. Report card narratives will speak about your son or daughter's progress on these skills. Some students will have additional guided practice with the skills during literacy. Homework now includes Stop N Jots. If 4B students are not doing these, they will not have evidence for their reading strategies and they will not receive "applying" for reading skills on their end of year reports. Without practice using a text clue(s) to build an inferential theory, to compare themes across texts, and/or to make connections... students will not have the skills to independently meet reading standards. ***Teachers will constantly model during mentor text reading, but students must write down their ideas and keep them in their reading notebooks.

MAP testing is scheduled for March 3, 6, 10 and 12 in this order: science, reading, language, and math. We are happy that math is last because this gives us more time to learn fractions!

Solar Energy studies continue. Students are working with data, graphing, and making inferences about data in their conclusion write ups. This is all "team" work, so students must do their share -usually one-third- of the work. Some students want to take over and some students are extremely timid. We are working on finding our voice and the courage to share. And, some of us are working on finding the courage to listen and hold back our sharing.

For more on Lauren Stringer visit her website: http://www.laurenstringer.com/

For math, fractions continues... IXL is awesome!!!

Students are bringing home a math mixed skills check in assessment and a list of practice items that they wrote up as they each reflected on their progress. Please sign the paperwork and make sure your son/daughter returns it for his/her data file. 

Thanks for reading!
Ms. T