9/11

This year was the 15th anniversary of 9/11. We learned a bit about the history of that terrible day during our morning message Monday, and also by practicing how to read an article and "Find the Evidence", (which is a homework routine you will see a lot this year.) As a way to honor the memory of the Twin Towers, we also watched a video of the picture book, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, which is the true story of Philippe Petit, a Frenchman who rigged a tightrope between the towers in 1974, and walked between them.

We also watched the movie trailer for "The Walk", a 2015 movie about this event. (Click on the image to watch it!) It is rated PG, and looks like it would be a great movie to explain just how Petit did the seemingly impossible. His perseverance fits right into our discussions about having a Growth Mindset. More about that in a later post!

Our First Week

Welcome Class of 2025!

It's a new school year, and we have spent a lot of time this first week of school learning routines, procedures, and getting to know each other. We will be a classroom family for the next 9 months, and I want our classroom to feel safe and comfortable for all.

I love this quote I have hanging outside my classroom door, along with everyone's names on crayons.

 Like crayons, we all need to learn to live together in our "box" classroom, so that's a lot of what the first week of school has focused on...(and procedures, lots and lots of procedures!)

Some of the activities we have done involved partners asking each other a variety of questions to get to know each other better. We've learned about our families, pets, sports, hobbies, and favorite books. Each student is sharing their Me-Bag, which has 3 things that represent something about them. They explain each item and invite questions and comments when they are finished. I love getting to know more about my students!

One of the favorite activities was the Cup Challenge, where groups of 4-5 students had to move 6 solo cups from this-

to this...without touching the cups with their hands. 

Teams were given a rubber band with strings attached. They had to communicate with each other and make a plan in order to be successful. It was definitely challenging for some groups, but overall they did well and had fun with it!

We've also started some initial assessments in spelling and math, as well as begun to build stamina for Read to Self. We got up to 7 minutes of sustained reading in our first two days of practice, and that will continue to go up as we keep working on it.

If you have not returned the beginning of year paperwork, please do so as soon as possible. I'd love to be able to include everyone's photos on our website!

Also, if you have not yet signed up for Bloomz, which is a text and web-based communication app, you can download it for free on the app store, or go to Bloomz.net Our class code is W9UK4A.

Looking forward to a great year of learning!

Welcome Fourth Grade Friends!

The first month of school has quickly flown by, and we are settling into our routines. During this first month, we've been doing some partner and group activities to get to know each other, and develop strong collaboration skills. 

   Students looked for classmates who had things in common with them in the activity"Find Someone Who..."

                                One of the favorite activities the first week was the Cup Challenge.

Each group started with their cups in the formation on the left, and had to try to make the right formation using only a rubber band attached to string. They could not touch the cups with their hands.

While frustrating at times, no one gave up!

Success feels ever sweeter when you have to work for it!

Once groups were successful, they had to return the cups to the starting formation, again with no hands. Wonderful teamwork all around!

Great partner work has been happening in math as well, as we have explored factors, multiples, and arrays. Partners created array posters for a pair of related factors, proving which numbers were prime and which were composite. 

Student also played partner games such as Factor Pairs and Multiple Turnover, which help them see the connection between factors and multiples, as they build fluency for multiplication facts.

Practicing multiplication cards with a partner helps students see which combinations they know and which they still need to work on. 

    Pattern block construction, geoboards, and tangrams were fun activities as we practiced how to do rotations for math workshop.

We're off to a great start in 4th grade!

Iditarod 2014

Every year we learn about the Iditarod dog sled race that takes place every March in Alaska. We read about the inspiration for the race, which was a diphtheria outbreak in 1925 in the city of Nome. Because of the challenges of travel in those days, they had to use dog sleds and mushers to get the life-saving serum to Nome to save the children. We have been reading this book.

As part of ABL, Mrs. Murray has created an Iditarod activity that doesn't require any dogs...just kids, sleds, rope, PVC pipes, and of course, snow, something that we have had PLENTY of this year!

We had so much fun! Check out our slide show to see!

Personalize your own photo slideshow Thanks Mrs. Murray, Mrs. Frey, Mrs. Bagley, Mrs. Crain, Mr. Juers, and Mr. McLaughlin!

Mythology and Engineering!

There is never a dull moment in room 205, and one of the highlights from the fall has to be our study of Greek Mythology!

We learned what myths are and where they came from. Some students already had a lot of background knowledge about the topic.

 The Common Core expects 4th graders to understand common allusions to Greek mythological characters, such as opening Pandora's Box, or a Herculean task. We analyzed 12 different allusions as we read lots and lots of different Greek myths.

We also used myths to work on summarizing, comparing and contrasting, and analyzing character traits.

Students wrote an "Important Poem" about a mythological character written in the style of Margaret Wise Brown's, The Important Book. They did an awesome job! A smaller group of students worked in their spare time on a reader's theater version of Echo and Narcissus, which they performed for the class. It was fabulous!

 

 Right before vacation we had a very special day. Students had already earned a pajama reading celebration, which was cool in itself, but to top it off, we got to participate in Mrs. Stanbro's engineering challenge in the library, which was inspired by the book Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building, by Christy Hale. There were a variety of building materials for kids to use to build structures.

The slide show below will show you the mythology poems, and highlights from both building activities. Enjoy! 

 



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