Our Week In Review

This week is No Name Calling Week! You may have heard this on the news. We talked about name calling earlier this week, specifically about how we feel when someone calls us names. We all agreed that it doesn't feel good to be called names. On Wednesday, we wrote down names either that we've called others, or that we've been called, and we put them in the "Dis-furnace". Thursday we traced our feet and made the pledge to "Stomp out name calling".

In Reading, we began reading Snow Treasure this week. This is a story about Norwegian children during WWII. You can find a summary of this book here. While reading this book, we have been focusing on making connections, writing summaries, and figurative language. The three types of figurative language we have discussed this week are similes, metaphors and onomatopoeia. The children are getting really great at finding these in their reading. We reached a milestone in our reading this week! We have officially finished 534 books. Way to go!!!

We have continued working on writing using the Writer's Workshop model. Our focus has been to write to a specific prompt ~ A favorite memory of a teacher. This week we have worked on revising and editing our work. Here are a couple of our posters which guide us through this process.

In science we took our Weather Maps and Fronts Quiz. The children did very well on this ! Mrs. Williams invited us over to her room today to check out weather.com. NASA has taken some new photographs of Earth. We enjoyed seeing these pictures!

From the Teacher's Desk

This time of year it can be difficult for students to stay focused on school. The days are short, and there is much less time to play outside. One thing you can do to help your child is to continue to encourage him/her to have a consistent place and time for homework, and to provide a reminder to put materials in backpacks. This will help your child with organization and he/she will feel great about being prepared for school every day. Your child's reading book and assignment notebook are two essential items for school. These should be here each day.

Our Week In Review

Well, our week seemed to fly by! It's nice to see the children back in the "groove" and working hard.

We have been really working at learning division. Everyday Mathematics calls our method of dividing "low-stress" though I think some of the children would disagree. After many days of practice and small group review, I am confident that the students understand how to go through the steps of long division. You can see my sample problem here. One thing that did become evident, though, was that there are still many errors with division. Most of the errors, at this point, are due to:

• multiplication fact errors
• subtraction errors
• copying errors (YIKES!)

We discussed this at school last week, and the children are aware of any mistakes they've made in one of these areas. I explained that these are things that are individual to each student. Knowing that these are errors that often happen will (I hope) alert the kids to check for these types of errors before handing in any work. Our test is scheduled for Tuesday! The students have a study guide which is worth an additional 5 points on the test if completed. I'm looking forward to success!

In reading we finished reading Stone Fox, and compared it to the movie of the same name. The children enjoyed both, and learned that sometimes we don't like how an author ends a book. My theory has always been that if an author makes you feel strongly about something at the end of a book, then he/she has done a great job. Many of us were crying as we finished this book, but we loved it just the same!

In writing we began learning how to apply the strategies we've learned this year to writing to a prompt. We are sharing special memories of a teacher. Ask your child about sharing their topic choice.

We are finishing our first part of our weather unit, on Weather Forecasting and Air Masses and Fronts. The children received a study guide last week and we are having a quiz on this information on Wednesday. We will move onto learning about water and humidity after the quiz.

In Social Studies, we have completed learning the background for regions. We learned that many factors make up a region, such as climate, landforms and natural resources. This week we will begin our tour of the US in the Northeast!

This is a quick video showing how to draw an angle. This is part of the students' homework tonight.

Below is a video which illustrates how to use our division strategy. There is no sound because I haven't figured that part out yet! The children thought that this would be helpful to them.

Power Point Presentations

I often use some type of presentation when teaching, particularly when teaching Science and Social Studies. I have started to use a website, www.issuu.com to upload the presentations that I'm using, so that the children have access to them. This will become an additional resource, so that the children can find information that has been taught when preparing for a test (the information is also in written form in their folders).

I will place a link under curriculum links on the right. Today, I will be teaching about weather tools, and have placed a link to the power point that I'll be using there. I hope you find this helpful.

What a Week!

Since there were a few other posts this week, this one will be short!

We made it through our first week without Miss Johnson! YAY! (Though we all miss her terribly!)

This week was an adjustment for the children. Returning from a vacation is always a challenge, and starting the week off with a substitute didn't make it any easier! We have worked hard though, and I'm confident that everyone is back on track!

We began division this week in math. I know that some of the students are concerned, but I'm sure we will all get it next week! The Student Reference Book will really be essential to help with math over the next few weeks.

Just a reminder ~ the children should be reading every night, and the book should be the same book that they are reading here at school. Thanks for your support with this.

Happy Birthday to our LONE January birthday!

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Every Day Math Division

Today we began learning the "low stress" method of long division. This is very different from the way we learned as children. The students found it difficult. The homework may be challenging, but I'm confident that they can do at least a large part of the homework. I found this video on teacher tube. It shows the steps for division, done by students. The video is about 4 minutes long- but may give you an idea of how we are doing the division .

I didn't create the video, so the parts that refer to the class do not refer to our class :). We also have a few more days of instruction, so this goes a little bit more in depth than I have so far. I hope that you find it helpful.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays, and the vacation, and is excited about starting 2012 with a bang! I wanted to take a few minutes and review some of the things we've done this year, and to let you know about some of the fun still to come!

First, I'd like to say thank you so much for all of the gifts and kind words that you sent before the break. You really know how to make a teacher feel supported! Teaching is sometimes challenging, and your children are the reason that I love this job, and the reason I believe it is the most rewarding job in the world. So thank you!

Math

Where have we been?

So far this year, we have worked hard to review and learn new concepts. We have reviewed geometry and big numbers, and learned new ways to multiply. The children have really built on what they learned in 3rd grade, and are ready for our next challenge ~ division!

Where are we going?

We are beginning the division unit this week. As I mentioned at many parent conferences, automaticity of math facts will be essential for this unit. Practicing these facts will really help the children. If you are looking for a quick and easy way to practice, your children can use this link to practice their facts. After we finish the unit on division, we will move onto fractions and then area and perimeter. During this time, we also will begin to focus on preparing for the Math MCAS test, which will take place in May.

Reading

Where have we been?

We have had a great start to Reading this year! The children enjoyed our interactive read alouds ~ Mr. Popper's Penguins and The Family Under the Bridge. We focused on many reading strategies including character traits, asking 'talkworthy' questions, and narrative elements. The children have been focusing on choosing JUST RIGHT books, and are continuing to focus on reading the same book at school and at home. This is really an important part of our Reader's Worshop.

Where are we going?

This week we will begin our next interactive read aloud, Stone Fox. We will discuss using details from a story to answer questions, and focus on finding the important details to support an answer. After we finish this book, we will watch the movie Stone Fox and complete a compare/contrast activity between the book and the movie. We will also begin to prepare for the reading MCAS test soon. This test will take place in March.

Writing

Where have we been?

We have worked together to learn the new Writer's Workshop method of teaching and learning writing. I can say that our students have embraced this and are enjoying writing! During the first part of the year, we really focused a lot on generating good ideas and writing about those. The children are currently working on their next published piece.

Where are we going?

Once this piece is published, we will shift our focus slightly to writing to a specific topic. Rather than allowing the children to choose the topic, I will provide the topic, and help the children use what they've learned to write about it. This will help to prepare the children for the writing portion of the MCAS, which will take place in March. We also will focus on the mechanics of writing, and some strategies for editing work.

Science

Where have we been?

This fall we focused on our study of Heredity and learning about Hurricanes as the preview to our weather unit.

Where are we going?

We will begin the full-fledged Weather unit this week. This unit will cover many topics, including weather forecasting, weather maps and fronts and currents. This will take a while to get through, but the children really enjoy learning all about weather. Later this spring we will learn all about Electricity and Magnetism as well.

Social Studies

Where have we been?

Wow! We did a lot of SS this year so far! We learned about Maps and Globes, Mexico and Canada!

Where are we going?

We will continue to focus on map skills through our Daily Geography. This will continue throughout the school year. In addition, in the next few weeks we will begin our journey through the Regions of the United States. This is a fun and exciting unit for the children. I hope to take them on different "virtual field trips" so that they can experience some of the exciting things that are out there in our country. This unit will span most of the spring.

There are so many fun things planned this year! I know it will be a fun rest of the year!