Word Sort -- Week of 2/27

This week's word sort words involve r-influenced o in accented syllables.

1st
morning
shorter
order
forest
corner
normal
forty
northern
border
corncob
chorus
florist
stormy

2nd
before
record
perform
ashore
report
explore
ignore
adore
inform

oddball
sorry
reward

Explore the Human Body

How do I spend my Saturday morning free time?  Surfing the net looking for great websites about the human body for our class! I wanted to share this fantastic website that I think the students will love looking at during their free time.  While I think the students will enjoy exploring the entire website, I hope they will take special time to explore the "Human Biology" section. Once on the website, you'll find the link on the left sidebar.

The Nervous System

Our exploration of the human body has led us to our final body system. The nervous system includes the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. We have started to talk about the various parts of the brain including the cerebrum and its left and right hemispheres, the cerebellum, the medulla or brain stem, the pituitary gland, and the hypothalamus. On Monday we will make models of the brain out of playdough. We will also spend time learning about the neurons and synapses. The class has many fun learning activities ahead of them in the coming weeks as we explore the nervous system and sensory organs.

Thomas Hutchinson

Ask your student about our distinguished guest on Friday afternoon. Thomas Hutchinson, lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, came to talk with us, the colonial Bostonians, about the new British laws taxing the colonists.  Governor Hutchinson met a crowd which is very displeased with these new taxes! He assured us that it is his job to enforce the British laws and ensure that the colonists pay the new taxes.

What will happen next.....?

Fraction Cards and Decimal Squares

Improper fractions, mixed numbers, reduced terms, and denominators....oh my! We are in the midst of our unit on fractions and decimals. I trust that your student delivered the parent letters about this unit.

Here are the big topics that we have focused on thus far:

• Finding fractional parts of a whole
• Adding and subtracting fractions
• Comparing and ordering fractions
• Understanding proper and improper fractions
• Understanding mixed numbers
• Reducing fractions to lowest terms

Division Facts

As you are aware, we are working to improve our recall of division facts. We took our first timed test on Tuesday to let the students have a benchmark of where they were with time and accuracy of 50-problems before they began to practice. After we took our second timed test today, there were big smiles and even cheers from around the room as they marveled at their improvement in 4 short days. A little practice goes a long way! I wanted to share two sites that I found that students can use to practice. Let me know if your student has other favorite sites and I'll share them with the group.

http://www.mrmyers.org/Math_Mania/ttdiv.html

http://hoodamath.com/games/mathtimedtests.php

Gearing up for Literature Circles

We will spend the next several weeks getting the students prepared for literature circles. If we put them in a book club at this point and turned them loose, some good conversations would come. However, with the mini-lessons and activities that we will do in the weeks leading up to our literature circles, the students will be well-equipped to have meaningful conversations. We will study about the social skills necessary for effective small-group discussions, the cognitive strategies that help readers understand texts, and the literary sense that smart readers use to examine and appreciate what they read.

This week we have been focusing on asking thoughtful questions about our texts. I read aloud to the class a Japanese folktale from the Junior Great Books collection called "The Magic Listening Cap." We came up with bad questions that are off-topic, have a simple answer, have a yes or no answer, and are about factual information. Next, we worked to write thought-provoking questions that are analytical, have you looking back in the text, make everyone want to share their ideas, and really make you think. Ask your student about this story! As they are reading independently they are writing their "good" questions on sticky notes.

What are Literature Circles?

During the final trimester of 4th Grade, students will read various short stories and novels in literature circle / book clubs. I wanted to share the following information from Getting Started with Literature Circles by Katherine L. Schlick Noe & Nancy J. Johnson:

What Are Literature Circles?
In literature circles, small groups of students gather together to discuss a piece of literature in depth. The discussion is guided by students' response to what they have read. You may hear talk about events and characters in the book, the author's craft, or personal experiences related to the story. Literature circles provide a way for students to engage in critical thinking and reflection as they read, discuss, and respond to books. Collaboration is at the heart of this approach. Students reshape and add onto their understanding as they construct meaning with other readers. Finally, literature circles guide students to deeper understanding of what they read through structured discussion and extended written and artistic response.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand what literature circles are is to examine what they are not.


 

Literature Circles are . . .	Literature Circles are not . . .
Reader response centered	Teacher and text centered
Part of a balanced literacy program	The entire reading curriculum
Groups formed by book choice	Teacher-assigned groups formed solely by ability
Structured for student independence, responsibility, and ownership	Unstructured, uncontrolled "talk time" without accountability
Guided primarily by student insights and questions	Guided primarily by teacher- or curriculum-based questions
Intended as a context in which to applyreading and writing skills	Intended as a place to do skills work
Flexible and fluid; never look the same twice	Tied to a prescriptive "recipe"

Read-O

In order to encourage the students to have a varied reading life, we have started to play Read-O. We expect each child to read a book from each of the categories on the chart below.  For the "Teacher Choice" box, Alex and I will pick a book that we think will challenge the reader to grow in a direction that is not his/her normal go-to area. Many readers will be encouraged to read a Newbery winner for this category. I explained to the class that all readers are typically drawn to one genre of books over others and that this activity will broaden their horizons. I personally love when my book club reads a book that is out of my personal reading taste.  We will have a celebration later in the year to recognize all the students who complete their Read-O cards.

R	E	A	D	-	O
Historical Fiction	Fantasy	Biography	Adventure	Teacher Choice	Mystery

Word Sort Words -- Week of 2/20

1st ar
garden
market
carpet
harvest
marble
hardly
partner
pardon
barber

1st long -a
airplane
parents
haircut
dairy
carry*
careful
barely
fairy

2nd long -a
compare
aware
despair
repair
declare
beware

oddball
toward

Focus in Writer's Workshop

There is a fine art to writing a good paragraph. We are working with students to learn to write a well-developed paragraph with a clear topic sentence, three supporting ideas, and a concluding sentence. This is harder than it might sound! We compare this paragraph structure to following a recipe. When you're learning how to cook, you need to follow the recipe exactly. As you become a more experienced chef, you might adjust the recipe to your liking. As 4th grade writers, we are following the recipe. The more we practice, the better the paragraphs are getting. You name it, and we are writing paragraphs about it.We are writing informational paragraphs about various topics such as the human body, Metro School, colonial times, and candy. We are so proud of the students' progress.

Wax Museum

We hope you can join us on

Thursday afternoon

for our Wax Museum

beginning at 2:30.

Refreshments will be served

at the conclusion of the show.

Thank You!

Our hearts are full from all the sweet notes and sweet treats that came our way during Teacher Appreciation Week and on Valentine's Day. Thank you for all of your kindness and support! We appreciate it so much.

Mrs. Morris

William's mother, a respiratory nurse student, came to talk with our class on Monday afternoon. As you can see in this picture, she brought in a model of the trachea and bronchial tree. She shared with the students about how the lungs work and the various illnesses that would cause patients to need respiratory treatments.  The class loved seeing an oxygen masks and other equipment that is used in hospitals. Thank you for sharing your time and knowledge with us, Mrs. Morris!

Read Aloud Books

As we are studying the colonial time period leading up to the Revolutionary War, we are choosing read aloud books to enhance this study. We recently tortured the boys by having them listen to Meet Felicity, an American Girl Doll book! It details the life of a nine-year old girl who lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1774. They all survived the experience and learned a great deal about colonial life.



We are currently reading George Washington: The Man Who Would Not Be King by Stephen Krensky. After concluding our biography book projects, we hope to keep the students interested in reading biographies. This book details how a modest man led the American Revolution and later became our first president.

Word Sort -- Week of 2/13

au
saucer
author
August
autumn
laundry
caution
faucet
sausage
auction
haunted

aw
awful
awkward
lawyer
awesome
gnawed
gawking
flawless

al
also
always
almost
although
already

oddball
laughed
all right*

*alright is not a word!

Pictures!

I have created a Shutterfly sharing site to post pictures from our class activities. This website allows you to do all kinds of things, but I intend to use it only for posting pictures. Please take time to look at the albums that I've uploaded. You can enjoy seeing our class at Discovery Place, in the science lab dissecting the pig heart, and in the classroom presenting our biography book reports. Enjoy!


Class Shutterfly Website

Dissection of Pig Heart

We are headed to the Middle School science lab this afternoon to dissect a pig heart. Pretty coincidental that it's the week before Valentine's Day! Dr. Helene Keyzer, Felicity's mother, will join us in the lab to lead students through this activity. Ask you student about what stood out most to him or her about this experience. Pictures to come!

Word Sort -- Week of 2/5

Now we move into the study of vowels that are neither long nor short, or what we call ambiguous vowels. These include vowel digraphs, diphthongs, and r-controlled vowels in the accented syllable of two-syllable words.

P.S. These are late being posted! No one was penalized for not alphabetizing -- they weren't on the blog. My apologies.

1st
voyage
moisture
loyal
poison
noisy
drowsy
county
counter
thousand
coward
powder
country
trouble
double
southern

2nd
destroy
appoint
avoid
annoy
employ
about
allow
amount
around