Reading in the Wild…

        Last week we got a chance to “Read in the Wild!”  When we came back from lunch on Thursday there was a bag hanging on our door.  The note on the bag said that we needed to read the book just to have fun and enjoy it.  There was a lot of excitement around this!  The kids absolutely love being read to and just sitting back and enjoying the book.  After our class had a chance to read the book we got to pass the book to another classroom. 

Here is the book we read last week….

Hard Workers…

        The kids took their Mid-Year Math Assessment this week.  I am  proud of the kids because they really worked hard and put forth a great effort.  I noticed that kids were going back to double check their work which is always encouraging to see!

        Based on the data that the mid-year has given us, Math At Home (MAH) will be a little different this week.  The kids are going to take a closer look at their assessment and determine what they feel as though they need to work on as a mathematician.  For MAH this week, they should complete the review sheets attached to the MAH page based on the topic that they need to work on. 

What’s the big idea?

        We are continuing to work on reading nonfiction texts during Reading Workshop.  We have been working on determining the main idea of an article or short text.  Thinking about the main idea and the supporting details of a text is typically difficult for fourth graders.  It really takes a lot of practice to become successful at determining the main idea and supporting details. 

        Here is the way that the students have been learning about main idea and detail.

Step 1:  What is the topic?  (Usually one word)

Step 2:  What does the author want us to learn about this topic?  (This is the main idea.)

Step 3:  What are the important details that say something about the main idea or support the main idea.  (These are the details.)

        We have also talked about thinking about a stool or chair when talking about main idea and detail.  The main idea is the seat of a chair and the details are the legs of the chair. The legs/details are there to support the main idea.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend!

~Mrs. Lewis