This Week in LL38....

Coming up this week....

We have parent teacher conferences coming up next week on Wednesday, April 5th and Thursday April 6th.  If you haven't signed up for a conference, please do so as soon as possible.  The times are filling up fast!  Here is the link:  Parent Teacher Conference Link  If you have trouble accessing the link, please let me know and I can add your name to the sign up.

Math Workshop

Your child came home with an assessment reflection paper last week.  Thank you for sending those back with a signature.  I will be sending them back home with your child this week so that you have them for your records.

The Math Menu will be a little different this week.  Based on the Trimester 2 Assessment, each student created 3 goal areas that he/she would like to review.  I have shared a document with your child on their Google Docs account.  Each child should click on a link to watch a review video for the strategy to review.  Your child can watch the video as many times as needed.  After watching the video, each student will need to complete the review worksheet. The link is also listed below.

Math Menu Review Week

Reading Workshop

Last week we started our unit on Poetry.  We are starting to talk about Poetry Elements such as stanza, rhyme, tone, and similes.  We will be reading a wonderful book called My Man Blue. This book of poems tells a story about a man named Blue and a boy named Damon and of a friendship that develops between the two.  It is a great book to use to think about character traits, character change, and theme. We use this book to learn about poetry, but to also review some of the skills that we learned earlier in the school year.  

Science

We continued learning about volcanoes and where they are in the world.  The students completed a mapping activity in small groups to see if there are patterns to where volcanoes occur in the world.They also learned about the Ring of Fire. Ask your child what he/she learned in science last week!

I hope everyone has a great week!  

~Jen

This Week in LL38...

     I am so glad tomorrow is the first day of spring!  Hopefully the weather will start to change and give us some warmer weather.  The kids are certainly in need of some outside recess time!

Math Workshop

      We worked on comparing fractions last week.  We reviewed our understanding of comparing fractions to benchmarks such as 0, 1/2, and 1.  The students also learned other strategies for comparing fractions.  Here are the strategies we have learned for comparing fractions:

                                                                

Some students are more comfortable with using fraction tiles, and that is fine too.  Our goal is to move the students along in their understanding no matter what strategy that they are starting with and most comfortable with.  We have been focusing on..."What is the best strategy for ME?"

      This week we will move on to adding and subtracting fractions with common denominators.  We will continue to use the number line as we practice adding and subtracting.  

      The students will also get their Trimester 2 Assessments back this week.  This was an assessment that the kids took a few weeks ago and was a review of the material covered in Trimester 2.  We will spend some time reflecting this week on the assessment.  Each student will notice what they have a strong understanding of and what they will need to work on moving forward.  You will receive a copy of the scoring rubric at some point this week after your child has spent time reflecting.

Writing Workshop

      We started our new writing genre of responding to a prompt.  We spent a lot of time looking at author's craft in a story titled, Wacky Shoes.  The kids did an awesome job reading like a writer.  They spent time looking at how the author started the story, the words the author chose to use, and the events in the story.  The kids then started to write a story about their own pair of "wacky shoes" borrowing ideas from the author of the original story.  It was fun to see the creativity and how the kids can borrow ideas from an author and use it their own writing!

Reading Workshop

     We worked on determining the main idea and important details in nonfiction texts.  This is a tricky skill for fourth graders.  We will continue to practice thinking about topic of a text, what it is telling us about that topic, and the important details that fall under that main idea.  Ask your child how they are using an umbrella to think about main ideas and details!

                                                       

I hope everyone has a great week!  

Jen

This Week in LL38....

Hi Families, 

I hope everyone enjoyed the very chilly weekend!  Even though we are (supposedly) approaching spring, we are in need of a few items in our classroom to keep the germs away.  We are looking for donations of tissues, paper towels, and hand sanitizer. Thank you for any help you can give our classroom! 

Introducing Foxtown....

I am sure your child told you all about our town, Foxtown, which was introduced last week.  We were running our classroom more like a town for the past week.  Students applied for classroom jobs, were paid for good deeds, and paid for classroom "rentals."  Of course the kids were excited to earn money that they could use at our classroom store on Friday.  

Here are some of the highlights from last week's new adventure.... each student has a job that they applied for.  They will hold a job for 2 weeks and each child will get paid at the end of each week.  In addition, students can earn money for coming to school on time, handing in their homework, being ready throughout the day, showing respectful behavior, and being responsible.  When a child earns money, he/she adds the money to  a "checkbook."  They money is added in and then added to their total money.  Students also have to pay for "renting" certain materials in the classroom.  Each child pays a weekly amount for renting the crates and the table/chairs.  On Fridays the bankers collect the rental fees.  Our class store will also be open on Friday.  If students want to purchase an item at our store, they need to withdraw money from their checkbook.  Students are also able to save for bigger prizes such as Gum Day or Choosing a Brain Break.  

Each Friday we also will award a certificate to the Employee (s) of the Week.  Congratulations to our wonderful Computer Technicians last week, Elijah and Gavin, on a job well done!

Employee of the Week- Computer Technician

Employee of the Week-Computer Technician

Collecting Weekly Fees

Ready to get paid for a job well done!

If we have the money we might as well spend it!

Spending money at our class store

Pay Day!

So many choices to pick from

Writing Workshop

We are so close to becoming published authors!  Later this week we will have a celebration of all of the authors for their hard work!  We will then be moving on to a creative writing prompt mini-unit.  We will be able to use our learning from our Realistic Fiction writing unit during the next unit as well.

Science

We got a chance to move back to science last week.  We reviewed the purpose of our Science Notebooks.  We found the importance of taking good notes and observations in our notebook.  We were able to see exactly what we were thinking about back in November during some of our experiments.  We will continue to learn about weathering and erosion this week!

This Week in LL38....

I hope everyone stayed warm this weekend.  It was tough having indoor recess so many times last week after the warm weather the week before.

Immigration- Living Voices
We are very lucky to have a presentation called Living Voices visit Farley tomorrow.  NYC based performer Elizabeth Rainer will present Island of Hope and The New American.  The presentation combines a solo performance from Ms. Rainer along with historical film and sound.  The Island of Hope shares the tale of how one Jewish-Russian family escapes oppression in the old country and sails to a new life in the new world. The New American performance explores the journey of an Irish family from the turmoil of the old country, to the promise of America.  
     This program fits nicely with the immigration unit that we are finishing up in class.  It will be fun to talk with the kids about the different perspectives of the immigrants as they came to America!

Math Workshop
We are moving on to comparing fractions on a number line.  We spent some time last week thinking about benchmark fractions that we will be able to use to compare fractions.  Ask your child what he/she learned about comparing fractions to one benchmark, 1/2.  We will continue to practice comparing fractions with like denominators this week.  If you are trying this out at home, it will be important for your child to "talk out" his/her thinking around where the fractions belongs on the number line.  Having discussion around your child's reasoning will be very helpful for your child as we move forward.  You can do this by having your child answer the question "why do you think that?"  

Writing Workshop
      The students worked hard at adding to their narratives.  They are working toward their deadline of this Friday to have their story completed.  We will spend some time this week working on revising and editing.  It was great to see the kids working so hard towards achieving their writing goals.  Ask your child what his/her goal is and what he/she is doing to work towards meeting that goal!  Next week the kids will share their stories as published authors!

I hope everyone has a great week!
~Jen