Hello Everyone!
We had a great last few days together for which I'm thankful. We created lots of memories this year and enjoyed sharing them with each other and having some fun. ;) We wrapped up our learning, reflected on our year, shared our memorable moments, worked on our final iPad projects, shared our "Geometry Towns," created a "How to Survive 4th Grade" ABC book, attended the 5th grade moving on ceremony and exhibitions, nominated each other for awards and ended today with our final Learning Celebration...(and, yes, I cried both yesterday and today! I'm going to miss your children!)
We have had a fun-filled year of learning and growing together in our room. Thank you so much (parents/families) for your support this school year. I can't believe how fast the year went by! I hope that your 4th graders (now 5th graders!!!) have all made wonderful, lasting memories and friendships this year. I am so proud of each of them and wish everyone a happy summer!!!
Take Care,
Devon
PS. Don't forget to read this summer! Here is a link to the F.AVE media center page for info on the Summer Reading Lists! :)
Friday, May 30, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Class Update: Week of May 19
Hello Everyone!
Thanks for all of your support in making our F.AVE Field Day a success!!! We had such a great morning at McKoy Park playing soccer, volleyball, basketball, kickball, dancing and playing. The weather turned out awesome and our class rocked the games with good sportsmanship and positive and encouraging attitudes. We couldn't have asked for a better day!
While we know the end is near, we still have lots of learning going on in room 227. This will be a busy week for us as we enjoy the fun week at Fave (silly hat day, wacky tacky day, etc) but also as we wrap up our Term 6 learning.
In ELA this week we are reviewing making inferences, identifying theme, summarizing, paraphrasing and opinion writing. We will also start our UOI Summative Writing Piece mid-week. For this writing piece your child will choose one person to write a brief biography about. They will discuss his/her life, what his/her believe was, how that person stood up for it and how doing so made a difference. They will connect it to our UOI Central Idea for this term: One person's willingness to stand up for his/her beliefs can make a difference.
In Social Studies we have wrapped up Women's Rights and are moving into the Core Democratic Values (common good, diversity, equality, justice, liberty, life, pursuit of happiness, popular sovereignty, patriotism, rule of law, truth). We will discuss them all and each child will determine the 4-5 they most closely relate to and create an iPad presentation for them.
In Math we are working on our culminating task, "Geometry Town". The students are working in pairs to follow directions to create a town using different examples of lines, shapes, angles and more!
In Science we will work through the Scientific Process to learn how to investigate scientific experiments.
Here's to a busy, fun-filled week! Hope you have a great one!
PS. More field day pictures to come!
Upcoming Dates:
Wednesday, May 21: All library books due
Friday, May 23: Summer Reading Disco Party in the library
Summer Birthday Celebration at Recess (1pm)
Wednesday, May 28: 5th Grade Exhibition (we will rotate through to see some!)
Thursday, May 29: Last Day of School and Last Day of School Celebration (11:30-12:30 in our room)
Thanks for all of your support in making our F.AVE Field Day a success!!! We had such a great morning at McKoy Park playing soccer, volleyball, basketball, kickball, dancing and playing. The weather turned out awesome and our class rocked the games with good sportsmanship and positive and encouraging attitudes. We couldn't have asked for a better day!
While we know the end is near, we still have lots of learning going on in room 227. This will be a busy week for us as we enjoy the fun week at Fave (silly hat day, wacky tacky day, etc) but also as we wrap up our Term 6 learning.
In ELA this week we are reviewing making inferences, identifying theme, summarizing, paraphrasing and opinion writing. We will also start our UOI Summative Writing Piece mid-week. For this writing piece your child will choose one person to write a brief biography about. They will discuss his/her life, what his/her believe was, how that person stood up for it and how doing so made a difference. They will connect it to our UOI Central Idea for this term: One person's willingness to stand up for his/her beliefs can make a difference.
In Social Studies we have wrapped up Women's Rights and are moving into the Core Democratic Values (common good, diversity, equality, justice, liberty, life, pursuit of happiness, popular sovereignty, patriotism, rule of law, truth). We will discuss them all and each child will determine the 4-5 they most closely relate to and create an iPad presentation for them.
In Math we are working on our culminating task, "Geometry Town". The students are working in pairs to follow directions to create a town using different examples of lines, shapes, angles and more!
In Science we will work through the Scientific Process to learn how to investigate scientific experiments.
Here's to a busy, fun-filled week! Hope you have a great one!
PS. More field day pictures to come!
Upcoming Dates:
Wednesday, May 21: All library books due
Friday, May 23: Summer Reading Disco Party in the library
Summer Birthday Celebration at Recess (1pm)
Wednesday, May 28: 5th Grade Exhibition (we will rotate through to see some!)
Thursday, May 29: Last Day of School and Last Day of School Celebration (11:30-12:30 in our room)
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Class Update: Week of May 5
Hello!
Hope you have been enjoying our sunny spring weather and the exciting things happening in our community this time of year! :)
We are still working diligently at school wrapping up, sharing what we've learned and showing what we know. Thanks for your help in supporting and encouraging your student during our CRCT testing days. They seemed confident and calm each morning and were thrilled to have a piece of candy to get them going :)
As I'm typing this today, they are staying focused and showing what they know on their Math MAP test. We had one-on-one conferences this morning to talk about the importance of this test (not to stress them but to give them purpose) and just chat with them about how they are feeling with each subject as well as going over their scores from this year and determining a 'goal' for their end of the year score to show their progress and how much they have learned this year. They all seemed confident and were smiling as we entered so that's a good sign! :)
As for our lessons in class, we are continuing to learn new material everyday and review as well. In Math we are continuing with our geometry unit. We have wrapped up the first half and will take a test tomorrow to assess it. It will cover the vocabulary/skills mentioned in my last post. I'm also including some screenshots of our lesson practice so you can see how we have been solving for finding unknown angles. We have worked with both circular (360 degree) protractors as well as traditional 180-degree protractors to solve. Once we got the hang of protractors (how to line them up, which set of numbers to use, which direction to read, etc) we started solving without them; using what we had learned about benchmark angles (90, 180, 270, 360 degree markings) to help us solve for the unknown(s) in acute, right, obtuse, straight and even reflex angles. They've done great with this!!!
In our ELA/SS lessons we have been working with the Abolitionist and Suffrage Movements. We started the term with the important women (info in previous post) and have since started a class read aloud, "The Hope Chest". This story is set in the time of the suffrage movement (the book opens in 1918) and is told from the perspective of a 10-year old girl from Pennsylvania who is looking for her older sister who has left home to fight for women's rights. We've met many interesting characters along the way as we are reviewing character traits, main idea, summarizing and inferencing using details and examples/support from the text. Each student is keeping a response journal for the book that we are closing with and sharing from. It's been a great read so far (we are currently though Chapter 6)! Here are some snapshots of a few of our note-taking sessions:
In our more direct SS lessons we have been talking about the right to vote; what does it mean, who should it include, should everyone get an opportunity? How would the voting process change/be affected if only certain groups of people got to vote on things that affect everyone? We put this in to practice with our Field Day Team Name/Catch Phrase. The class made a list of 10 catch phrases that affect us all - it would go on all of our shirts, banners, posters, and we would be chanting this phrase on field day defining us as a team.... but only the boys were allowed to vote on it. "WHAT!?!?!" They cried out!!! "Thats's not fair!!!" So we divided up in the room - one side for those who agree with my decision and those who didn't. Interestingly we had a 24 vs 3 debate. 3 boys were in favor for a 'boy vote' only! What a debate we had that day!!! :) Moving forward we will be wrapping up the suffrage movement with a reading of Sojourner Truth's famous speech "Ain't I a Woman" and working through vocabulary, context, text-dependent questions, etc... Next week we will move into Core Democratic Values and the students will be learning what these are and how they affect them personally as a citizen of the United States. They will also be writing an essay on the 4-5 that they feel they most closely relate to/feel most passionate about for themselves. :)
So I've just realized I've typed you a novel here! My apologies! I'll stop here and give you another update for next week's skills/lessons soon. Check out the "Important Dates" tab up top for end-of-the-year dates (some may still be added...) Have a great week and a Happy Mother's Day weekend!!!
PS. Thanks for the field day shirts and fabric paint materials! We will be working on getting those ready in class next week for Field Day next Friday. Also, thanks for the sweet cards and gifts for Teacher Appreciation; I'm so lucky to be surrounded by these sweet children every day :)
Hope you have been enjoying our sunny spring weather and the exciting things happening in our community this time of year! :)
We are still working diligently at school wrapping up, sharing what we've learned and showing what we know. Thanks for your help in supporting and encouraging your student during our CRCT testing days. They seemed confident and calm each morning and were thrilled to have a piece of candy to get them going :)
As I'm typing this today, they are staying focused and showing what they know on their Math MAP test. We had one-on-one conferences this morning to talk about the importance of this test (not to stress them but to give them purpose) and just chat with them about how they are feeling with each subject as well as going over their scores from this year and determining a 'goal' for their end of the year score to show their progress and how much they have learned this year. They all seemed confident and were smiling as we entered so that's a good sign! :)
As for our lessons in class, we are continuing to learn new material everyday and review as well. In Math we are continuing with our geometry unit. We have wrapped up the first half and will take a test tomorrow to assess it. It will cover the vocabulary/skills mentioned in my last post. I'm also including some screenshots of our lesson practice so you can see how we have been solving for finding unknown angles. We have worked with both circular (360 degree) protractors as well as traditional 180-degree protractors to solve. Once we got the hang of protractors (how to line them up, which set of numbers to use, which direction to read, etc) we started solving without them; using what we had learned about benchmark angles (90, 180, 270, 360 degree markings) to help us solve for the unknown(s) in acute, right, obtuse, straight and even reflex angles. They've done great with this!!!
In our ELA/SS lessons we have been working with the Abolitionist and Suffrage Movements. We started the term with the important women (info in previous post) and have since started a class read aloud, "The Hope Chest". This story is set in the time of the suffrage movement (the book opens in 1918) and is told from the perspective of a 10-year old girl from Pennsylvania who is looking for her older sister who has left home to fight for women's rights. We've met many interesting characters along the way as we are reviewing character traits, main idea, summarizing and inferencing using details and examples/support from the text. Each student is keeping a response journal for the book that we are closing with and sharing from. It's been a great read so far (we are currently though Chapter 6)! Here are some snapshots of a few of our note-taking sessions:
In our more direct SS lessons we have been talking about the right to vote; what does it mean, who should it include, should everyone get an opportunity? How would the voting process change/be affected if only certain groups of people got to vote on things that affect everyone? We put this in to practice with our Field Day Team Name/Catch Phrase. The class made a list of 10 catch phrases that affect us all - it would go on all of our shirts, banners, posters, and we would be chanting this phrase on field day defining us as a team.... but only the boys were allowed to vote on it. "WHAT!?!?!" They cried out!!! "Thats's not fair!!!" So we divided up in the room - one side for those who agree with my decision and those who didn't. Interestingly we had a 24 vs 3 debate. 3 boys were in favor for a 'boy vote' only! What a debate we had that day!!! :) Moving forward we will be wrapping up the suffrage movement with a reading of Sojourner Truth's famous speech "Ain't I a Woman" and working through vocabulary, context, text-dependent questions, etc... Next week we will move into Core Democratic Values and the students will be learning what these are and how they affect them personally as a citizen of the United States. They will also be writing an essay on the 4-5 that they feel they most closely relate to/feel most passionate about for themselves. :)
So I've just realized I've typed you a novel here! My apologies! I'll stop here and give you another update for next week's skills/lessons soon. Check out the "Important Dates" tab up top for end-of-the-year dates (some may still be added...) Have a great week and a Happy Mother's Day weekend!!!
PS. Thanks for the field day shirts and fabric paint materials! We will be working on getting those ready in class next week for Field Day next Friday. Also, thanks for the sweet cards and gifts for Teacher Appreciation; I'm so lucky to be surrounded by these sweet children every day :)
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