Tis the Season!

The last week and two days have been filled with nothing but fun!!! We've finished up keyboarding, visited the Plains Art Museum, completed an art project with our first grade buddies (unfortunately I can't post pics of this as I don't have permission from our buddies' families), spent an afternoon making Christmas presents (can't show you those!), had the flu (oops! that wasn't fun...but apparently many of us were hit over the weekend...), celebrated our December Character Champions, and turned our classroom into a theater. Oh, and I gave them all cookies and cocoa, and now they're coming home to you all sugared up! Merry Christmas!!! ;) 

I absolutely LOVE visiting the Plains Art Museum each year. The gallery tour was fantastic! We got to see two galleries focusing on Picasso and Star Wallowing Bull (who students have already seen at school). Then it was off to the Creative Arts Studio for a lesson with Ms. S and the long-awaited Bison project.

We put "I'm reading..." signs up on our lockers. They are laminated so we can write on them with dry erase and keep them updated. They are THRILLED to have these!!!

Our classroom SmartBoard and projector work great to create a theater. Thank you to all the parents who sent treats, cups, and napkins...the party was great!!!

The weekly word writing is coming home today and isn't due until the Monday after break.

Have a fantastic winter break!!!

Tech Week

This week has been a BLAST! Mrs. Weist returned for session #1 of keyboarding, we learned Google Classroom, and participated in Hour of Code. As we introduced new technology this week we had a heart-to-heart about being good "Digital Citizens." We talked about never giving out your first and last name, never sharing personal information (especially about where you live or your phone number), not having conversations with people you don't know online, and only posting things that you would be proud of if your mom or Mr. Carlson were looking over your shoulder. :) The consensus is...we LOVE Google Classroom!!! They love that they can post and reply to one another's comments, and I love that it supports our keyboarding instruction and that I can much more easily view and respond to answers (without hauling stacks of papers around with me). Total win-win!!!

This week in reading we began reading Why the Sea is Salty, the first of a few texts focusing on how people understand and interact with nature.

I

n math we are almost done with unit 3 on fractions, decimals, etc. Most of our work this week was converting fractions to decimals (tenths), and then becoming familiar with tenths, hundredths, and thousandths through meters, cm, and mm. Our base-ten blocks became our 1 whole (the flat, or large square), the longs/rods became our 0.1, and the cubes our 0.01. We also used 1.0 meter, 0.01 for centimeters, and 0.001 for millimeters. Lots of measurement conversions! These two got creative with how they used their base-ten blocks to show 0.4 is greater than 0.14. We will take our Unit 3 Assessment on Wednesday!!!

This kiddo rocked out our first Word Sort scavenger hunt. Look at ALL those words that he found in his book that match his sort!!!

This week we (or I) learned a few important things during our first round of Words Their Way. #1 - A second copy of word cards needs to go home for families. #2 - We won't glue our cards in our notebooks until Friday. #3 - A weekly list of activities to do at home would probably be helpful. 

My son's teacher also uses WTW and has graciously shared the letter she attaches to her students' lists. I'll work on adapting that to 4th grade and have it ready to go Monday with the next sort. Please continue to send questions or suggestions! We are all learning this new program together!!!







This week (and in the month of December) students all over the world are participating in an educational event called "Hour of Code." Code is the language used to write computer programs, games, apps, etc. We watched a short video to learn about coding, and then dove right in! Here is the website if you want to check it out at home... CLICK HERE!!!

As if keyboarding and Hour of Code didn't make our day awesome enough already, it ended with Mr. Carlson coming in for his yearly reading of The Grinch. I swear every year he gets better and better!!!

Back at it!

Wow, did we come back from Thanksgiving to rock out this week! During both writing and reading we learned strategies for summarizing text, both fiction and nonfiction. Together we summarized King of the Parking Lot, and then students broke into pairs to summarize either Skeletons Inside and Out or Movers and Shapers. We focused on selecting only the most important details, including key words from the story, and incorporating transitions in order to compose a fluid piece of writing. We will share these Monday, and I can't wait to hear them!

Unit 3 in math is HEAVY in fractions. We have worked extensively on identifying and creating equivalent fractions, converting tenths to decimals, and relating fractions to tenths and hundredths. Below we are playing a game called Fraction Match, which is a lot like Uno...only you lay cards based on the same denominator or being equivalent rather than being the same color or number!

These two were GREAT helpers...they went through all my place-value manipulative boxes and reorganized them. Super helpful!!! Thanks, boys!!!

Diving in

Writing Workshop...

Over the past two weeks we've begun the process of drafting each of the events in our story arc. A lot of emphasis in the drafting phase focuses on showing, not telling. Creating a story, not just summering what happens. Incorporating action and dialogue...you get the picture. As we began building dialogue in our writing it became apparent that on the whole we didn't have a large working vocabulary of alternate words for "said." I think we'd all agree that sometimes said is the right word, but many times it's not. Using other words creates the opportunity to seamlessly portray a characters' emotions and responses to one another. So...we paused in our story writing to break down the two parts of using dialogue (the tag and the actual quote), spend a few days searching for words other authors have used in their books, list our favorites, and then began adding tags to books from Mo Willems series Elephant & Piggie. Oh my gosh, I don't think I've ever had so much fun working on dialogue! We read these to our first grade buddies, and then began performing them for each other. I took videos of these on my phone and will share once we've all read!!! Our goal will be to have our drafts finished or nearly finished in time to share with you at conferences. After Thanksgiving we will do our final editing and publish.

Reading...

We are midway through our second module of Ready Gen. The text we've been reading our way through is called Skeletons, Inside and Out. It's been SO interesting to read about the structure of skeletons in a variety of animals as we break down the structure of how informational texts are written. The students have analyzed and identified the main idea and key details in many different ways. I'm eager to begin the next text, called Movers and Shapers, where we'll learn more about the human body and other systems in addition to our skeletons (all appropriate). :)

Spelling / Words Their Way...

Our spelling program will launch either one week from today or the week after Thanksgiving (depending on when I have the materials in hand). I've been taking a class offered by the district on a program called Words Their Way. This program is unique in that it individualizes spelling instruction. This is something I will share more about at conferences next week!

Math...

Last week wrapped up Unit 2 and are sailing our way into Unit 3 and fractions! We will begin by working building how to share equally, write fractions, establish common language and the vocabulary of fractions, finding and writing equivalent fractions, and using fractions on a number line. Fractions are a HUGE part of our fourth grade math curriculum and standards. 

Science / Social Studies...

We spent most of the week beginning our powders unit. Students spent time establishing habits of scientists, identifying team roles, and making observations of two white powders (salt & cornstarch). On Friday we invited our 1st grade buddies over to share our social studies collages, which was the final component in our study of immigrant groups

I have been able to confirm almost all of our Parent-Teacher Conference times. Please be courteous and prompt at your designated time, and I will do my very best to keep our schedule on track as well. I look forward to visiting about current progress and how we can work together to support our kiddos!

Halloween recap...
Thanks to the planning of Jake K & Sofie's moms and the assistance of Grady's, Joey's, and Zoe's moms we pulled off a great party! Began by making edible mummies by strategically slicing hot dogs and wrapping them with skinny strips of crescent rolls. While baking we broke into 4 groups to rotate through pumpkin bowling, pin the tail on the ghost, toilet paper mummy wrapping, and witch's hat ring toss. After wrapping up the games we served refreshments while playing Ghost bingo. It think it was a success! ;)

Project-based Learning

The last two weeks...wow, have they flown! We have been busy beavers!!!

In writing workshop we have asked some tough questions about our characters. What is the problem they are facing (bummer!), and what do they really want. Our characters need to be believable and real, not too perfect or plastic. We developed story arcs (or plotlines...our plan for how our story will take place) and challenged ourselves to write multiple possible endings. We are now taking those story arcs and beginning to draft scene by scene. Our task will be big as we work to SHOW what our characters are going through using action and diologue, not summarize and relay the "play by play" like a sports announcer. The mentor texts we used this week were A Bad Case of the Stripes and Milo and the Mysterious Island. 

The first three stories we studied in our reading lessons were all focused on scientists and their work with animals. As a culminating projects we read a biography of Jane Goodall and her work with chimpanzees, which we will use to write a spotlight about her life. In order to take notes on only the most important information, I taught the class how to write notes "Tarzan style." We watched the clip from the movie Tarzan and Jane to compare how Tarzan and Jane communicate. Tarzan says very little, only the most important word, while Jane takes what Tarzan says and elaborates...greatly! Each time we determined a "Tarzan word" we wrote it on a post-it note. Next week we'll use these notes to launch our writing.

During math we are continuing to work with concepts of multiplication: finding factors, writing multiples, identifying prime and composite numbers, and applying multiplication strategies to games (like Factor Captor) and problem solving situations. 

The obvious favorite activity of the last few days has been our immigrant collage project in social studies. Unit 3 focused on 5 major waves of immigrants who settled the US: Native Americans, Spanish Americans, European Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans. Students are working in 4 groups to become "experts" on one of these groups, create objects to share with the class, and prepare a presentation to present to their classmates. Early next week we will put the finishing touches on our presentations and present to our classmates. The following week we will invite our first grade buddies for a visit and share our presentation with them as well!

This week's book recommendations (each title is linked if you want to find the book online)! #1 - Frindle. Anything by Andrew Clements is fabulous and usually pretty humorous! If you like this one there are many more by him to choose from! #2 - The Burger and the Hot Dog. Hysterical poetry about food! #3 - Top of the Order. John Coy is from the Twin Cities and has written many great books for boys. My family used to spend our annual summer vacation at a resort with several members of his extended family. A few years I was lucky enough to meet him when he was the visiting author sponsored by Valley Reading! This book is part of a series of books on boys playing sports. 

This week I introduced the class to a website called Wonderopolis. Each day they feature a new "Wonder of the Day." GREAT source of informational reading, and many of the challenging words have definitions that pop up if you hover over them. They have over 1500 Wonders and I believe all the past ones are still on the website!!! Yesterday we read about how fast bullets travel. SUPER interesting!!!

Last, but not least, and certainly not least important...last week Mrs. Fillippi visited with the class during her  lesson about creating a plan for being successful in school and achieving our best. She visited about making a plan for homework. After she left we brainstormed a list of "homework" activities that should be part of our weekly routine. Over the next few days off I would highly recommend visiting with your kiddo about what type of weekly plan you might develop for doing these things. We didn't establish a routine as a class since I know everyone has activities on different nights of the week. The following activities can and should be completed weekly as often as possible: 10-20 minutes of keyboarding, 10-20 minutes of practicing math facts, Weekly Word Writing, and 10-20 minutes (once we get our small groups going) practicing spelling words. You could choose one per night (i.e.: math facts on Monday, typing on Tuesday, etc), but it might be better to plan for 2 shorter sessions of 2 of these activities each night since shorter bursts of practice more frequently will lead to better retention of skills (i.e.: 10 min each of typing & math). 

Sofie's yummy birthday brownies!

Settling In

Wow, this week has really marked a turning point in our group. I finally feel like we've figured out our stride as a community of learners who are beginning to work together as a team. We still have many collaboration skills to work on, but I have been nothing short of impressed this week. Consequently, it was pj day on Friday!!!

First things first - planners. In the Back to School Night folder I shared that these will be completed daily, and students will be "checked out" prior to leaving. Planners are a tool for students to use to keep track of homework and take responsibility for their learning. I consider it my job to check them out and hold them accountable for getting accurate information home. I consider it their job and your job to read through the planner together at night, which typically takes 10 seconds or less. When you do read it, please sign the bottom. While I don't check for signatures in the morning, I do occasionally glance through while checking students out. I appreciate knowing that at-home accountability is in place. Thanks!

Next topic - homework. ALWAYS be spending time reading (average goal of 30 minutes or more per day) and running around. I am a firm believer in fresh air, being active every day, and putting down devices to interact with our friends. Other things to watch for...I generally send 1-2 math Home Links per week, and beginning this week you can expect to work on quick fact practice. If possible students should practice keyboarding for 15 minutes twice each week. If you don't have a computer at home please let me know as I'll send a photocopied keyboard home for practice. The bulk of our work IN class is out of a variety of journals, which means it's bound in a book and stays in our desks. While that is super convenient for me since I can look at all their work whenever I need to, I realize it's not as informative for my families. This is one of the reasons I love our blog; you can see what we are working on.

Writing Workshop - This week we dove headfirst into developing elements of our realistic fiction stories. The first collage shows our warm-up activity, when we practiced the art of storytelling using familiar fairy tales. We then spent the next few days developing our main character inside and out. What personality traits do they have, what do they love to do, what things drive them crazy, how do they feel about themselves and how do others see them, what do they wear, how do they treat others, etc. I've seen some fabulous characters sketches and can't wait to read the stories that will grow up around them. 

Social Studies...continuing to hone our map reading skills as we completed two more geography challenges. Learning about geography is so much fun and always makes me want to travel. 

Math...I have our Unit 1 assessments all graded and ready to return and...oops!...forgot to send them home on Friday. So sorry!!! They will come home Monday, I guess. If you haven't seen the Unit 2 Family Letter you better go backpack diving. Our next unit will focus on multiplication and geometry. Already we've identified the formula for finding the area of rectangles (area = length x width), investigated square numbers, and created arrays. 

And before you can say, "Boo!" it's October!

This week our reading adventures introduced us to a woman who lived many years ago by the name of Mary Anning. Mary was a fossil hunter who learned to find, excavate, and preserve from her father. Her life story is quite amazing, as she grew from being an uneducated woman who found notable fossils, to someone who devoted their life to studying animals both living and ancient (she cut dead fish open on her kitchen table to study them), to being considered an expert in her field and making groundbreaking discoveries. In these photos students are discussing Mary, her life, and what words would best describe her. Many students chose curious, studious, intelligent, hard working, etc.

Our focus in math this week shifted to geometry, and we spent a few days working with lines, line segments, rays...parallel, intersecting, and perpendicular...right triangles...and a whole slew of quadrilaterals. After a day of triangle construction with slipper straws and twist ties I pulled the geoboards out of the cupboard. Before getting down to business the students took a few minutes to design and explore this tool. A unanimous favorite!!!

Today's reading recommendation comes from a fellow teacher / blogger / literacy coach and friend from North Carolina. If you or your kiddos are on Instagram, the accounts she shares here have fabulous, engaging photos paired with a manageable amount of informational reading. HIGHLY engaging, current, and relevant reading. Click here for the link to her post from last spring where she writes about resources for keeping students reading over the summer...many are still applicable year round!

Coming this week:

• Spelling / Word Work: Our first word study (there won't be a spelling quiz on these this week, but watch for more information next week on how we break down words for meaning and spelling purposes)
• Math: Unit 1 math assessment on the plethora of topics we've covered (addition, subtraction, place value, geometry). Don't worry...we'll take Monday to review!!! Begin Unit 2 - Multiplication and Geometry
• Social Studies: wrap up our study of maps and complete our final geography challenges 
• Writing Workshop: Begin developing believable characters for our realistic fiction stories
• Reading: Begin introducing several literacy-based activities to be used during small group instruction, and read an information text called, "Fragile Frogs."

Red River Water Festival

Today was our very first field trip as 4th graders. Every student did great! We learned a ton about several water-related topics, so without further ado...here is what happened straight from the horse's mouth (we also learned what metaphors are this morning...)!!!

Prior to leaving...Mrs. Clarey needed to figure out how to use her new selfie stick (purchased specifically for field trips...). Wouldn't you love to be on a bus full of 64 excited fourth graders?

Station #1: Let the Cattail Out of the Bag

Written by --- Eric, Jake #2, Chuck, & Ava

At this station we learned about wetlands. Then we pulled animals out of a bag, and we figured out what they had to do with wetlands. Then she handed out things for us. We got in groups and then figured out what the things had to do with wetlands. And we wrote in our journals.

Station 2: The Life Box

Written by --- Katie, Petunia (aka: Zoe), Jaden, & Addie

The first thing we did was to decide if Boris (the plant), Petunia (aka: Zoe), and Fred (the rock) were alive or not. Then we learned about the 4 necessities of life. They are H2O, organic matter, air, and sunlight. We got to open a life box and study the things inside, and we got soybeans seeds. 

Station 3: One River, Many Voices

Written by --- Joey, David, Jake #1, & Ella

First a lady read us a poem about the Red River written by a girl who lived in Grand Forks. Then we learned about watersheds, floods, and droughts. Last we learned about using our natural resources. 

Station 4: Would You Drink This Water?

Written by --- Anya, Sofie, Jonathan, & Henry #1

We were at the station called Would you drink this water? We tried six different kinds of water. The first one was just tap water, the second was onion powder, then green food coloring, the fourth was mint flavoring, the fifth one was coffee creamer, and the sixth one was salt water. We learned about how important it is that we don't waste water.

Last stop...Mr. History himself!!!

Written by --- Jonah, Henry #2, & Fatima

12,000 years ago a glacier moved through the valley, which formed the river. Many years later a group of people that called themselves the Ojibwa move in somewhere in Minnesota. Then a group of men moved from France and married the women in Minnesota. They trapped beavers and sent them on riverboats, then onto ox carts to Saint Paul where they would be made into hats. The Dakota tribe came to our state and named it North Dakota. The railroad built a bridge over the Red River for the trains to go across, and the cities built up. 

And back in the classroom...the soybean seeds we received in The Life Box station have been "planted" using the 4 essential elements of life. Energy (sunlight), organic matter (present inside the seed), water (in the wet cotton ball), and air (entering the bags through a punched hole). Can't wait to watch what happens in those little bags!!!

We've been busy!!!

We have been busy beavers this week!!! Not only have we been continuing to work hard on our learning, but we also squeezed in 5 keyboarding lessons, a guidance lesson, and a lesson on school beliefs with Mr. Carlson. Whew! Each week our learning, of course, will continue to build and challenge us. To be successful on a daily basis we will not only need to focus on the topics of our lessons, but also on behaviors that will help us to focus, discuss, and internalize our learning goals. One topic that we will be emphasizing is self-monitoring. Am I paying attention and focusing in class? If not, what are some strategies that I can use to get my brain and/or my body back on track?

SNAPSHOTS OF THE WEEK...

Unit 1 in math seems to be kind of all over the place, but the underlying emphasis is on understanding numbers with multiple digits, the value of each digit, and then applying our understanding of those numbers in situations like rounding, estimating, adding, subtracting, and measuring, etc. In the picture below you see students working on adding large numbers. In this activity I had place 8 different problems around the classroom. Students were asked to circulate and choose at least 4 to answer. 

Over the past week we've been working our way way through a book called Porpoises in Peril. Below the students are searching for evidence to explain how the Science Squad discovered the identify of Drake Darkly...a villain who is illegally mining for opals on the ocean floor and disrupting the fish and porpoise populations. As students found evidence in the book they recorded it on their post-it notes.

Keyboarding class...a super duper critically important life skill that we need to learn NOW with proper technique. :)

MRS. CLAREY RECOMMENDS...

New to our class blog this year will be a weekly book feature...books we are reading in class, books I've read and would recommend to my students and their families, etc. Without further ado, here they are!!!

• Book #1: James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl --- One of my all time favorites and one I used to read aloud as a third grade teacher. Ronald Dahl has many fabulous books, such as The BFG, Matilda, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory... Here is his website http://www.roalddahl.com/home/kids
• Book #2...ANYTHING by Seymour Simon. Oh my word I can't tell you how fabulous he is, especially if you like animals. He also has a fabulous website for kids... http://www.seymoursimon.com
• Book #3: The Land of Stories. I read this over the summer and am now reading it to my son, who is a first grader. It was recommended to me by several of my students last year. GREAT read and totally fine to have younger siblings listen in if you read as a family. Best part...it's a series!!! 4 books as of now!!! http://thelandofstories.com

Getting your child to LOVE reading!

Photo credit: Hope King of Elementary Shenanigans 

Reading. One of my favorite topics!!! Why? Reading is the single greatest determining factor in your child's success in school...and in life. Reading is what opens doors to new opportunities, allows us to communicate, escape into another "world," and learn about the world around us. Reading is used in EVERY subject in school as well as in almost every activity in life (try driving around or eating at a restaurant without reading anything). I promise you that this year I will do everything in my power to support your child in not only learning reading strategies, but also to help them LOVE reading. 

So, what are my beliefs about reading?

• To get kids to love reading, you need to let them pick what they read!!!
• Kids need to build reading habits:
• Know how to find books and how/where to find ideas for picking books
• Choose books that are a good fits, both for interest and readability
• Build stamina for reading
• Read THROUGH the books we pick
• Repeat this process over and over in order to build qualities of being a reader that will last beyond 4th grade
• Reading needs to be modeled and supported at school and at home
• Reading needs to be enjoyable, without strings attached. No logging minutes or petty projects. (Do you know any adults who keep track of the number of minutes they read for pleasure?)

What I expect:

• This year I'm challenging my students to read 40 books. Why 40? Because I want them to build reading habits, read often, and read widely...I want them to catch the reading bug!!!
• I will encourage students to read a variety of genres (I have "challenge lines" on the Genre Graph in their Page Turners book). Why? Let me explain using one of my favorite foods. I love  pizza and could totally eat it all the time. Pizza, however, is not great as an exclusive meal choice. It needs to be supplemented with fruit, veggies, milk...you get the idea. As readers we do naturally gravitate to our favorites, but we still need to be able to read for other purposes. When my son was little it was my job to introduce new, unfamiliar foods, and now as a teacher it's my job to introduce new kinds of reading material. 
• Students need to be able to talk about what they are reading. Once we have built our reading stamina and reading habits we will begin writing about our reading in our Page Turners notebooks and discussing together at Book Club Meetings. These were the highlight of our year last year!!! 

Below is a picture of two anchor charts that we're currently using and referring to often as we build stamina for reading and our ability to stay tuned in to what we're reading.

First weeks of school...round 2!

Now that I have full permission for photos on the blog...here are a few more from our first few weeks! Here are a few more pics of the class helping me sticker all our books. I LOVED hearing over and over..."Ooooh! This looks good! Can I read this one, Mrs. Clarey?"

One of our on-going projects is our Interactive Reading & Language Notebook. Throughout the year we will add pages with information about the different skills and topics we learn that are related to reading and language. I love that these give students an opportunity to be creative while recording notes and information about our learning.

First attempt at a class selfie. :)

On Friday we took a few minutes to touch on the events of September 11 in memory and honor of those our country lost. We then read a story called The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. The book is based on a real event that occurred toward the end of the construction of the Twin Towers many years before, when a street performer from France walked on a tightrope between the towers. 

Back to School 2015!

Welcome to 4th grade and the 2015-2016 school year! What a great group of kids we have in our class!!! After spending our first few days getting to know one another, settling into new routines, and slowing diving into subjects one at at time, our class is finally in full swing. Here are a few peeks back...

Morning Meeting...

Working hard on cursive...

Helping their teacher place a genre label on every book in our classroom library (there were more bins than students...yes, I have a LOT of books)...

Playing Number Top-it...working on creating, reading, and comparing large numbers...

In the coming days of school you can expect to hear how we are...

• Developing ideas and storylines for realistic fiction stories in Writing Workshop.
• Analyzing stories for evidence to talk about characters, point of view, etc.
• Rounding.
• Map reading skills.

Over the next few weeks I will continue completing fall reading and math assessments so that we can begin small groups in October!