Mid-March catchup

Being stuck at home recovering from the stomach flu equates to some much needed catch up time. Fortunately, for y'all, that means getting our blog up to date! The kids have been loving their role as Instagrammer of the Day, so I'm writing today to fill in a few highlights with shots that I've taken over the past few weeks (for the second time, since blogger didn't save my original post...)

The first two collages are of our first Page Turners meeting. Most of the shots are from our reading forts, and one in the second collage is of Kari sharing from The Long Winter. The kids were totally enthralled with the part of the story that she shared and with the photos of the real Laura.

A few weeks ago we attended Living Ag at the WF Fair Grounds where students were immersed in everything ND agriculture. The shots here are just a few of the ones that I posted on our Instagram feed as we toured each booth. Student favorites were definitely the live animals, honey, and dairy, and we also learned about corn, soybeans, beef cows, pork, and ag related jobs. 

Jeff Thomas of Cornerstone Bank is our Junior Achievement presenter this year. He is teaching the class about entrepreneurship and all things small business. The students have learned about qualities that are important to entrepreneurs, how to design a business plan based on available resources, and how profit and loss can be impacted by a number of factors.

We wrapped up our study of the 5 geographical regions of the US (yesterday). We worked through the NE and the SE together, and then broke into 3 groups to study the Mid-west, Southwest, and the West. Students researched together using our text and then presented to the other two groups. Now we dive into studying our home state of ND!

Pulled out the selfie stick to show off the books we're reading for Page Turners! As each student finishes they are working on creating a Word Cloud to share about one or more of their characters. Excited to see them all next Thursday!!!

Last, but not least, this week (before I got sick), we started Math Workshop. I have never seen such excitement for math. Students work in 4 teams and rotate through 4 math activities each day: Mrs. Clarey (their daily lesson), At Your Seat (an assignment), Technology (using the iPads or the Smartboard to work on a variety of skills), and Hands-on (math games). They love math workshop because they get more opportunities to be involved and play math games everyday (research supports academic games for both engagement and skill mastery), I love math workshop because all students are engaged the entire hour, downtime is minimized, all activities target the learning goal or standard we are focusing on (or "beefing up" weaker math areas), and I can tailor my instruction to the 5 or 6 students seated at the table with me. You'll have to pull up this picture and ask you kiddo which team they are on and how their rotation flows. :)

Page Turners - FAQ

Friday marks our very first Page Turners meeting, and I am beyond excited to finally officially launch this activity!!! The theme of this year has been "new:" new reading, new spelling, new math, now entering the new portion of our writing...and top top it all off I've added new seating and new iPads. Yikes! No wonder I feel like the year is flying!!! Even though we are launching Page Turners much later than originally planned due to all the "new," the students and I are SOOOO excited for our first meeting on Friday. To make sure that YOU aren't feeling like this is all totally new, here is some background on why I created Page Turners, what it is, and how you can be part of it at home. This will be lengthy, so watch the headings and skim through to find the information that YOU need.

Repost from last fall:

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 is Page Turners?

Page Turners is the name of the reading club I've created for my students. Read this post to learn about my experiences and the professional reading I completed during the development of this group. (The link in the previous sentence will take you to a professional development blog I write for teachers called "The Contemporary Classroom," where I have explained my "WHY" for creating Page Turners for other teachers.) In a nutshell, I want students to love reading, read widely, read often, and talk about their reading regularly with their classmates and families. Page Turners is all about encouraging students to simply LOVE reading.

What reading requirements are there for students?  

Over the course of the year, each student is expected to read a minimum of 40 books 20 books (adjusted due to late start, although several students will hit the original goal easily), log the books they've read by genre, and be prepared to discuss their reading during Page Turners meetings. Students are expected to choose "good fit" books that fall within the genre requirements (i.e.: two realistic fiction books, one mystery, one historical fiction, two informational, etc.).

How are students held accountable for their reading?

Each student has their own Page Turners handbook, which they use all year long to record titles of the books they've read, keep track of books they want to read, and generate a list of absolute favorites to recommend to friends. Each time students complete another book, they log its title on their "Required Reads" page under the appropriate genre. In addition, students will share about their reading during meetings and complete occasional book share activities, such as a character sketch, an Animoto video, reading graffiti, or signposts they found in the book. Any of these activities would be presentented immediately following the preceding Page Turners Meeting so that students have ample time to begin and complete their reading prior to working on their project. Some projects, like creating a video using Animoto, would be given dedicated class time.

What are Page Turners meetings?

Each month we hold a Page Turners Club meeting, usually on a Friday afternoon. This time is spent reading, talking about reading, and enjoying activities and snacks. Each meeting has a pre-selected genre or theme to focus our reading in days before and our discussion during. I open these meetings up to parents, our librarian, the principal, our guidance counselor, other specialists, etc who would like to support student discussion groups.

We begin our meetings by constructing reading forts (an idea I nabbed from a colleague), settling in, and spending some quality extended time reading. Depending on how much time our schedule allows that day, we have read anywhere between 30-60 minutes.

Next, we quickly deconstruct our forts and regroup our classroom before gathering on the rug for a Book Share. Each month we have a guest reader who shares a favorite book. Last year our principal has read Dr. Seuss's The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, a grandmother shared a picture book from her home country of Ireland about how Santa Clause carries on in Irish culture, and one of my classroom moms read from the first chapter of Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers. 

After discussing this book students break into groups of 3-4 to discuss the books they've chosen and read. Each month I have posted discussion questions that students can use to guide their conversations. Here is a picture of a few of last year's charts...

At this point in our meeting I quickly reassign my volunteers to either man the refreshment table (treats provided by yours truly or one of the volunteers), assist with our craft / project, or engage with students as they assemble with various board games. This time has been a fabulous way to build relationships and classroom community, especially for those students who may not spend a lot of time playing games at home with their family, need to work on not being a sore loser or cocky winner, or practice initiating conversation with those they may not otherwise.

Embarking on this journey last year with my class was unbelievably rewarding as I watched their love of reading grow, eavesdropped on conversations between students as they raved about one of their books, and witnessed the astounding growth they achieved as readers in fluency, higher-level comprehension, and vocabulary development. Not a day went by without someone relating something from a book they'd read to a lesson we were work through. I am so excited to kick off this year's Page Turners meetings!!!

February already?!

This year is flying by! It's been warm and toasty inside our little classroom...here are some pics for your viewing pleasure (but be sure to find us on Instagram for even more)!!! As the students gradually take over ownership on Instagram I will turn over photographing and captioning to them. This will allow me to shift my communication to updating you about what's coming vs what's already happened. 

Last fall the students created Mission and Vision statements for our classroom. I've been searching for the perfect way to display these, and during a recent Target run scored when I found this frame. A little black construction paper behind and a few chalk markers later, and we have ourselves a statement board that can't be missed!

Solitaire is now an "I finished my math work" mid-afternoon brain break! Did you know playing card games supports math skills, fine motor, memory and concentration, social interaction, strategic thinking, healthy competition, listening skills, following rules and taking turns, and builds confidence, patience, and independence? Cards are also portable and can be used in countless games at various skill levels. Research has shown that students who choose card games during their spare time earned higher grades than those who chose video games. And, playing cards removes generational barriers. Throw an extra deck in your purse or in your vehicle!

Addie and several other students led a review and discussion of converting fractions and decimals!

Mrs. C got to read for a few minutes at the end of Daily 5! Once! I picked "Tricky Vic!"

We started an activity called Reading Graffiti this week. What line or quote from your book resonates with you most? Mrs. C took care of building the display, but the students will fill it!!!

We gained 40 minutes together on Friday since Mr. Underwood didn't have a sub, so we learned a new Morning Meeting game called Fact or fiction! Might be the best game yet!!!

Took a quick selfie with two of my skaters after finishing tying my 47th skate (this year...). Such cuties I have in my class!

Grid paper is FANTASTIC for so many topics in math. This week we used it to practice multiple strategies for multiplication. So handy to keep the place values in each problem lined up properly!

Make my heart smile...these guys pulled out the inflatable globe to play our "around the world" greeting from Morning Meeting after finishing their snacks.

Settling Back In

All year we've been learning many writing strategies to apply to our writing, and now it's time to bring our realistic fiction stories to fruition. We are working hard to write powerful endings, edit our work, and publish our stories into beautiful finished projects. These will be ready to share with you at conferences!

In the last two weeks we've begun to study regions of the United States. To kick off this unit we watched a YouTube video called "Tour the States." The video is AMAZING! A man draws the entire US (with capitals and symbols to represent each state) set to music. Here is the link in case you'd like to watch! https://youtu.be/_E2CNZIlVIg 

Mrs. Cain worked with PTA to arrange for a special presentation from the Science Museum of MN. 4th and 5th grade's presentation focused on engineer and how engineers continually work through problem solving processes to address everyday problems.  Thank you to Mrs. Cain and our fabulous PTA for making this event happen!!!

Newsela is an online newspaper designed and written for students. We spent a few minutes a week ago exploring the site, choosing articles to read, and writing a summary and reflection.

Over the next few weeks as we study the regions we will be analyzing our reading to determine key information and then categorizing this information as shown above. During our reading I'll also work with students on strategies for note taking and creating graphic sketches (quick drawings packed with meaning).

On Friday we had SEVEN kiddos gone! Yikes! We took advantage of the afternoon to tackle some classroom needs. A group of students volunteered to reorganize our classroom library, another group moved and reorganized our classroom games, and a third group handled prepping book orders. I love their willingness to help and the ownership they have in our classroom. My name may be on the door, but it's THEIR classroom!!!

Horns up!

Wore our Bison gear today to support the herd! Love that our loyal Sioux fans are true to their team as well!!! :) This picture was also our first class Instagram post. To follow our class on Instagram, please follow the steps in the email I sent today. 

After a long winter break we spent some time revisiting our classroom rule (Our class CARES about our learning, each other, and ourselves.) We brainstormed tons of character words for each letter in CARES and charted them (left side in the picture above). Now begins the phase of the year when Mrs. Clarey graffitis these words on kids desks (with Sharpie paint pens...don't worry, it'll come off in the spring...) as she sees these qualities in students. Today we also had a lengthy discussion about what it means to be a digital citizen (be part of an online community) and what our digital footprint is (anything we post online stays linked to us). We also talked about how to be safe and how to use technology in the classroom appropriately. Our iPads are here, but the screen protectors and cases haven't arrived yet. We can't wait for everything to be set up and ready to go!!!

Dinomummy is the story of a  mummified dinosaur discovered in Hell Creek, North Dakota. When we read about Mary Anning last fall (a researcher from England) I wanted to share this, but I couldn't find it. Frustrating!!! As I was cleaning out our basement over winter break I discovered it in a box. YES! It was so interesting to read about not only Dakota, but also about the process the scientists went through to uncover and excavate his body. Great read!!!

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!