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!

First home "Book Study," I CAN Statements, Rules for Discussion

Happy second week of back to school season! Today I sent home our first at-home assignment (dun, dun, dun...). No worries, though, it should be a snap! These book studies are something that I'm designing and creating as we go, so if there are any that you love or are difficult to complete at home please send me a quick email! I'd love your feedback! 

If you already saw the pamphlet today after school, I only asked students to begin Task 4, which is logging their daily reading minutes. We will chat about the other tasks tomorrow or later this week as time allows. There are two purposes for this first book study. 1 - to better allow me to get to understand each student's reading interests and habits, and 2 - to set the tone for the year and establish a healthy habit of regular reading at home. The project will be due two weeks from Friday (Sept. 19). You will notice toward the end that there aren't enough blanks for every single day between now and the 19th. That's ok! If you want to log below the last line feel free, or just stopping at the bottom line is fine too. If you miss a few days and don't fill every single last one, that's ok! Life happens!!! Just encourage your child to read a little extra another day. I would much prefer honesty here than "padding the numbers." 

Next photo...a few of the learning targets we will focus on first. White are for math, and the first was our focus today. The pink is what we will begin with in reading. 

Last, but not least! Now that we are jumping into our first novel study (Because of Winn-Dixie) and Writer's Workshop we will work with other students in groups or partners DAILY. As part of our CARES rules we created our Rules for Discussion to make sure this time is always positive and productive! 

First week of school...check!

Well, hello! Thank you so much for sharing your children with me this week. They were just as thrilled to be here as I was, and we had quite a ride. Many of our activities focused on building our classroom community together. As you saw on our first post, we began with our classroom rules and establishing routines, and yesterday and today we have continued to focus on those positive qualities while getting ourselves back into the routines of school. 

Yesterday during our Morning Meeting we discussed Mission (a common goal or purpose) and Vision (what inspires us to achieve our goal), and THE STUDENTS wrote out ours. The wisdom that they have at this age is astounding! Here is what they came up with...

...we decided I need to figure out how to create a huge banner with these to hang front and center above our white board.

Today was day 1 of writing workshop and math. I heard a lot of groaning, but not when I told them that we were going to start math...when I told them that we were done with our lesson for the day! LOL!

Last, but not least...here is a little treat for you in two options!

Blog update...new design chosen & installation on the way! Woohoo!!!

First day of fourth grade 2014!

Hello everyone! We had such a great day!!! I'm going to make you wait for the pictures I took of all the kids until I get them "put together," but here are a few other snapshots of pieces of our classroom that I thought you'd like!

Our room pre-Back to School Night. Just for the record, I'm not behind on setting up. :) I intentionally begin with blank bulletin boards and work with students to fill them with evidence of our learning. It won't be long before we run out of wall space and I start contemplating how to suspend anchor charts from the ceiling!

Our classroom rules are very simple...We take CARE of each other, and we take CARE of our learning. As we talked about what that truly means and brainstormed words that would describe the qualities we each need to have this year, I was astounded by the wisdom coming out of these kids. I quickly realized that the ones listed here are just the beginning, and we will definitely need to add an additional CARES. Once we get that completed I will post an update!

Our morning routine...

End of the day routine...

Our first Morning Message...

First addition to our bare walls...our daily schedule! 

Can't wait for day 2!

"Window" into our Classroom

You may have noticed at Back to School night that many of the walls in our classroom were "not decorated." No, that wasn't because I forgot or ran out of time, but I do consider our walls to be the location where we document and post resources of and for our learning. Anything that goes up is either created by students or with students as the foundation for a lesson, and is usually referenced many more times. Many of these pieces I call "anchor charts" because they do just that, anchor our learning. So, without students, I didn't have any charts to display for BTS Night. The same is not true today!!! Check these out!!!

In the first few days of school we devoted much of our time to building community and establishing our classroom routines, procedures, and expectations. We explored what it means to work collaboratively and even set mission and vision statements for our class. Here are a few snapshots of those:

Classroom Rules:

Mission & Vision

Read to Self Routines & Expectations:

Our goals for 4th grade:

Some of our first anchor charts from class:

(Yes, that really does say "Peopling" of the U.S. --- ask your child what that means!)

Thank you for your patience with the blog as we begin our year. I am absolutely loving working with fourth graders and "pushing them" to work diligently and think at higher levels. In the past I've tried to post 2-3 times each week, but with taking on all new curriculum, figuring out the ins and outs of a new district and school, and missing quite a bit of school due to a sick kiddo and meetings I just haven't been able to prioritize. Rest assured that, once again, I'm not being lazy, I'm simply spending all my time reading materials, researching resources, and planning instruction to engage and challenge my students. Over the next few weeks watch for our online classroom presence to increase pretty significantly. I can't wait to show you more!!!

(continue to ignore "ABCs of Grade 3" and avoid clicking on "email me")