Catching up!

Oh wow, have we been busy little beavers! Over the past few weeks we have been immersed in many projects, experiments, presentations, and a plethora of other opportunities to apply our learning. We are wrapping things up, finally, so now you should start to see a few pics of finished work! Yeah! This post should bring you back up to speed on everything we've been up to.

Reading - This week we are wrapping up our novel study of Because of Winn-Dixie. During the time we've spend reading the book we've focused on developing a deeper understanding of characters and characteristics of reading / writing realistic fiction. Through this text along with our read alouds Hoot and Ruby Holler we've analyzed plot lines and how authors develop the story and characters effectively to totally draw us in.

Writing - We are in the final phase of drafting our realistic fiction stories in Writing Workshop! This week our anchor lessons are on how to craft an ending that ties into the problem and story arc (aka: plot line) and ties up loose ends from the story. Students have already spent quite a bit of time revising during our drafting, but we will take a final look at how to blend dialogue, action, and description of setting as we finalize our word choice. As this project comes to a close we will model and practice strategies for editing punctuation, spelling, and capitalization, especially with dialogue (which can be tricky).

Spelling - Our weekly spelling skill lessons are going great! Weekly words have been a challenge! :) Beginning this week we incorporated more work with these words and strategies for breaking them down into chunks vs memorizing letter by letter. Wednesday morning we spend some time chunking words, defining them, and making comparisons between the words and roots. It was great, and I think students' confidence with the words improved significantly!!! (Just a note on grading and report cards...students' spelling grades are not based on our weekly quizzes, but more so on using spelling strategies and word knowledge in everyday writing. Our weekly words allow us to work more with studying roots and their meanings, which is both a spelling and a reading skill.)

Math - We made it through our first Engage New York unit! We all agreed that the lessons were great...many activities to keep students involved and hands-on with the concepts we were studying, but they were lengthy and time consuming. The unit centered around everything to do with lines, angles, measuring lines and angles, and using lines and angles to find symmetry and classify triangles and quadrilaterals. As much as we enjoyed it, we are ready to take a break, get back to our Everyday Math, and restarting math workshop! On a teacher side note...Engage NY was a challenge, but it also stimulated some of the most powerful math opportunities for students for these standards that I've seen. WOW, can these kiddos work with angles!

Science - Our Land on Water unit has been a great opportunity to dig into (literally, excuse the pun) the water cycle and the effects water can have on soil. We have observed the effect of rain on bare soil, created our first stream table to observe how water can change course and drastically impact landscape. We will continue to study the components we are working with (humus, clay, sand, and gravel) and add other environmental impacts to our steam tables as we progress through the unit.

Have a fabulous weekend!!!

State Research Presentations

Book Study #2 - Showing Off!!!

Just had to share these...GREAT work by a few of our reading artists!

Page Turners Club meeting dates

There was quite a bit of squealing in our room today when I opened our box of Page Turners Handbooks (myself included)! Everyone is SOOOOOOO excited to read and have our meetings!!! Our weekend "homework" is to start collecting titles that we want to read on the "To Read" pages. For those of you who are interested in facilitating a discussion group and helping with refreshments / projects during meetings, the list of dates follows in this email. You can sign up for all, a few, or one. I will take the first 6 responders for each date. During meetings you will sit with a small group of students and facilitate discussion on the books they've been reading. Depending on what refreshment and craft has been chosen, I may also have you assist with those after our discussion as well. 

Here are our dates!

December 5 (afternoon)

December 23 (morning)

January 23 (afternoon)

February 24 (afternoon)

March 20 (afternoon)

April 24 (afternoon)

May 22 (afternoon) 

Please let me know ASAP if you would like to sign up!

Halloween Party

Happy Halloween!!! Thank you to our wonderful volunteers for assisting this afternoon, and to Jack's mom, Angie, for planning our activities!!!

Making pinecone spiders...

Making edible broomsticks...

Playing Halloween Pictionary...

Content updates...

Wow, have we been working like crazy, and yet it always seems that we just don't ever have enough time to get to everything that we want and need to. Can I keep all your children for an extra hour each day? Just kidding...I don't think they'd go for that...

Here's a quick summary of what we are working on / learning about:

Writing Workshop: We are mid-way through our first unit of study on writing realistic fiction. Most students are about half done with drafting their stories, and our core work each day is focusing on skills such as using the right word for said to convey tone and emotion, using the right action verb to help readers visualize movement, choosing powerful words and creative language to help our stories come to life, and how to use action, dialogue, or describe the setting to write the lead (beginning). Bailey reminded our class today about how they learned last year in third grade to be storytellers, not reporters, as they draft. Great advice!

Spelling: The students have shared that they really like using Spelling City, so we will continue with that plan for our assessing and providing options for practicing weekly words at home (don't forget that students can log in to this website at home to play games to practice weekly words!). Each week when I introduce our new list to the class, we spend time working with the root and the meanings of each word. I love how using these roots and affixes also promote such rich language and vocabulary development. May of our words this week were chosen because of our science and math units, but in our discussion we found many other applications for them...including the context of the Captain America movie. LOL! I have shared with students that this weekly list is not the only source I will base their grades on. The standards call for students to spell and understand roots and affixes, but they also call for students to spell accurately in their writing. This application will bear more weight as we begin looking at progress reports during November.

Reading: We are still working our way through Because of Winn-Dixie and hope to wrap up within the next two weeks. After completing this novel study we will begin implementing our routines for small group reading. 

Math: Our current unit is from Engage New York and has plunged us into the world of geometry and measurement as we work with lines and angles. Students have learned to identify different kinds of angles, use both full and half circle protractors to measure angles, and are currently working on figuring out the measures of unidentified angles using the measures of neighboring angles (I hope that made sense...describing in words vs. showing an example is tough!). We have even been writing equations using variables! These guys are going to be SO smart by the time we're done...I don't remember writing variables until my seventh grade pre-algebra class!!! 

Science: After two units in social studies we have switched over to our Land and Water unit in science. We will complete a variety of experiments to study how land and water affect one another. So far we have created a model of the water cycle and observed how rain affects exposed soil. Can you say washout?!

Fantasy Project: Three weeks ago I had students check out a fantasy book from the library for a book study, and at that time we determined that most of us might need a month instead of two weeks to finish reading. That month will be here next week! As I've shared with the students, we will be creating book trailers for our fantasy books using a website called Animoto. If you have experience with this site and would like to begin working at home please let me know. I will forward a few examples for you to see before you and your student begin!

Book Studies: Your student may or may not have shared that I fell out of love with the book study projects that I was creating and am in the process of developing a new plan. I will be launching a class book club call the Page Turners Club! I am still in the process of working out details, but I do know that we will have a monthly book club meeting, very likely on Fridays or before long weekends. During these meetings I will be looking for volunteers to come in to lead a discussion group and help facilitate a craft or activity. There will, of course, be treats involved. Volunteers are welcome to come for one or all meetings and can be a parent, grandparent, etc. My mom and Mrs. Syvertson have already volunteered. We are all very pumped!!!

Immigrant Collage Presentations

Our first unit in social studies was learning about maps. What is their purpose, and how do we read them? How do we interpret special purpose maps (elevation, rainfall, population, etc)? How do we use a map key and lines of latitude / longitude? We also discussed how to categorize and apply that skill to maps, especially a map of the regions of the United States. We have 5 regions in our country, and each region has unique characteristics. 

Our second unit has focused on the 5 major immigrant groups that have merged together to create the unique and diverse culture that we all experience every day. During this unit we studied where these groups came from, reasons they came here, and how our culture has grown and changed as a result of their presence. We broke into 5 groups, and each group studied one immigrant more in-depth in order to create visuals of the group's contributions, which we used to create a collage. Here are the groups! Notice the additions to the collage behind them as they each added their pieces!

After presenting in a "dress rehearsal" to our classmates, we invited Mrs. Volrath's class down for a true presentation. I could not believe the way our fourth graders stepped up to the challenge. My teacher heart filled with pride as they spoke confidently and thoroughly about their learning. Each group had prepared not only their items and content, but also an introduction of themselves and their immigrant group. 

After finishing, our first grade friends retrieved their book boxes and shared some time reading around our room. What a great opportunity for them to step into a leadership role!

Spelling - the Plan

Our spelling work this year will be "a little of this, and a little of that." What do I mean? Well, the district's primary resource is Sitton Spelling. I LOVE the weekly lesson materials in the program. They are engaging and effective, and I love teaching them as much as the students' love completing the activities. And even though I've sung Rebecca Sitton's praises since my stint teaching in Wisconsin (my district sent me to training WITH Rebecca Sitton), in the last few years I've come to the conclusion that the assessment portion of the program is no longer meeting the needs of our students as it focuses exclusively on high frequency words (words used most often, and these words show up multiple times on assessments), which we can still work on during Writing Workshop. So...you can continue to expect to see our weekly Take-Home Task from this program, but not the weekly Word Test (a paragraph format with missing words throughout).

So what was missing and what are you replacing it with? 
Well, what's missing is morphology and studying Greek and Latin roots. Yes, I know, you probably have no idea what that means, and you might be thinking Mrs. Clarey is starting to travel to the land of language that only teachers understand. WAIT! Let me explain. Morphographs are basically parts of words that hold meaning. Many of us might thinking of them as roots (aka: root words, base words, etc) or affixes (prefixes and suffixes).

Why is this so important?
Well, when we understand what these roots and affixes mean and how to spell them, not only do we become better spellers, but we also improve our reading fluency (we already know many chunks of more complex words and have to spend less time decoding unfamiliar words) and our reading comprehension (when we understand parts of more complex vocabulary we can more easily determine meaning...this will be CRITICAL as students progress into middle and high school). Here's an example from the first time I used morphographs with third graders: "Mrs. Clarey! I can connect -ly to three different things we are studying right now! We are learning how to spell words with -ly in spelling, we are studying adverbs which often end in -ly, and in math we are doing fractions and equalLY dividing wholes. This is so cool!" As you can see, students are able to start recognizing these roots and affixes throughout our day, and as they become more and more familiar with them can apply not only the rules for spelling but also identify and apply their meanings.

What can we expect for words, studying at home, and tests?
I will be selecting weekly lists of words based on different roots and affixes, but also taking into consideration what types of words complement what we are studying across subject areas. Last week and this week's lists both focus on -able and act.

At home, you can practice using any method that is convenient for your family. Verbally spelling (great for quick car rides between activities), writing, using Scrabble tiles, etc. I'm sure Pinterest is full of more great ideas. :) In addition, students can access our www.spellingcity.com page from home and play games or take additional practice tests. Each student's username and password is in the front cover of their planner!

Tests - currently we are taking our pretests and Friday tests on the Spelling City website. This is the first year that I've purchased a Premium Class account and had the option to test this way. I was very open with the students the first week and let them know that we will try taking our quizzes on the computer for a few weeks, then make a decision on whether or not we like this format. In fourth grade we do have direct keyboarding instruction, but we might decide we are not quite comfortable typing our words for quizzes, and that's ok! The premium account also gives us access to additional games as well as activities for vocabulary, so I think we'll find it was worth the investment.

I hope this explains "the what" and "the why" for you. Please feel free to contact me with any questions!

Book Study - Realistic Fiction

Wow, are we digging into reading! I have been so impressed with how much your kiddos just absolutely love to read. I've had regular requests for TWO Read to Self times on many different days. While this is very hard to fit in with our packed schedule, it just warms my heart that my students continue to ask for this. On to the purpose of this post...how to complete our second Book Study project on realistic fiction.

Task #1: Reading Log
Log your reading minutes or the pages you read by day for the next two weeks.

Task #2: Mind Map
Illustrate an in-depth understanding of your character by reflecting their feelings, opinions, fears, etc. through showing thoughts they may have or comments they might make. Think about this character's relationships with other characters in the story and how they respond to or interact with them. Think about frustrations, joys, challenges, or successes. Today we used Hoot to create a class model. We chose Roy since he was the main character, and also discussed the possibility of choosing Mullet Fingers or Beatrice since we know those two fairly well also. We decided that Dana Matherson would  not be a good choice since his character is fairly shallow...he's just a bully and has a very narrow focus.

After our discussion I completed the Task, and here's what our "mind map" for Roy looks like...I considered his relationship with or opinion of Dana Matherson, Beatrice, Mullet Fingers, Officer David Delinko, and his parents. I knew I needed to incorporate each of these people to show all the different angles of Roy's character and how everyone was involved with the owl situation (the main problem). I also modeled how to complete a quick sketch of our character that is still a quality illustration, and chose to illustrate each example of a thought or a comment in a different color (colored pencils, Flair felt tip pens, or fine point Sharpies work well) to make the project easier to read (not necessary or required, but definitely a good option for publishing).

Task #3: Storyline / Plotline

Now that we've really shown who our main character is we can map out the problem they faced, how they chose to deal with it, and how it was resolved. We've had a few discussions about the plotline in Hoot over the last week or so, and initially started with about 4-5 lines that all ended up tying together into one. Initially, our thought was that Roy and Dana (the bully) were one story line, Officer Delinko and his quest solve the pancake house mystery and further his career another, Beatrice and Roy's rocky and confrontational encounters a third, Roy's obsession with learning about Mullet Fingers the fourth, and Curly's issues with the vandal and Chuck E. Muckle the last. As I contemplated how best to illustrate these five "mini plot lines," I realized that each of these was just the author's way of developing everyone in the story who was or would become involved with Mother Paula's Pancake House and the fight to save the owls. The problem at the heart of the story was that the owls would be buried if the site was bulldozed, and the kids had to figure out a way to prevent this from happening. Once I came to this realization, I was able to see how all these other story lines just helped us to understand Roy and the situation that much better. 

Here's a snapshot of our plotline for Hoot. Each student will have some form of "mountain" effect, although some may have a few smaller "peaks" on the way up (Harry Potter books are a great example of this, as there are usually several pretty intense moments along the way). Because my events ended up extending over the right side of my arc and covered the area where I would have described the resolution, I opted to include the problem and resolution above and below the arc.

Happy reading!

Water Festival Recap

Session 1 - learning about rivers...how they move, how they affect the areas around them, how things impact the river, etc.

Session 2 - Taste testing water. Did you know that 0.003% of Earth's water is usable fresh water? That's not a lot! :)

Session 3 - discussing city sewers (routed to water treatment plants) and storm sewers (routed to the river) and how pollution affects the storm sewers and the rivers they drain to

Station 4 - The water Olympics. I'll let the photos tell the story. 

Last, but not least, "Mr. History" (Steve Stark)! I could listen to this guy all day!!!

What a good looking group of kids, don't you think?