Highlights from Week 28!

I hope you all had a wonderful spring break! We hit the ground running this week with lots of new units and preparing for our state testing that will start THIS week! As I explained in the last post, 4th graders will be starting the writing portion this week (Writing Day 1: April 29 and Writing Day 2: May 1). 3rd graders will be working in other 2/3 classes on Tuesday and Thursday as 4th graders work on writing. 

PLEASE remember to bring back the Top Secret envelope with encouraging letters by Monday. Thank you to those who have already brought them back - it is so great to see your support during this time for your children. They will need all the love and positive words to get through these days! 

There will be NO homework for 4th graders this week and next. 3rd graders have homework this week (not testing), but will not have homework next week. Because there isn't homework given out, there will be NO Homework Club this week and next week! Please make sure that you pre-arrange rides on Homework Club days.

Highlights:

-We finished our Expository Writing unit and will take the next several weeks to free write and get back into a routine of building our writing stamina without prompts and set writing genres. Students will get to write in any form and freely write (which in my opinion is the best kind of writing there is)!

-In math, we took our unit tests this week (topic depending on which group: fractions/geometry). This week we will start a new unit: Mrs. Froberg's group - area/perimeter, Ms. Staab's group - decimals (fractions extended), and Mrs. Deese's group - coordinate planes. 

-Mrs. Froberg started a Historical Fiction Book Club unit in reading. Students are in new book clubs now and set group expectations and nominated a group leader. Mrs. Froberg started a new read aloud which doubles as our class book club: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.  The topics in the historical books can be heavy and pertain to many world events. For example, Number the Stars takes place in Austria during the World War II time period - we have been talking about these events and asking lots of deep questions about humanity and life. This week, we will explore more in depth the setting and time period of each different book. Please ask your child about their book club book and what they have learned so far in a first couple chapters. 

The book club novels: (not pictured: Letters From Rifka)

-Lastly, Ms. Tedi Yasuda & Mrs. Wilson have started a coding program with some of the classes for our Technology class. Students log in to their own accounts with their username and password (they should know theirs, if not, please email me), and go through the different levels. This is a free account that can be accessed at home! You can find the site here: www.code.org. It is a truly amazing program for K-12 - Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), and other software engineers, professional athletes and celebrities appear to lead the tutorials to engage students! AND it features Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies which is a huge motivator!

Important Dates:

-We have another field trip May 9 to the Moore Music Theater with all of the other 4/5 grade classes. Please be on the look-out for the field trip form and return promptly. 

-May 16 is our annual Jog-a-thon! The pledge envelopes have gone home with instructions and details. Please look over it and see what is special for the fundraising of 4th graders. The money raised will go towards their 5th grade camp fund next fall!

Highlights from Weeks 25-27

For the past few weeks, Room 307 students have been preparing for our state standardized testing: MSP (Measurement of Student Progress). For third graders, it will be the first time taking the test in reading/math. For fourth graders, it will be the second year and they will be tested in reading, math, and writing. Our testing schedule is as follows:

Writing Day 1: April 29th

Writing Day 2: May 1

Math: May 6

Reading: May 8

Please help to make sure that students are getting plenty of rest and eating a healthy breakfast to gear up!  Recent homework has been adjusted to help prepare also - this will help you and students gauge what the questions will be like and which concepts will be covered. Feel free to contact me if you have questions regarding testing!

Highlights:

-We finished our Narrative writing practice, and started on our Expository writing. Students are learning how to write 5-paragraph essays and the focus and determination has been astounding! The quality of writing has been improving and students are showing what they have learned throughout the year. 

-We are into our second fractions unit!  Equivalent fractions, mixed numbers, improper fractions, adding/subtracting mixed numbers are all concepts we have been covering in fractions!  Here are some pictures of students working on visualizing and manipulating fractions through our fraction materials:

-In reading, we just ended another book club unit and students were digging deep into the books and challenged within their groups to think in new ways.  Each group met once a week to discuss and share their ideas from the past week's reading. The next reading unit will be Historical Fiction Book Clubs.  As students get more and more used to sharing their thinking, I can see their conversation skills improving dramatically!  

-We are moving into our last science unit for the year: Sound. 

-With our Buddy Class, we made a fun country study map of Germany. This was displayed at the Taste of Leschi several weeks ago.

We also made healthy smoothies with our buddies and Mrs. Froberg taught us how to make them!

-Our weekly class meetings are now student led!  It has been exciting to see how students are learning to step up and lead the group in discussing issues, coming up with solutions and implementing those new ideas. Some ideas have worked and some have not, but the lesson is learned and the decision-making process has been very interesting:

-April Fools was full of tricks and fun activities. Students were surprised to walk into a classroom with 1st grade chairs!  They were switched with another classroom's chairs!  We also ate some brown E's and tried to solve an "impossible" word search. 

-Last but not least!  Way to go to all students who attended the State Chess Tournament today - you are amazing!

Happy Spring Break!!