Highlights from Week 17

Happy Seahawks weekend!  Leschi celebrated Blue Friday and here is how many students were dressed! 

How we decorated our room :)

Highlights:

-Students are finishing up taking notes on their non-fiction books and ready to begin drafting this week!

-My math group took the math test on Friday and did very well. I graded and passed back the tests so please ask students to see how they did. Ms. Deese's math group will be taking their math test on double digit division on Wednesday. Both groups will start the new unit this week. 

-We observed more of our rocks this week and will learn to categorize them in science: sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous. 

-Students were assigned roles/characters for our Medieval Times unit. They will be making their characters using clay during art class this week. With Ms. Deese's class, they worked on the castle and will finish the castle model this week!

-In reading, we started the second half of our nonfiction unit on Narrative Nonfiction and comparing it to Informational Nonfiction text. Students also had deep discussions on nonfiction articles from our Scholastic Magazines. Check out the picture of the group of boys having a conversation below!

-With our Buddy Class, we watched a Martin Luther King Jr. video and worked on some writing together.

Going to the Super Bowl! Go Hawks!!

Highlights from Week 15 & 16!

Happy New Year!! We started this new year with a very, VERY full week! We started lots of new units, worked on some assessments (I know!), and started MAP Testing. Because I took a break from blogging over the winter break, I did not put up our December pictures of some of the activities we worked on right before the holidays. At the end of this post, I will show some of those pictures including: gingerbread house making, making Polar Express hot chocolate with our Little Buddies, launching our non-fiction unit, a picture of the snow storm we had, and the holiday gifts students received.

Highlights:
-We chose our Non-Fiction Writing topics this week and will begin our research! In order to do this, students need to find books and articles (at school and/or home) on their topics to help them. This goes along perfectly with our reading unit, which is learning how to read non-fiction text: taking notes, finding main ideas/supporting details, understanding the text and being able to say it in our own words. If you can find articles or get books on the specific topics, please do so and bring it to school.
-In math, we began our new unit on Multiplication or Division with 2-Digit Divisors depending on the math group students are in. This is a short unit, and we will be taking our math tests on Friday of next week: 1/17.
-Rocks and Minerals is our science unit that we also launched. We are learning to talk about the different properties of rocks and carefully observing them. If you have rocks at home that you would like to add to our collection for students to observe, please bring them in!
-In social studies, Ms. Deese's class and our class have started our Medieval Castle unit. Students will be starting to build the structure of the castle on Monday. Each group is assigned a different part of the castle, and this frieze/structure will be right outside our classroom. It will be an ongoing project and next week, students will also create their characters in art and write about them.
-Our Little Buddies came to our class today to present their All About Posters on different animals. It was so nice to see their learning and presentation skills. Room 307 students were the most amazing audience! They sat quietly and gave specfic compliments to the Kindergarten and 1st grade presenters.
-We took our MAP Math test today in the computer lab, and will be taking the Reading portion on Monday. Students are writing down their scores to meet their goal, so please ask students on Monday what their reading/math scores are if you are curious.
-Last but not least: Mrs. Froberg (our student teacher) shared about herself on Thursday. She showed us pictures and shared about her life growing up in Canada and some of her hobbies including cooking! I have linked her cooking blog so that you can check out one of her passions outside of teaching! Along that note, please sign and return the permission slip that went home about the video taping of her lessons. It is very important - thank you!

Highlights from Week 14!

Only one more week until winter break! I cannot believe how fast the first trimester of school has gone by and it is almost 2014! Seeing that it is the holiday season, we are celebrating with some fun activities and treats during the last week before break. We will be decorating gingerbread houses and making hot chocolate in our classroom among other activities. Thank you to families who have helped to bring some of the supplies for our gingerbread houses - you can see the finished product when students take them home next week :)

Next week will be our first week to welcome Mrs. Froberg officially to our classroom as our student teacher. She will join us every day next week to get to know students and help out in our room. In January, she will come once a week (every Thursday) until March, and then finish the year off with us full-time. We are all very excited to welcome her and have an additional teacher in our classroom! Mrs. Froberg will be sending out an introductory letter next week so you can learn more about her soon.

Highlights:
-This is our last week writing our last narrative piece, and January will be the start of a new non-fiction writing unit! It will support our non-fiction reading unit as well as our Genius Hour research that will be happening in the next few weeks.
-Next Friday, we will have our unit test on multiplication/division. We will be working on the study guide early in the week, and students will be able to take it home so parents can get a chance to see what will be expected on the test. Please continue to help your child practice their multiplication facts so that the longer multiplication/division problems can be solved more easily/fluently.
-We are building our reading stamina in non-fiction. We learned a few strategies such as marking up a text, how to read text features and identify them. If you can, please show your child all the different non-fiction text that are all around them (menus, brochures, newspapers, magazines, cookbooks, how-to manuals, etc).
-Most students have decided on their Genuis Hour topics! Please talk to your child about their chosen topic and how you might be able to support them in the research process.

*Apologies for not having pictures this week, but it just flew by! Many pictures to come in the next post :)

Highlights from Week 13!

We have launched our classroom economy system this week! Students are so excited and motivated to learn about how it all works. We opened up our bank accounts, earned our first paycheck (after applying for our jobs, of course), earned bonuses, some owed fines, and deposited our money into the accounts today. If you are curious of how the whole system works, please check your child's Star Binder under the "Economy" tab. You will find the bank logs, bonuses/fines list, how to pay rent for your desk, and their student wallets. Check out this website for more details on the entire system and where the idea originated: www.myclassroomeconomy.org.

Today, we also began "Genius Hour" - which is an hour every Friday that we will spend on individual students' passion projects. We began this morning by watching this video by Kid President:


I then introduced the idea of "Genius Hour" by showing this video:


Students were able to generate some ideas of different passions they have and how they can create a project from those ideas. By next Friday, students will have to come up with their project question, and we will soon begin the research for their projects!

Highlights:
-We had our realistic fiction writing celebration this week with some pumpkin scones and tea! Our next short writing unit will be on any narrative genre. Students have been asking to write fairy tales and fantasy stories, so the next couple of weeks will be spent on those narratives before we begin our non-fiction unit in January.
-In math, some students started on the multiplication unit, and some students started on a long division unit. Today, I sent home login information and passwords so that families and students can log into the math curriculum page at home. This will have all of the units and lessons that I am teaching in class. Students should have their usernames and passwords memorized!
-Monday, we will begin our non-fiction reading unit! Students presented their character posters this week and got to share about their learning throughout the book club. Check out some of the pictures of book club groups working on their posters together!

-Last but not least, please check your e-mails for a Volunteer Spot invitation. We will be making our annual Gingerbread Houses during the last week of school and we are in need of some candy to decorate the houses with! Please help if you can :) Have a great weekend!

Highlights from Week 12!

Happy Thanksgiving!! I wanted to say a sincere thank you to all the families who came out to parent-teacher conferences. It was so nice to see all of you and touch base on the progress of your child. This year, as you know, we had student-led conferences and it was such a powerful experience for me to watch each student take ownership of their learning! We prepared a lot for it, and the work paid off! Even for students who felt nervous at the beginning ended the conference confidently and I was so proud of each of them. I would love to get some feedback on how the experience was for you and your child - you can even leave a comment at the end of this post! :)

We had our Thanksgiving Potluck on Thursday, and it was so much fun! THANK YOU to families who were able to contribute to the potluck - the food was delicious! Friday, we went on a field trip to the Washington Park Arboretum. It was a cold, but sunny day and it was nice to get out and explore around the park. I have attached a couple pictures from the field trip at the end of this post.

Highlights:
-Almost everyone is finished with publishing their realistic fiction story. Many were able to take home their published copy in their conference folder, but for those continuing, the story will come home next week. Our next writing unit will be: non-fiction.
-We also wrapped up our Multiplication & Division unit in math and took our test on Thursday. The tests were graded and passed back - please look over it with your child. On Monday, we will take a pre-test on the next math unit: Multiplication for some and other will begin a Division unit.
-In reading, we are finishing up our book clubs and working on a Character Poster as a group. Groups will present their posters to the class and discussing their learning about the characters and their struggles.
-In addition to the book clubs for our reading time, we will begin our book clubs for the Global Reading Challenge. If you are curious about the 4th grade reading challenge, please check out this website to find out more information.
-Students have been really excited about beginning our Classroom Economy. A letter will come home the Monday we get back to school. It will explain how the economy will work, and many students who were in my class previously will know all about it. For those of you interested in how it works, please check out this website: www.myclassroomeconomy.org. I model my class economy system from this site, and it will give all the details.
-Last but not least: an exciting update! Starting in January, we will have a new student teacher joining our classroom! Ms. Froberg will come once a week for the first couple months and transition into a full-time role in the spring. Please welcome her to our class community when you see her around :)

In honor of Thanksgiving, I want to thank you all for reading this blog and for keeping up-to-date on your child's classroom events. It really makes a difference - Happy Thanksgiving!

Highlights from Week 11!

We have just 1 week left until our fall conferences begin! I sent out a reminder form with the schedule and a confirmation sheet that parents can return back to school. Please make sure that you return this form and mark your calendar for the exact time. As you can see from the schedule, most conferences are back to back, so it is very important that families are on time to the meeting. Students are required to come to the meeting because they will be leading the entire conference! We have been writing invitations to families about what to expect and next week will be spent practicing and role-playing how the conference will go. 

Another event that is coming up next week is our field trip on Friday (11/22) to the Washington Park Arboretum. I am still missing many field trip forms so please return those with $6 as soon as possible. I am also in need of a couple more chaperones (we have 2 so far). If you are available next Friday, please consider joining us! It will be a good time :)  

Highlights:

-Students have started to publish their final draft of their realistic fiction story. We are hoping to get these finished in time for students to share at the conference.

-Our Multiplication/Division math unit test will be given on Thursday, 11/21. I am emphasizing showing work for full credit on the math test. When reviewing the study guide and other math work (which will be sent home on Monday or Tuesday), please reiterate this with your child!

-Because we finished up our science unit on plants and will take a field trip to the arboretum, we are taking a month break from science and focus more on map skills. We will be make maps of Washington State and begin our learning about our history. The next science unit will be Sound beginning in January.

-We are finishing up our first round of Book Clubs in reading. We will get into another group based on the Global Reading Challenge books that students choose. Our 4th graders at Leschi compete annually in the GRC and more information about this will come closer to January/February. Our 3rd graders will also read in book clubs and will compete on a smaller scale. It is our first year at Leschi implementing the GRC for 3rd graders. 

-Please check your emails for a special event that may be coming up next week - I need parent help through VolunteerSpot!

-Last week, we went to join the writing celebration in our Buddy Class (Room 206). Students were able to participate in the gallery walk and read the Kindergarten/1st graders' published writing. Here are some pictures from that event:

Highlights from Week 9 &10!

With all of the festivities from the previous week, I am combining the updates from the past two weeks into one post! I cannot believe it is already November! The weeks are flying by... which brings me to my first reminder to families about wearing coats to schools. Our new school policy is that most days, we will be sending students out for rainy day recess. PLEASE make sure that your child is wearing a coat with a hood - if you do not have one, please talk to me and I will help to provide a raincoat for your child to wear. I always tell me students, "We live in Seattle... it rains! You must wear a coat on rainy days!" Which leads into my next reminder: students are getting colds and many are sick. If your child is too sick to come to school, please keep them home. It is in the best interest of the child and for other students if your child takes the time to rest and get better!

In other news, our class is preparing for conferences that are coming up! This year, students will be required to come with families to the conferences and they will lead the discussions. I will send out more detail in the coming weeks, but please sign up if you have not done so. Next week, I will send out reminders of times that families have signed up for.

Highlights:
-Last week, we made apple sauce in the classroom and wrote "how-to" steps on making apple sauce. We used a Crock Pot, so it was really simple and delicious! If you would like to make it at home, here is the link: Sarah's Apple Sauce.
-We continued writing our realistic fiction story drafts and many have started the revision process.
-Our math unit will end next week! The unit math test will be given on the following week before school gets out. I am emphasizing students showing work in all of their math probelms. Parents can help by also reiterating this point at home with homework.
-We started our Ice Cream Sundae Challenge for learning our multplication facts!
-In our Book Clubs, we are learning the different roles each member: predictor, summarizer, questioner, and wordsmith. Students get a chance to have each job and the discussions are centered around these roles.
-Last week, we also went to Peppi's Park to plant in the woods with our little buddies from Room 206. It was such a lovely time and I want to thank parents who came out to help and lead the small groups! :)
-Here are some of the pictures from the events from the past two weeks!