Highlights from Week 24!

With a field trip to the Pratt Fine Arts Center and a Nutrition Workshop from Beecher's Cheese Foundation, we had lots going on in Room 307! This will be a short post with many pictures to show our week instead! Here are some of the pictures from both events that took place this past week:

The nutrition workshop held in our class:

The vegetarian chili we made!

Highlights:
-Before embarking on our Expository Writing unit, we are taking a short couple weeks to review all the concepts we learning in writing narratives this year. The 4th grade MSP will have two different types of writing prompts on two days: narrative writing (writing to tell a story), and expository writing (essay type writing).
-We took our math tests in Fractions and Division units, please make sure to check your child's test to see their score.
-We also took a figurative language quiz during Readers Workshop. We have one final week on learning about poetry before moving on to the next unit!

Highlights from Week 23!

First off, I want to say congratulations to two of our students who participated in the Global Reading Challenge at the Semi-Finals today in downtown! The two students were part of the winning team at our school (In-School Challenge) and were able to compete today at the Semi-Finals. They were one of the two teams that won today, and will be advancing to the 19th Annual City Final on Tuesday, March 18 at the Central Library Microsoft Auditorium. If you are able, please go and support our Leschi students March 18, at 7:00pm!

This week was Read Across America Week and we celebrated Dr. Seuss with many fun activities. We had an all-day reading adventure on Monday and students brought pillows, pj's, and slippers to wear all day in the classroom. It was a fun, relaxing day with some treats and crafts including: a healthy version of Cat in the Hat snack! Today, with our Little Buddies, we also made butter after reading "The Butter Battle Book" by Dr. Seuss. It was such a fun time, and students got a good work out shaking up and making their butter!

Next week will be extra busy with a field trip on Wednesday to Pratt Fine Arts Center to make a mosaic and watch how glass is made. We will also be doing some print making as well - please return your student's field trip form if you have not done so. On Thursday, we will have a wonderful opportunity to have Beecher's Flagship Foundation come to our class and lead a workshop all morning called: "Pure Food Kids Workshop." Please check out the link for more information on the workshop.

Highlights:
-In Writers Workshop, we will be starting a brand new unit on Expository Writing/Essay Writing. Fourth graders will be taking the writing portion of the MSP (Measurement of Student Progress) next month, and we are preparing students to be succesful in writing expository writing given a prompt.
-Students working on Division units will be taking their math test next week on Wednesday! Please make sure that you are looking over the yellow study guide with your student. Also after every unit, I return all math work from the unit that has been graded. It would be helpful for families to look through those sheets and see where extra help may be needed. Students working on their Fraction unit will be taking their test the following week to get more practice.
-We are also finishing up our Rocks and Minerals science unit in the next couple of weeks. In April, we will begin our last science unit: Sound.
-Poetry reading has been going very well! After studying the structure of poems: white space, stanzas, line breaks, repetition, rhythm/meter, rhyme scheme - we launched into learning about figurative language. We learned so far: idioms, simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and personification. Next week, we will learn a few different types of poetry and move into the next reading unit.
-IMPORTANT: Our class has been chosen to be videotaped for the purpose of educating families on the different programs at our school. Next week, a videographer will be coming in to tape students working. PLEASE return the green permission form that gives permission to us to have your child in the video. If you do not want your child in the video, please make sure of it on the permission form. We need it back right away! I'm sorry for sending home so many permission forms, but our class has been busy with so many events! Your attention and punctuality in returning the forms is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

*Please remember it is Daylight Savings this weekend: spring forward!

Highlights from Weeks 19-22!

I've completely fallen off the schedule in the weekly updates! I apologize for delaying in posting pictures and all the things that have been happening in our classroom. We have been busy and worked really hard during the month of February! February was Black History Month and our class studied different artists and made poster projects using everything we learned from our Nonfiction Text reading unit. There were lots of other celebrations and events including: Valentine's Day, field trip to MOHAI, 100th Day of school, and an entire week off for our Mid-Winter Break!

Highlights:
-Students published and a few are still publishing their non-fiction research topics. It was a long unit on learning important skills such as: note-taking, summarizing/paraphrasing, drafting informational text, revising, editing, and keyboarding/formatting. These are all skills that will be a foundation for all other essay writing and reports that students will be required to write in middle and high school. We are getting a head start!
-We finished up our multiplication units and just started a Division unit in math for the 3rd/4th grade group. The 5th grade group started a Fractions unit. The next math test will come up in the next couple of weeks.
-In science, we are continuing to work on our Mineral Guide and doing field tests (just like geologists do!) to learn about each type of mineral for the unit.

-We finished our Nonfiction Reading unit and just started on a Poetry unit for Readers Workshop. It has been really fun to learn and review poetry skills and how to analyze text. We also started a poetry novel by Sharon Creech, called Heartbeat.

Here are some pictures of some of the events that we had the past several weeks! Starting off with our field trip, Valentine's Day treats, 100th Day activities, and a visit to a weekend chess tournament!

Highlights from Week 18!

We had a short week with Monday off to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr! Next week, we will have another shortened week with Friday off for our day between semesters. Can you believe that it is already the middle of the school year?? After that day, our specialist time will switch: PE will be on Monday/Wednesday and Art on Tuesday/Thursday. In addition to our Art/PE specialists, our third graders will be starting music next week! Leschi has hired a new music teacher for students in grades K-3. Every other week, classes will meet with the music teacher for 30 minutes twice a week. Our class was assigned Monday and Wednesday from 9:50-10:20. During this time, the 4th graders in our class will continue to have work time in the classroom.

Highlights:
-We are well into the drafting portion of our non-fiction research books. Students are learning to use their notes to write about their topic in their own words. We will continue this work for the next few weeks.
-New math units have started for all three math groups. Ms. Deese's group will begin a unit on Multiplying with Decimals, my 4th grade group is learning Multiplying with Double Digits, and my 3rd grade group is learning Division Concepts. During this unit, I will also be pulling small groups to review and learn some new geometry concepts that you may see in the homework as well.
-In science, students were introduced to three types of rocks: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. We will begin studying each of our 12 types of rocks and learn what makes each unique.
-Every student has written a bio on their Medieval Times character. Those introductory letters are hanging outside our classroom - come check it out! Ms. Anders is helping us by making busts of our characters with clay during art!
-Next week will be our last week dissecting non-fiction books in reading. The unit starting in February will be Poetry! Another exciting part of reading time is our new couch in the classroom! We had a classroom meeting today setting up some rules and expectations on the couch - here it is!

-Genuis Hour: we took some time off from Genuis Hour during the holidays and because our weeks have been so short recently. However, we continued today with learning how to set up a website! Students were so excited and engaged in learning how to create their own site. A parent letter has gone home today that has a permission slip portion so that parents can sign off on students creating a site. It is a student blog through Weebly, and teachers have the access and control what can be published on each site. If your child is going to present their information through a blog, please sign the form. The blog is only for the Genuis Hour Project and posts must be related to the topic. It is optional, so students are not required to make their own blog. Here is an infographic on how blogging can help students:

-We are going on our next field trip on Valentine's Day with Ms. Deese's class! We will be going to MOHAI, so please return the field trip form with $4 as soon as possible. Please consider chaperoning as well! Thank you!

*We will have our first auction next Thursday (January 30th). If you would like to donate any cool little prizes or funds for me to get prizes, please let me know as soon as possible!! 

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 :)