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Friday, October 24, 2014

Check Out These New Animals!


The students have been working hard and learning a great deal about animal adaptations. Check out these amazing animals that the created. Each have specific adaptations to help it survive in their habitat. I think the kids did an incredible job. 











Friday, October 17, 2014

A Short Week

  With Monday off  from school and a field trip on Wednesday, this was a very short week. But that doesn't mean we didn't do some great work this week. Students have become animal adaptation experts. The trip to VINS, while being lots of fun, also taught the students a great deal about the adaptations of animals right here in Vermont. Students put the final touches on the animals they created to survive a specific habitat. I'll post pictures soon, I promise!  And in writing, students are writing conclusions on their very first complete essay based on the animal adaptations of a Great White Shark.

  We have jumped in with both feet to unit 2 in math class. We are building on multiplicative reasoning, and students will soon be expected to memorize their multiplication facts. I will be sending home flashcards a specific number each week. I can not stress enough the importance of students spending time studying the facts each night.  Knowing their multiplication facts will help them in every other aspect of math class, not only for the remainder of the year, but from here on in in their math career.

  Remember to sign up for your parent/teacher conference if you haven't already using sign-up genius. I have also sent home a hard copy of the sign-up form with every student who hasn't signed up yet. Check your child's bag if they haven't given it to you yet.  We will be going on one more field trip this fall. The students will be going to see a musical at Pentangle in Woodstock. This trip costs five dollars. We understand and acknowledge that we have had two field trips back to back. If there is a problem with the cost, please let us know. We don't want finances to ever be an issue for a child to attend the trip.








Friday, October 10, 2014

Hungry for Paragraphs & Animal Adaptations

   Has writing a paragraph ever made you hungry? No? Well, writing them made the fourth graders especially hungry this week. We spent a great deal of time learning the basic structure of a paragraph. Although this is not a new concept for the students, it is a skill that most continue to need to practice and improve.  So where does the hunger come in you ask?  It comes in my comparison between a paragraph and a big, yummy sandwich.

  Imagine for a second, the top piece of bread is the topic sentence. It helps to tell us what the rest of the paragraph is going to be, without it, we don't have a sandwich or a paragraph.  Then under the bread comes all of our yummy ingredients that help to make that bread taste better, like turkey, tomatoes, cheese, bacon, etc. These ingredients are the details to our paragraph. Of course, like a sandwich that tastes a lot better with what I call "spice" (mayonnaise, salt & pepper, mustard, butter), the paragraph needs "spice" to help it from being dry. Finally, if we don't have a bottom piece of bread, or a conclusion sentence, our sandwich falls apart and makes a mess on our clothes. Ask your child about the "ingredients" of a paragraph!

  The fourth graders have been spending a lot of time working on Animal Adaptations over the course of the week.  In science class they began to learn the details of behavioral and physical adaptations of animals. This learning carried over to reading where the students read a fascinating article about The Great White Shark and its very many adaptations and collected notes based on their reading. In writing class they began to organize these notes into the two types of adaptations.  Next week they will put all of their information into their first written essay of the year.

  As much as they enjoyed the incredible details of the shark, the fourth graders loved the science project more, which allowed them to think of the many different types of adaptations we were learning and to create their own animal that lived in an assigned habitat of the world. Their imaginations were running wild, but I was most impressed with the thinking that happened around this project. After they finish the final touches of their posters, I'll be sure to post some examples here, but in the mean time check out the pictures of the amazing collaboration that was happening between the students as they discussed their animals.

   On another note, remember that Wednesday we will be heading to VINS for a field trip where we will be studying animal adaptations with hands on experiments and lessons. It is such a fun trip. Also, if you haven't already, please remember to sign up for your child's Parent/ Teacher conference http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080a45aea72ca13-fall








Friday, October 3, 2014

A Room Full of Actors!


The fourth graders want to start today's blog by wishing our student teacher, Ms. Hulbert, GOOD LUCK on her 54 mile hike this weekend. We are so proud of her, and we can't wait to hear how it all went next week.

   This has been a fantastic week for reading.  We have been working on opening ourselves to different types of genres. Sometimes young readers get stuck in one type of book and struggle to take a chance with something new and exciting. The fourth graders have spent the past week learning about different types of genre such as fantasy, realistic fiction, science fiction, myths, folklore, and biographies. The library has had a real push for new kinds of books, and Mrs. Vielleux is very excited. I encourage you to ask your child what new genre they learned about this week, and what they might be interested in trying out. 

   Not only has the class been learning about new genres, but our reading groups spent the week working on reading with expression. We know that is what good readers do, but knowing and doing are sometimes two very different things. So, each day this week students came to reading group with a script in hand. They had become "actors" over night.  They were reading their scripts each day to improve their fluency and expression.  Every day they got better and better, and the characters started to come to life. 

   Today, we had the joy of presenting our readers' theatre to the preschool morning class.  The fourth graders were nervous, but they did a great job! We need to also thank the pre-k students for being a fantastic audience! Below you will find pictures from our experience, along with a few short clips of the students performing.