What a fun day!  We got a lot accomplished today, but the highlight must have been working with the 6th grade on iMovie!  We will use iMovie in a week or two as we finish up our Project Based Learning activity (PBL) on membranes, and this was the perfect way to make sure that the current 4th graders have been exposed to the app.  The kids worked so well together!  

Enjoy the long weekend and I will see everyone on Tuesday! 

Sorry for the lack of pictures this week!  My phone storage is full so I've got to clear some space so I can take and upload more pics next week :)

Tomorrow is the spelling test and the language arts homework packet is due.

We had a fantastic day today!  We were able to finish our language arts centers first thing today.  I am really impressed with how well the kids are doing with helping each other during this time when I am working with a small group. They have 2 worksheets tonight for homework- pg. 30 and 32.  We took the comprehension test today as well.  It was a challenging one for sure!  I read the test out loud and we looked into the text a few times to help.

We multiplied with tens, hundreds, and thousands today in math.  The kids did really great with this!  They did quite a bit of independent practice in class, so I didn't assign additional math homework tonight.

We set raisins in water yesterday, and today we observed what happened to them.  One cup contained sand and the other didn't.  We observed that the raisins plumped up and became less wrinkly.  We also noticed that the membrane of the raisin kept out the sand! Just like our skin!  We will test some materials acting as a membrane tomorrow.  We will also group with 6th grade so they can show us how to use iMovie, which we'll need to use later in this unit.

Of course we needed some work time on the social studies posters.  They look really great and they kids were working on their speaking parts today.  Many kids came in at recess to work on their poster as well.

We started reading a new chapter book as a read aloud- A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning.  The kids are enjoying it so far.  You may have heard of the Netflix series of the same name.  The books came first and there are quite a few in the series.  They were really popular about 6 or 7 years ago, so not many kids have read the series yet.  I find this book a great read aloud because it uses and defines unfamiliar words, so we can grow our vocabulary, and it's suspenseful (always wondering what in the world can go wrong next and how will the children escape the awful Count Olaf!).  Our library has many of the books in the series, so it introduces the kids to something different and they may want to continue to read the series throughout the year.

Busy day!!!!!  The kids used models to compare multiplication word problems in math.  They did really great!  

We practiced using quotations in language arts today.  The kids had to write their own sentences as well as complete some worksheet practice. A language arts packet is coming home today and is due Friday.

We spent a good deal of time on social studies presentations.  They posters are looking great! 

We read about Noah and the Flood today in religion.  We connected the flood to our baptism. 

In language arts this week we are reading about different ways that kids in rural areas receive books.  Our main reading contained 6 different countries and so each table group read about one of the countries and created a poster and short presentation to share the info with the rest of the class.  They did a great job and it was good practice for our social studies projects, which we started working on this afternoon!  Tonight's language arts homework is to re-read My Librarian is a Camel.

In social studies the kids got in their groups and started taking notes on their assigned regions and creating a rough draft of their poster.  They worked really hard and are excited about this!  We will work on this all week, with plans to present by Friday!

We started taking briefly about our school supply drive.  While the drive itself isn't until September 10th, we are going to start preparing this week.  Also, supplies are on clearance at WalMart and Target, so if you plan on donating, now is a great time to stock up! 

Tomorrow is Community Prayer! 

Happy Friday!

Our half day went quickly!  We finished our weekly assessments in language arts.  We took our spelling test, too!  We started using multiplication to compare in math, and we managed to squeeze in a trip to the library!

Have a great weekend!

Reminder: Tomorrow is early release.  There is no lunch, however, your child will still need a snack! Also, Scholastic Book Orders are due tomorrow.  You can order online! I'll submit the orders after school tomorrow. 

The kids took their decoding test today in language arts.  We were shooting for doing one point better than last week, and many of them succeeded with this goal!  We also finished up our centers this morning.  The kids started writing a story a few days ago and today we had to do a little re-working of some of them.  I LOVE their passion and enthusiasm for writing, but some of the stories were getting a little too lengthy for this particular assignment, which was just about one event!  We had a discussion how these longer stories are wonderful for creating writing and can be worked on as seat work during the day, but for our "lessons" we have to stick to the topic and focus on certain skills that will help us in our creative writing as well.  We did manage to have time to work on revising many of the stories.  Homework tonight is to re-read My Brother Martin and page 18 from the reader's notebook. 

We reviewed chapter 1 in math and the kids took the chapter 1 math test.  We used the book test this time.  I don't always use the same form for the test, but they are familiar with the layout of this test from last year (they did it as seat work), so we did it this way.  

I assigned groups for our upcoming social studies project, which is a region report.  The work will be done in class.

We read about the punishment God gave Cain during religion today.  Then the kids drew Cain and Abel in their notebooks and wrote a paragraph summarizing the story of the first murder. 

Happy Wednesday! We took the math DIBELS test this morning.  There is a computation and concepts assessment.  The kids have 6 minutes to complete.  The computation scores are averaged for their final.  Mrs. Redendo will tabulate the scores and communicate them to me when completed.  I will use this information to guide my teaching and planning as our trimester goes on.  Tonight's homework is a review page from the practice book.

We had our first day with language arts centers today.  The kids did GREAT!  Our centers consisted of prefix work, idiom practice, independent seat work, and comprehension practice.  Usually I will have a group that I work with as well, but for our first time I left myself available for questions.  We got through 2 rotations and will complete the work tomorrow.

We finally got to reading our science reader for our PBL (project based learning) activity!  We will learn about membranes and how important they are to frogs!

We ended our day with some social studies reading and vocabulary practice.

We enjoyed the cooler weather this morning by completing a vocabulary page and silent reading outside!  

For decoding today the kids practiced identifying open and closed syllables.  Open syllables end with a long vowel sound and closed end with a consonant.  We also reviewed types of sentences!  The kids brainstormed and wrote their rough drafts for our first formal writing this year.  They are writing a story!  We have some great ideas!

Today we used bar models to solve subtraction word problems.  This was challenging for many of us, and we worked hard together today.  Homework is more on this.  Help the best you can if your child needs it, but please instruct them to ask me any questions they need tomorrow!

We read about Cain and Abel in religion today and took notes on the Seven Capital Sins in our notebooks.  

Scholastic Book Orders are coming home today.  If you'd like to order, please do so online or by sending in the order form and check from the magazine by Friday.  I will submit orders on Friday after school.  Participation is totally optional.  

Today flew by!  We got a lot accomplished today.  We read My Brother Martin in language arts and discussed author's purpose.  No longer is it enough to say the purpose "is to inform".  What is the author trying to inform us about?  The kids will keep their graphic organizer in their binder as a reference.  We also practiced listening comprehension.  I read them a story using the vocabulary words from the story and we discuss.  The kids do not get to see the text, only listen.  We took some time to organize our binders today- see below.  

Estimating in math has been going well!  The kids seem to make most errors on the actual adding or subtracting of the numbers so we practiced that today in math.  They also had some logical reasoning IXL work.  It threw them for a loop at first, but they persevered! Tonight's homework is practice 1.7 both sides. 

We had a reverse evacuation drill today and the kids did wonderfully! 

We finished up our reading on the Fall today in religion.  We will begin reading about Cain and Abel tomorrow.  We also said a prayer that was new to many of us this afternoon.  The Memorare.  We will jump into the meaning of these words and sentences later this week!

We are going to read about bioengineering and solve a problem in nature soon, so to prepare us we explored two websites on the rainforest!  

We ended our day by reading part of social studies lesson the land.  We will finish reading tomorrow and should be able to assign groups for our first group project later this week! A social studies worksheet is homework. 

Spelling words went home today.  This week we are doing it the old fashioned way.  Everyone gets a list and we'll test Friday!

Remember Friday is early release! 

Please remember tomorrow is Curriculum Night.  An email from the office went home earlier with the outline of the evening.  I hope to see everyone there.  If you cannot make it, please let me know and I'll send our information home with your child on Thursday.  Please note this is an adult only event.  This is a time for everyone to learn about 4th grade, so if you have a question specific to your child, please make other arrangements to speak with me.

Our day was so packed today!  We attempted to use the laptops to practice logging into ThinkCentral.  It was semi-successful ;)  They were really slow and not everything loaded up.  I've got a request into the tech guy to spruce them up a bit!  The kids were really flexible and handled all our hurdles like champs!

We worked on rounding in math today.  The kids worked really hard and this is often tricky because we round large numbers.  Mrs. Kohls was with us today for some of math and I was able to get some more DIBELS assessments completed!  Thank you Mrs. Kohls!!!!

In religion we read about the test God gave Adam and Eve.  We discussed how we are tested with temptation as well.

We started reading about Arizona's location in the world in social studies today.  We started typing up some response questions to the reading, but ran out of time! We had to hustle out today! hahah

A language arts packet went home today.  It should be completed by Friday.  I will take it earlier.