Did I really just type March 1st?  Where is the time going?!  This week is going to be filled with experimentation and learning.  We will be having an explosive time with our volcanic vocabulary words, discovering what makes our planet so “magnetsficant”, and using our new learning tools (iPad minis!) to ensure that we are excited and busy all week through.  On a sad note, I will be out one day this week due to a death in the family.  I’m not quite sure which day that will be.  Please review proper substitute behavior and remind your child that we have all agreed to our substitute behavior contract and don’t want to miss out on end of the year activities.

Here are our goals for this week:

Reading:   This week we will be reading about our 2nd inventor, Ben Franklin.  Our focus skills will include summarizing, multiple meaning words, and graphic organizers.  We will also be using our new iPad mini’s to read the novel, Who Was Ben Franklin? and answering embedded questions. 

Vocabulary: Our words this week are about volcanoes.  We will be learning about how they erupt throughout the week.  As a culminating activity on Thursday we will create and eruption!

Grammar:  On Monday we will be taking our unit 3 test on confusing words.  After that we will be starting Unit 4 focusing on subject and object pronouns.

Subject Pronouns: Used as the subject of the sentence- I, you , he, she, it, we, they

Object Pronouns: Pronouns that follow action verbs or prepositions (to, at, for, of, with)- me, you, him, , her, it, us, them

Writing:  We will be conferencing to begin the editing process on our latest portfolios piece about a hobby or activity that we enjoy.

Math: After our Topic 10 test on Monday, we will begin our work with fractions.  Our first step in that process will be to identify multiples and factors of numbers.  This will be our focus for this week. 

Factors- numbers that can be divided evenly into a number.  Example:  The factors of 18 are 1,2,3,6,9,18.  1×18=18 , 2×9=18, 3×6=18

Multiples- numbers that are answers when you multiple the given number.  Example:  The first 5 multiples  of 3 are- 3,6,9,12, and 15

Science: We will be wrapping up our unit on magnets this week.  Our culminating experiment is to discover the largest magnet- Earth!

We were very busy little critters last week and it has taken me until today to recover!  Last week we celebrated our 100th day of school with a very special math lesson based on fractions using lots of fun (often edible) manipulatives.   In a ill timed twist of fate, the 100th day also fell on Valentine’s Day.  In order to do both holidays justice, we celebrated Valentine’s day on Friday to coinside with our Jump Rope for Heart fund raiser. 

In addition to all of this fun stuff, we learned about what it is like to be a president.  We spent a day envisioning ourselves in the oval office making some big changes.  Students made executive orders to ban smoking, repair roadways, end littering, end bullying, and create harsher laws for violent crimes.  They earned my votes!

This week’s objectives:

Reading: Students will work on summarizing informational texts.  Be on the lookout for our new book-bags.  This week they will be reading about Thomas Edison each night an completing a reading strategy worksheet.

Grammar: We will be wrapping up our unit on confusing words with the verbs throw and catch (appropriate since this is the start of Phillies preseason 🙂 ).  Test on Friday!

Vocabulary:   Students will be working with science words this week! 

Math: Students will be wrapping up long division this week.  We will be moving up to 4 digit numbers as well as multi-stop word problems.

Science:  We will be making predictions about magnets and testing them out throughout the week.

Social Studies: We will be continuing our work on economics and starting chapter 6 this week.

Today we were host to a preschool class from our district who’s mascot happens to be a hedgehog.  They came to meet the other district famous hedgehog, Sophie and learn about how to care for her. 

We had so much fun with our pint-sized friends!  In honor of their visit we had hedgehog donut holes. (thanks Pinterest!)

We made hedgehog take away crafts with our new friends. 

Mrs. Hibschman also shared a hedgehog story with our class to help explain how they came to be known as the hedgehogs. 

Sophie enjoyed meeting her new little friends and was very cooperative.  She let everyone feel her spiky quills and her soft little belly.

My fourth graders did an awesome job helping their new little buddies get to know more about hedgehogs today!  I am so proud of them!

Wow!  What a game!  I’m sorry I did not post these objectives last night, but I was loving watching the football game and commercials with my family!  We will be talking about and working with the commercials throughout this week.  Our goal is to take a look at how the advertisers used their power of persuasion to make the ads both entertaining and sell their products at the same time. 

We will also be invaded by some little people on Thursday!  Our preschool names each classroom after an animal.  When I went to the board meeting to accept my Math and Science Mini Grant, the principal of the preschool asked if the hedgehog class could come meet Sophie our new class pet.  We are so looking forward to their visit!  We will be having special hedgehog snacks, working on a hedgehog craft, and of course playing with Sophie!

Reading:This week we are focusing on using information from the text to support our answers to questions.  This skill is difficult and requires a lot of practice.  Each night as your child reads the next chapter in their novel, they will need to answer an open ended question about that chapter.  Please encourage them to give details from the book to support their answers.  I am expecting 3-5 sentence answers for each questions.  The answer should restate the question and answer it, provide details supporting their answer, and relate it to themselves somehow.

Here is an example of a good answer for the question, make a prediction about the next chapter:

I predict that in the next chapter Molly will find her brother.  I think this will happen because in this chapter she learned 3 new clues about where he is hiding.  When she found the last clue, the author said that she heard giggling.  I think the giggling was her brother because when I play hide and seek with my sister, she giggles when I get close to finding her.

Vocabulary:   All of our words this week revolve around the root word care.  We will be looking at how adding prefixes and suffixes change the meaning of the word care.  Our definitions will all be pretty close this week, which means we will need to really study them to find the differences.

Grammar: This week we will be working with the confusing words good/well and doesn’t/don’t.  These words are very often used incorrectly.

Good is an adjective and describes nouns:  That was a good book.  (good describes the book)

Well is an adverb and describes verbs:  I am feeling well, thank you. (well describes how I feel)

Doesn’t is the contraction for does + not.  It is used with singular nouns:  The dog doesn’t know where its home is. (1 dog- use doesn’t)

Don’t is the contraction for do + not.  It is used for plural nouns.   The dogs don’t know how to get home.  (more than one dog- use don’t)

Writing: We will be working on writing figurative language and poetry this week.

Math: This week we will be wrapping up division with remainders.  We will have a test on Thursday.  Please review basic facts (multiplication and division) with your child each night.  There are plenty of free apps that can help with this or you can make your own flashcards!

Science: This week will be wrapping up research on hurricanes and working on our final projects.  We will be making power points, prezis, videos and websites in class based on our research.  We will be sharing our work with the Mr. Krakower’s class in North Jersey.

Social Studies:  We will be taking the week off of Social Studies to focus on our Hurricane project.

This week is going to be a very exciting one in room 11.  Monday begins our adventure in hedgehog care!  Sophie was picked up this weekend and is all ready to come in and visit Monday morning.  We are going on our field trip to Drumthwacket, the governor’s residence, next Wednesday.  Please remember to turn in permission slips ASAP!  Below are our learning goals for this week:

Reading: This week we will be focusing on comparing and contrasting different view points as well as topics.  Comparing is telling how 2 things are similar.  Contrasting is telling how they are different.  We will be using a variety of different materials for these lessons including texts and physical objects.

Also during reading centers, I will be finishing up our Fountas and Pinnell Benchmarking.  We do this 3 times a year to check your child’s reading level.  It consists of students reading aloud to me (so I can hear where they are making errors), reading quietly to themselves, and then discussing the information or story they read (so I can check for comprehension.  Once everyone is done, I will be sending home a detailed graph of your child’s progress for this year (or the last 2 years for my friends that looped with me) as well as an explanation of what their level means and how you can help me help them at home.

Grammar: We will be picking up where we left off before break this week and reviewing adjectives and adverbs this week as well as working with prepositions that tell where.  There will be an edmodo quiz on Friday.

Vocabulary: This week our words all begin with the prefixes dis-, fore-, sub-, and under-.  We will be working to both understand what these prefixes mean as well as how they change the definition of the root word.  Check out our Powerful Vocabulary page for a list of the words as well as their definitions.  Our test on Friday focuses on using the words in context, not spelling.

Writing: We will be working on editing and publishing our second portfolio piece this week.  Last week we worked on writing a rough draft of a story about a wish a genie granted us that had to benefit someone other than ourselves.  This week we will peer edit, discuss rough draft score with me, and begin the revising/typing process.

Math: We are working with 2 by 2 multiplication this week.  We will begin using tables and charts to help us organize our work, but by the end of the week the work your child will be doing will look very familiar!

Social Studies: Students will be learning about the history of Drumthwacket this week leading up to our trip next week.  We will be creating time-lines, dissecting the state seal, creating calling cards, and learning about what our governor does each day.

Science: This week we will be working on tweaking our hedgehog habitat as needed and monitoring her health and behavior.  Each day a different students will be reporting in our our blog page about Sophie and what she has been up to that day.  Check out our Hedgie Home Page Link!

Cooperative grouping is a wonderful way to provide meaningful learning experiences for all students. It allows stronger students the opportunity to apply their knowledge by helping others, it provides support for weaker students, and organizes and provides roles so everyone is involved at all times.

In our class we work in small groups daily. Sometimes they are just that. Small groups of students working independently on their own assignments using common materials. For example when we go to our computer center to work on the sum dog website we are all working alone but on the same site in the same area.

At other times we work in small groups that are more collaborative in nature. These groups consist of students working as a team to complete a common task. Each student is assigned a role such as time keeper, recorder, reporter, facilitator, or material handler. All of the roles need to work in tandem to achieve success. This skill is hard to grasp in the beginning if the year therefore it is not often used in our room until the second marking period when classroom rules and expectations are firmly in place.

Each type of grouping has its place in the classroom and provides valuable learning experiences.

‘Twas the end of the marking period and all through the school, students and teachers were in a wrapping up mood.

Assignments were handed in completed with care, in hopes that their averages would show some repair.

Students all leave on that very last day, with sighs of relief, giving high fives on the way.

And teachers stay late, coffee cups full.  Preparing for and all-nighter to pull.  When what in the hall made such a racket? Someone has finished early and ran home donning a jacket!

Away to our windows the rest of us ran in flash. Begging for more coffee and tossing him cash.

The moon is now high.  We pack up to go.  How much longer we’ll be grading no one really does know. 

Home to our families, tired children, and cold meals, promising tomorrow more progress we’ll feel.

Monitors on for grades to input. Pop! Great! My computer just went kaput!  Frantic I call tech support STAT, “fix it” I plead, “do this then do that!”

A smooth steady hum finally returns.  Clickety, clackety typing a’til my eyes burn.  As the last grade is entered and the save button hit, a sigh of relief escapes from my lips.

I promise myself that for the next quarter, I’ll procrastinate less and do more with my daughters. 

Each prep period will to its fullest extent be used, so the night before grades are due I won’t be burning a fuse.

The lesson my friends both students and teachers, is don’t put off assignments, be hard working creatures!

Work in steady pieces, a little each day!  ‘Tis a much better, more productive way!

I hope this post finds most of our readers safe and sound in their homes with electric, heat, and the creature comforts you are used to. For those of you in shelters, we hope your stay isn’t much longer and that when you return home you are pleasantly surprised. Here in our tiny south Jersey town we experienced horrible winds, minor flooding, downed wires and trees but over all most if us feel pretty lucky considering what our friends at the shore got. I am just heartbroken to see my beach washed away. We will definitely be looking into ways we can help as a class community service project. This week (at least what’s left of it) we will be focusing on studying hurricanes (shocker there I’m sure) finishing up our math unit and trying to have some Halloween fun.

I hope this post finds most of our readers safe and sound in their homes with electric, heat, and the creature comforts you are used to. For those of you in shelters, we hope your stay isn’t much longer and that when you return home you are pleasantly surprised. Here in our tiny south Jersey town we experienced horrible winds, minor flooding, downed wires and trees but over all most if us feel pretty lucky considering what our friends at the shore got. I am just heartbroken to see my beach washed away. We will definitely be looking into ways we can help as a class community service project. This week (at least what’s left of it) we will be focusing on studying hurricanes (shocker there I’m sure) finishing up our math unit and trying to have some Halloween fun.

Happy Sunday!  As I am typing this I am enjoying the fresh air and the sounds of Sunday afternoon football.  I LOVE this time of year!  We will be jumping right back into things this week after our relaxing, rewarding Friday.  Dr. Cook rewarded our class with Philly Pretzels and we watched a movie in celebration for completing our first read aloud as well as our first major project.  If you haven’t had a chance to check them out yet, please take a look at the post titled, “Introducing RM Bacon’s Newest Directors, Producers, Actors, and Animators” from last week.  Your kids did amazing work!

We will be starting our new read aloud book this week, Island of the Blue Dolphins.   This was my favorite book when I was in fourth grade.  I love sharing it with my classes!  It is also very different from our last novel, Clementine.  Our last book was realistic fiction (a made up story that could happen in real life).  This book is historical fiction (a made up story based around some historically accurate facts).  My goal is to introduce a new genre (type of writing) with each new read aloud.

This weeks objectives:

Reading: Students will be working with identifying main ideas and supporting details.  This is by far one of the hardest skills we work with each year.  You can help support your child at home by asking them to tell you what the book/movie/tv show/song the are listening/watching/reading is mainly about.

Grammar: Students will be identifying prepositional phrases, determining if sentences are complete or not, and making sentence fragments into complete sentences.  There are some examples below to help you help your child.

Prepositional Phrases:  phrases that tell how, when , what, how much, or where about something in the sentence.  They begin with a preposition (in, of, on, under, to)  EX:  Sir Issac Newton was famous throughout the world. In this sentence throughout the world in the prepositional phrase and the preposition is throughout.

Sentence Fragment:  Sentences that are missing either a subject or predicate are called fragments. 

EX.  The creepy house.  Made groaning noises. 

Alone, these sentences are incomplete.  If you combine them, however, they make a complete thought. 

EX:  The creepy house made groaning noises.

Vocabulary: Students will define and use adjectives.

Writing:   Students will begin their first portfolios piece, a non-fiction essay about what makes a good citizen.

Social Studies: Students will learn about what it takes to become an American citizen.  Students will also learn about current events as they relate to the election.

Science:   Students will continue to work with their mock rocks by isolating some of the sediment/water solution so that it can evaporate and reveal the crystallized minerals that their rock contained.  Once the solution dries out and the crystals appear they will be able to classify the minerals based on shape.