Cultivating Minds Without Losing My Own

Join me on my Adventures in Elementary Education

PARCC Prep

December10

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This morning my students were visited by Mrs. Mackall and Mrs. Daigle, two of our districts technology instructors, to introduce our class to NJ’s new assessment system the PARCC.

What is the PARCC?

Each year students are given a standardized test in 4th grade.  Prior to this year, the tests were called the NJASK and students took them using pencil and paper.  The PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), however, will be taken strictly online.  Students will read passages, answer math problems, and write essays all on the computer.  This is more than a little intimidating.  To help students prepare, they were introduced to the different types of questions and buttons that they will see when they take the assessment in the spring.

What types of questions will they see?

Multiple choice- students will see questions that have multiply choices.  Students who are used to being able to cross off wrong answer choices will still be able to use this strategy.   They will be able to eliminate answers that they know are incorrect using the answer eliminator button on the test screen.  They will then click on the circle of the correct answer to fill it in. (Just like we do each week on our comprehension tests already)

Drag and Drop Questions- for these test questions, students students will select information from one area and slide it into the answer area.  While our weekly tests do not use these types of questions, they are exposed to this through instructional games and websites that we use.

Short Response Questions- for these test questions, students will need to type in responses.  There will be short response questions in both math and language arts test areas.   Students do type essays in class now, but they will definitely need to work on this skill in the coming months.  Students need to remember not to bold, underline, or highlight the text.  This will result in the answer being scored incorrectly.  There is no spell check on PARCC.  Also, NO TEXT TYPING!  Spell out the words!  (no lol, u, r, brb).  For the math short response questions, students will be given a set of icons to click on to show division symbols and whatnot.

Multiple Answer Questions- Some questions require students to select more than one correct answer.  (For example:  Select two of the details from the article from those below.)  Students must click on more than one correct choice for these questions.  These questions do look slightly different.  They have square answer choices instead of circle answer choices.  Students MUST follow the directions and select the number they are asked to find.

Drop Down Menu Questions- students will select the correct answer from choices in a drop down menu.

Shade in the Area Questions- students will select the areas to be shaded and the box or shape will change color

What tools will they be given to use?

In the math section there will be online rulers, protractors, and calculators that students can use in designated sections.

Students are also given scrap paper in both sections of the test- to plan out work in language arts and to use as scrap paper in the math sections.

At the end of each section, students are encouraged to click the review button to ensure that they have completed all of the questions in that section.  Once they hit the submit button, they will not be able to go back to make any changes.  As students take the test, they can also “flag” questions that they would like to remember to go back to and finish later.  These flagged questions will also appear in the review section.

Students will not be able to open other websites or tools on the computer as they take the test.  If they do they will be kicked out of the test site.  This would not be good!!!!!!

How am I preparing your child in class?

Thankfully, our text books offer an online test option for both math and language arts tests.  While this will help familiarize the kids with reading texts and questions online as well as answering the multiple choice questions, it does not help with the other questions types.  To help prepare my students in class we will be utilizing practice tests and games to help us practice answering the other questions types.  We also type frequently in class.  All of our essays are typed before they are submitted for a final grade.  We will be increasing our typing opportunities through the use of some typing websites.  Our social studies  tests do require some on line short response questions to help them prepare as well.

How can YOU help prepare your child?

Visit the district PARCC informational website and review the material with your child at www.parccmillville.weebly.com as well as visit the new PARCC resources page on our blog.

Offer your child the opportunity to log in to custom typing at home to practice typing skills.   They can also practice typing on your tablet or computer for fun.  They can even type homework if they want!  Encourage your child to text you in complete words so that they get out of the “text talk” habit.  Call me if you have questions!

This is new for all of us.  I got a TON of useful information from today’s session.  The website above gives games that will help students prepare as well as sample test questions for both you and your child to review.

Happy Thanksgiving from Our Class to Yours

November26

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Thanksgiving is truly my FAVORITE holiday!  There are not pressures of gift giving or costume creating.  It is a time to celebrate friends, family, food, and gratitude for what we have instead of worrying about what we do not have.  Each year my classes learn about the 1st Thanksgiving thanks to virtual fieldtrips provided by Scholastic.  This experience helps to set the tone for our week of gratitude.  We have spent this short week focusing our efforts inward and learning different ways we can show our gratitude to others.  Some students wrote lists or essays about what and whom they are thankful for.  Others drew pictures or asked to visit old teachers with whom they’ve made lasting connections to show their gratitude.

I have created a video to express my gratitude to the parents of my students.  I am so very grateful for the time I get to spend with your children each day.  I am so honored to be one of the many professionals that has a hand in shaping them into the adults they will become.  I am especially thankful to all of you who came out to conferences this week so that I could meet and discuss your child’s progress with you.  This was a record setting year for me in terms of parental attendance at conferences.  Please take a few minutes to watch the video I created for you, the parents, as a way to express my thanks in entrusting your children to me each day.  It is not an responsibility that I take lightly, and I thoroughly LOVE my job!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Love,

Mrs. Sinone and family

A Day in Room 11

October22

I decided to dedicate this blog to answer the question, “what did you do today?” If your child is anything like any if mine they reply, “nothing.” As parents we know that they did a lot more than nothing but aren’t quite sure what “a lot more” actually is. So today I documented what a day in room 11 looks like. Enjoy!

All of our lessons and centers are designed around our daily objectives.
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We begin our day with language arts. A few students needed to finish publishing their Diary of a Spider books.

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Why did we write these books? We learned from a mentor text, The Diary of a Fly, about sequence, humor, and intertwining facts into a fictional narrative.

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Other students were working on their personal narrative rough drafts in the writing center.

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After language arts we had gym. Since the weather did not cooperate we held recess inside and just “Let it Go!”

 

Following lunch, we have our math lesson. Today we were multiplying 2 digit by 1 digit numbers.

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Finally, we wrapped up our day reviewing for our social studies quiz on the NJ Social Studies Weekly Website.

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As you can see we work extremely hard everyday! Make sure to stop by and check out our “scary smart skills” the next time you visit our school!

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Weekly Learning Goals and Tools Oct. 6-9

October5

respect

 

Brrrrrrrr!  I am sitting in front of a fire as I type this!  Fall is definitely making its presence felt today!  Don’t worry, however, because we will be learning so much this week we will work up a sweat!  This week we begin our month of Respect.  Over the weekend, you had a chance to review our school’s bullying information and sign our anti-bullying contract with your child.  We take this very seriously at RM Bacon!  Ms. Spanbauer will be in this week to speak with the class about respect and get us started on an activity that we will complete as a whole 4th grade class.   There is NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY due to a teacher inservice day.  Enjoy your day off!

Reading:

This week we will be working with determining main idea and supporting details.  We will also be starting our first novel for the year, The Chocolate Touch.

Vocab words for the week:  glacier, impressive, naturalist, preserve, slopes, species, wilderness

The Chocolate Touch Chapters 1-3 will be covered this week.

 

Math:

This week we will be working with Multiplying by Multiples of 10 and 100 as well as breaking apart 2 digit numbers to find the product.  The prezi below may be helpful to reinforce what we are doing in class.

Writing:

We are working on our first book this week.  By the end of next week all of my students will be published authors!  We used the model text The Diary of a Fly as a guide and we all came up with our own versions of “The Diary of a Spider.”  Be sure to stop by the third floor hallway and read our creations next week!

Science:

We are finishing our study of ecosystems by creating poster representations of the 5 major ecosystems in the USA.

 

 

Welcome October- Learning Goals and Tools for Sept. 29th-Oct. 3rd

September28

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Wow!  Where did September go?  This week begins October and as the image above states, we are going to make it AWESOME!!!!!!!  Last week, I spent some time in the evenings learning about the website www.sophia.org and taking some tutorials online to become Flip Classroom Certified.

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What is a flipped classroom?  Does that mean I am now teaching gymnastics?  No gymnastics lessons (although back in the day I had a killer back handspring- just saying), but rather a way to have students learn the lesson for homework so that when they are in class with me they can apply the skills rather than sit through a lecture.  Starting Monday, I will be assigning a flipped assignment each night.  Students will need access to a computer, tablet, ipod touch, smart phone, or any other device that has internet connectivity.  If you do not have internet access at home, don’t fret!  Students can also look at the lesson in class if necessary.  They will watch a short video or view a website or presentation about a concept.  Once they are done, they will take a short quiz online.  I will look at the quiz results first thing in the morning or as soon as they finish for those who don’t have internet at home (they are graded on completion not how they scored as they can retake the quiz as many times as necessary to pass it- so it’s either a 100 or a 0).

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For students who got the concept quickly and are ready to move on, I will assign them the practice sheet to complete independently and then they will work on an enrichment lesson.  For those, who got it but still have a few questions, we will meet in a small group to clarify what needs working on and then they will move on to the independent practice sheet.  For those students who are really struggling, we will meet and I will reteach the lesson and we will complete a guided practice sheet together before they move on to working independently.  I am really excited to see how this works!  All students have their Sophia log-in information and we have practiced in class a number of times last week.  If you have any questions or encounter problems, please do not hesitate to email me at carrie.sinone@millvillenj.gov

This weeks learning goals and tools:

Reading:

This week will be reviewing author’s purpose.  This is a concept we covered a few weeks ago, so at the end of this week we will be having a short quiz to check for mastery.  We are also working on combining simple sentences into compound sentences.  For example:

The dog was very tired.  It had been running all  morning.  = The dog was very tired because it had been running all morning.

Vocabulary  Words for the Week: bargain, favor, lassoed, offended, prairie, riverbed, shrieked

 

Math:

This week we are wrapping up our review of addition and subtraction.

Examples of regrouping when adding three digit numbers:


Regrouping twice when subtracting three digit numbers:

Science:

Last week we learned about the elements of an ecosystem.  This week we are going to focus on the ecosystems in the United States.  Students will learn about them via a Sophia tutorial and then use the information they’ve gained through taking notes to create a Ecosystems of the USA poster.  Check back next week to see our work!

 

Bacon Turns 85! Weekly Objectives and Resources Sept. 22-26

September21

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Happy Birthday to our home-away-from-home, RM Bacon Elementary School!  On Friday, we celebrate our building’s 85th birthday.  Imagine the history this building has seen and what it could teach us if only the walls could talk!  In addition to another jam packed week of learning, I am challenging my students to join me in completing 85 laps around the playground by Friday.  I did the math for us- we need to walk/jog 17 laps a day to reach that goal.  If we can do this we will also have walked over 10 miles!  Bring your sneakers if you’re up for the challenge!  I know I am!  What a way to help me reach another one of my goals- getting my fitness in daily!  This week’s objectives and resources are below!

Language Arts:

This week we will be wrapping up our study of sentence types and moving onto dissecting a sentence to identify the subject (who or what the sentence is about) and predicate (what they subject is feeling or doing).  I have created log-ins for www.sophia.org for each student to use to view a lesson and take a quick check to see how we are understanding this concept.  They will get their log-in information on Monday.  I am super excited to use this tool as it will help me to better assess and work with students on concepts.  (Thanks Andy Bingham, my daughter’s 5th grade teacher for introducing this to me!)

The reading strategy we are working with this week is identifying literary elements such as characters, setting, and plot.  The prezi below will help to support the lesson we will be doing in class.

Our vocabulary words for the week are:

badger, bank, bristled, jointed, patched, ruffled, rushes

We will be using the mentor text The Diary of a Fly,  to help us work on creating a narrative writing piece that has both a sequence that is easy to follow and all of the narrative elements that we are learning about this week.

Math:

This week we will be wrapping up our review of place value and taking a unit 3 assessment on Tuesday.  Topic 4 will start on Wednesday with a review of addition and subtraction using mental math and estimation.  The Educreations lesson below will help to review the concept at home.  Students may also work on www.mobymax.com at home to brush up on both math and language arts skills.  All students were given a log-in sheet last week.  This is a great way to keep learning and reviewing at home.

 

Social Studies:

This week we will be taking a trip WAYYYYYYYYYY back in time to discover what NJ was like during the age of reptiles.  Take a peek below to see what some of our very, very, very old neighbors looked like!

 

Science:

This week we will continue working with our study of weather, but delve deeper to understand how weather effects the ecosystem.

Back to School Night Parent Information

September18

Wow!  What a great turn out for our annual Back to School Night!  I was very happy to meet all of the parents who were able to make it up to our classroom.  For those parents who were unable to attend, please see the Prezi below to be up to date on our classroom procedures.  I also sent home a classroom “cheat sheet” with the important websites, email addresses, and policies on them in your child’s work folder.  Please be sure to sign up for the Remind 101 text updates to stay aware of the upcoming important dates!  Text @mrssino to 856-517-0666 (not my real phone number!)

Lesson Objectives and Tools for Sept. 15-19

September14

I am looking forward to meeting all of you at Back to School Night!  We will be hosting our parents beginning at 7:00 on Tuesday, September 16th.   All families are asked to report to the gym for Dr. Cook’s opening remarks and then you will be dismissed to the classrooms to visit ME!  For those of you who can not make it, I will post our Back to School Night Prezi on Wednesday so that you can have the same information.

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Your kids ROCK!!!!!!!  We completed a full week last week and let me tell you, I held nothing back!  We completed almost an entire chapter in Math and our first story in Language Arts.  Students learned how to log in to our Math and Reading website which we will use daily in class, www.pearsonsuccessnet.com. Below are our objectives for the week as well as some tools to help support what we are learning in class.

Reading:  This week we will be focusing on determining the Author’s Purpose.  We will also continue working with Sentence Types focusing this week on Exclamatory and Imperative Sentences.

Vocab Words: Docks, migrating, scan, scent, warf, yearned

Math: This week we will be taking our first math test on Tuesday, covering multiplication facts and how they relate to division.  After that we are moving into exploring Place Value and how it helps when comparing and ordering numbers.  

Social Studies:  We are continuing our study of New Jersey this week focusing on the 4 regions of NJ as well as some of the Tourist Stops that have historical importance.

Science:  We will be starting an investigation about what goes into forming our weather.  The link below will lead you to an informative webiste that we will be using during our science lessons and centers this week.

http://www.eo.ucar.edu/webweather/cloud3.html

Whew!  I’m exhausted just reading over this!  4th Graders, I hope you’re ready!!!!!!

No April Fools in Room 11! We are All About Education!

April1

Finally some weather that is somewhat like spring!  This means three things- our schedules are getting busier, our allergies are becoming an issue, and spring fever is on its way!  I am asking for donations of hand sanitizer and soft tissues to help us through the allergy season.  Due to the increase in sneeze related disinfecting our hand sanitizer supplies are dwindling and our poor noses would greatly appreciate softer tissues than our nurse supplies!  I’ll even toss in extra credit points on your child’s lowest test grade to sweeten the deal!  This week’s learning objectives are listed below!  Also please check our our upcoming events on the Important Dates page to the right. Check out our new laptops!  Woo Hoo!

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Math:  This week we are reviewing skills to prepare for the next RAC test.  We will be focusing on converting fractions to decimals, line plots, multiplying fractions by a whole number, and solving word problems. 

Language Arts:  We are reading “Encantado” this week, which is a non fiction story about the Amazon River Dolphin.  We will be researching both Amazon River Dolphins and Bottle Nose Dolphins and writing a compare and contrast essay.  The prezi below is one that we will be using to introduce this essay format.

 growth chartScience:  We are learning about plants.  We have studied their life cyles,seedlings photosyntheis, and parts.  We will be reviewing this week along with charting the progress of the seedlings we planted last week.  We were surprised to see seedlings when we came in on Monday!

The Prezi below will help to review for our Plant quiz on Friday!

 

 

To Every Cause There Must Be an Effect (and Other Life Lessons) Weekly Objectives February 24-28

February23

This week we will have a fabulous finish to February! We will start off the week hosing vistors from around the district to observe our class hard at work learning about Dr. Martin Luther King in the story “My Brother Martin.” A major skill we will be working with is cause and effect relationships. Take a peek at the presentation below to review this skill. You can help me out by asking your child to tell you why things happen or to explain what happens when…. (you fill in the blank). In Math this week we will be reviewing fractions and patterns to prepare for our next RAC test which will be taking place next week. Please remember these assessments are for informational purposes only and not effecting your child’s grade. I do encourage every student to try their absolute best as I use the results to plan our next lessons. In social studies this week we will be wrapping up our African American History Month Inventors posters and learning about the three branches of government. Please review the presentations below to help prepare your child for the week or to review any of the concepts as the week progresses. As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Cause and Effect

Branches of Government

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