Friday, September 14, 2018

We've survived our first 5 day week!  We are all getting accustomed to our classroom routines and continuing to get acquainted with each other and our schedule. I feel like the students are beginning to settle in and summer vacation is only a distant memory...

We jumped into math this week, and Mr. Brezic and I are observing and getting to know all of the students as math thinkers. The students are working hard to recall their understanding of factors and multiples, and today we learned about prime numbers. In Math Menu, we taught them some fun games (such as Lighthouse -- see photos below and ask your kids about it!) and Prodigy Math on the chromebooks. Working together as a 4th grade team for math is working out really nicely for this unit, although we will also work in smaller groups on some days.

We also started our unit on Vermont's geography this week. I gave all of the students a pre-assessment which was basically a blank Vermont map. I asked students to fill in whatever they knew about our state -- rivers, mountains, cities, lakes, neighboring states, etc.  Most knew very little, but a few really surprised me!  We looked at a lot of different kinds of maps this week, including population maps, relief maps, precipitation maps, and road maps. Next week we will start learning about the physical features of Vermont.

The students have been enjoying our read-aloud -- and we will finish it on Monday. Make sure to ask them about Bradley Chalkers and Jeff Fishkin!

Finally, our collages are done and we have started collecting ideas for our first writing piece which will be realistic fiction. Today, I saw all sorts of great ideas from pirates taking over a boat to a girl who saves a bear cub. We will spend a few more days collecing ideas before beginning the drafting process. We are excited

The outdoor classroom is an incredible pull for the students -- they ask to be out there ALL the TIME This makes me happy since so many children seem to prefer the great indoors these days. We plan to spend a solid chunk of time outside at least once every other week. We will share our schedule for those times with you when it is solidified. In the meantime, we are seeking stumps to sit on, logs that can be benches, and mulch that can be used to create a sitting area. If any of you have any of those that you are willing to part with, you can leave them outside my classroom door (on the side parking lot side) and we will take it from there. Thanks in advance for whatever you might be able to provide!

A few things about next week:
Please be sure to send in your general permission slip if you haven't already. We have our first field trip coming up soon and need those in order to be able to go.

Please send in the $10 for our Maritime Museum trip as soon as you can, or contact the office about scholarships. Once again, we need that before the trip on 9/26.

Homework is due Monday. Please remind your kids to bring in their reading logs since this is the first assignment they need to return.

Next week's sharing them is "something that fits in the palm of your hand."

Enjoy the weekend!














No comments:

Post a Comment