Falling Into Learning

 

It was another fast but productive week in 4Z.  We are in the middle of many wonderful things and we will continue to work with great effort, try our best and be successful as the days go by.

Wonders:       

We began our new story along with the vocabulary words.  They had great conversations around our essential question- How do your actions affect others? They even worked on the digital component of Wonders that had to do with vocabulary words.

Reveal Math:

We are currently working on Place Value and began stations this past week.  The children did a fantastic job in their math groups, working on various activities that were set up at the stations.

We incorporate Science and Social Studies within our Wonders curriculum.  The children are working on a slide presentation in which they are researching a natural disaster and putting together slides.  These will be presented on Thursday.

In Social Studies we continue to learn more about our town and state as we prepare to send out postcards.  

Morning Meetings:

The children enjoy the morning meeting.  They come together on the rug and we share out with Bagel, our dojo pet.  They love to take the poll of the day and watch a video with a very important message.  This week I was also able to read The Name Jar and we did an activity about their name.  

We are earning our stars for a class reward.  Each time we get a compliment from another adutl in the building or as a whole, we are all cooperating, standing in line quietly or are on task, the children earn a jar that I put up.  Our goal is 25- we are up to 5 as of Friday.

Other Happenings:

On Friday everyone wore crowns to celebrate Mr. Pacitto's 40th Birthday.  

The children are engaged in their work and activities throughout the day.  I am sure that some come home and express how tired they are.  We are always moving in 4Z from one thing to the next.  I am proud of the progress we are making in such a short amount of time that we have been in school.  

Coming Up:

Our Open House takes place on the 27th.  I am looking forward to meeting you as you see what your child's day looks like and to see the classroom.  Please note: this will not be a time to have a parent/teacher conference.  It is solely to see what my expectations are and how we go through our days.  

Star Time Conferences:

On Friday we will hold our very first star conferences of the year.  I will meet one on one with each student and we will go over some data from Aims Web and IXL.  We will discuss setting a goal for themselves and just go over any concerns or questions they have.  

A Day in the Life of a 4th Grader

 Another successful week is in the books.  We are rolling out all of the curriculum, in the middle of also collecting data from the students.  They have taken the IXL Math Diagnostic Assessment.  They have completed their word lists, and we are going to be starting the Aims Web benchmark this coming week.

Our Morning Meetings give us an opportunity to start our day by watching a motivational video, taking a poll, get to figure out a riddle and sharing out.  The children love to share out.

 

In Wonders we have completed Unit 1 Week 2.  We have read about different natural disasters and how people react.  We read about earthquakes, floods and tornadoes.

With our Math program, Reveal we are working on place value.  The children love to come up and show how they got the answer to the problem, they work together and figure out the answers.

With Amplify Science we are continuing to learn about systems and how they operate.

As we continue with Social Studies, the children are finding out about North Providence, it's history, population and interesting facts about their town. We are also doing a postcard exchange with other 4th graders in the 49 other states.  They are finding out more about RI so that we can get our postcards ready to mail out.

Friday was Dot Day. Peter Reynolds wrote the book 20 years ago and we celebrated by listening to the song and making out mark, which is the theme of the book.  

Our writing for this trimester is Personal Narrative.  The children are choosing their topic for their story and we will have mini lessons on the different parts of the narrative.  

Coming Up:

Our Open House is set for September 27th.  I hope to meet many of you  there.