Today was very bittersweet for us...we had a fun day of out-of-the-ordinaries and our holiday celebration, but it was my last day so...
We worked on our morning choice activities and i-time and then after a musical rehearsal, we came back for an Hour of Code! We discussed and discovered what "code" and "coding" are and then had a blast during our hour! We also discovered that this was one area where they were so much better than me! :) Then, to continue with theme, we got into groups and read lots of picture books, found the theme of each book and then found some common themes in the books. They did an AWESOME job with theme, which is a tough concept, especially for kiddos! I hope that I didn't really ruin picture books for them, but opened their eyes to how beautiful and amazing these books truly are. Almost the entire class ate lunch with me in the room today and then had indoor recess. They wanted to continue coding during quiet time but needed to complete their M4T assessment. After, it was celebration time! We completed a STEM challenge to build an igloo with 100 bricks of ice (marshmallows) and 50 beam (toothpicks). With it feeling so cold with all of that ice, they need some hot cocoa! So, I brought in my Keurig and made them all hot chocolate! Luckily, the presents I bought them were delivered at 2:30 so we were able to do a modified book game with choosing books and stealing?! Every student got a book though! It might not have been their first choice (there were some popular books!) but I hope that everyone got something they'll enjoy. Our day concluded with mandatory hugs for the teacher! :)
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Recess!
So, the kids have been staying in with me for lunch and recess this week since I won't see them until after the new year, after Friday. However, today, I told them that I had some work I had to do, out of the classroom, and that they'd have to choose to stay in for lunch or recess but I couldn't do both. They chose lunch. Big mistake! They were freezing! I took some pictures of them once inside because they were using rugs and the yoga mat to cover up! It was a sight! Some even tried to warm up using Lucky's heat lamp! :)
It was a crazy Thursday! We had a school community meeting at 9:25 and then went to the media center for a buddy book introduction with Mrs. Dornburgh and then we made blankets for patients at the James during our mindset special (small things make a big difference!). Once we finally returned to our room, we read two more books for understanding theme: The Heart and the Bottle and Red: A Crayon's Story. They are so mad at me because they think I've ruined picture books for them because they say they're all sad...I said that they are finally understanding the deeper meaning of these books and how they are bigger than just entertainment. We read independently and then got our December StoryWorks to peruse and read for entertainment-they'll be working more with it next week. After quiet time, in Math Workshop, we learned about line plots and how to make and read and analyze them. They feel pretty special too, because after this year, this will no longer be a 4th grade standard, so they are the last 4th graders to learn it! They discovered that it wasn't as easy as they thought. We'll keep practicing tomorrow. Finally, as with all other crazy Thursdays, we ended our day with rehearsal. The musical is next week!
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Brrr!
Wow-it got cold! Hope you are able to stay warm this evening!
After morning choice and i-time, we practiced our musical in Music and in our morning meeting, we shared what brings us joy and played a game called, The Wright Family with a little prize today! In read aloud, we read, The Woman Who Named Things and Chopsticks and dug deep to identify and understand the theme of each. After reading independently, we worked with our StoryWorks paired text for "Christian the Lion" to find the common theme of the two texts. In Writer's Workshop, we looked in our writer's notebooks at previous story ideas to see if we could develop any of them for opinion writing. We also created a list of topics we feel strongly about so we have some ideas for when we write opinions. Unfortunately, because of the earlier rain, we had indoor recess. After quiet time, in Math Chaos-I mean, Workshop :)-some took the Unit 3 Post test, some took the Unit 4 Post test, some took the Unit 5 Pre-test and others practiced equivalent fractions and comparing/ordering fractions so they can test tomorrow or Thursday. After the chaos, we worked with Ohio Studies Weekly, an informational magazine to help learn about Ohio. Today, we read and learned about the early people of Ohio and completed a crossword puzzle. We practiced skimming the information and using the headings to help us answer questions.
After morning choice and i-time, we practiced our musical in Music and in our morning meeting, we shared what brings us joy and played a game called, The Wright Family with a little prize today! In read aloud, we read, The Woman Who Named Things and Chopsticks and dug deep to identify and understand the theme of each. After reading independently, we worked with our StoryWorks paired text for "Christian the Lion" to find the common theme of the two texts. In Writer's Workshop, we looked in our writer's notebooks at previous story ideas to see if we could develop any of them for opinion writing. We also created a list of topics we feel strongly about so we have some ideas for when we write opinions. Unfortunately, because of the earlier rain, we had indoor recess. After quiet time, in Math Chaos-I mean, Workshop :)-some took the Unit 3 Post test, some took the Unit 4 Post test, some took the Unit 5 Pre-test and others practiced equivalent fractions and comparing/ordering fractions so they can test tomorrow or Thursday. After the chaos, we worked with Ohio Studies Weekly, an informational magazine to help learn about Ohio. Today, we read and learned about the early people of Ohio and completed a crossword puzzle. We practiced skimming the information and using the headings to help us answer questions.
Monday, December 4, 2017
Enjoying each other!
We had a good day today. I am cherishing the last few days I have with them before I leave for my surgery. I know it doesn't seem like I'll be gone long but when you tack on winter break, it's going to be 3 1/2 weeks until I see them again! I'm going to go through withdrawal! :) So, since I don't have any lunch time duties this week, they have the option to eat lunch and stay in for recess with me.
In Art, Mrs. Bowers shared that she's having some difficulty because some are not finishing and then she's just not able to get around to everyone. I shared this understanding with them as fractions (because, why not?!) and each student is 1/30. If there are 60 minutes in an hour, each student gets 2 minutes every hour of my time. Now, some need more than 2 minutes and others need less but as we learned earlier in the year, "Fair is every student getting what they need in order to be successful." I think understanding it from this perspective helped them to realize that even though I'd like to devote all my time to each of them, I have to prioritize and help them as needed. In meeting, we shared one thing from our weekend and played category challenge with pets. In read aloud, we are working on digging deeper in our understanding and identifying theme, so we are reading picture books this week to understand theme and author's message/purpose more. Today, we read, Snappsy the Alligator and Faithful Elephants. Hopefully, your child can tell you the themes of these books. We spent a large chunk reading independently and in writer's workshop, we created some boxes and bullets to gather ideas for topics for opinion writing. After quiet time, in Math Workshop, we began by looking at fraction of sets and then split up into 2 groups to continue our understanding so some kiddos worked with Ms. Hanlin in math today. We ended our day working on our brochures.
In Art, Mrs. Bowers shared that she's having some difficulty because some are not finishing and then she's just not able to get around to everyone. I shared this understanding with them as fractions (because, why not?!) and each student is 1/30. If there are 60 minutes in an hour, each student gets 2 minutes every hour of my time. Now, some need more than 2 minutes and others need less but as we learned earlier in the year, "Fair is every student getting what they need in order to be successful." I think understanding it from this perspective helped them to realize that even though I'd like to devote all my time to each of them, I have to prioritize and help them as needed. In meeting, we shared one thing from our weekend and played category challenge with pets. In read aloud, we are working on digging deeper in our understanding and identifying theme, so we are reading picture books this week to understand theme and author's message/purpose more. Today, we read, Snappsy the Alligator and Faithful Elephants. Hopefully, your child can tell you the themes of these books. We spent a large chunk reading independently and in writer's workshop, we created some boxes and bullets to gather ideas for topics for opinion writing. After quiet time, in Math Workshop, we began by looking at fraction of sets and then split up into 2 groups to continue our understanding so some kiddos worked with Ms. Hanlin in math today. We ended our day working on our brochures.
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