Whoops! Oh well.

From looking at the dates, I wasn't very good at updating my blog. I'm sorry. I'm getting back into the swing of things with getting to teach everything again. I'm also super busy outside of school with my charity.

Hopefully, your kiddos filled you in on the fun we had last week making games in Math and then playing them while they got to score each other on them as well. We also made dictionary entries for our own names/selves, wrote to some pretty creepy prompts, read and learned about storing and transferring energy using dominos and chain reactions.

Today, we had some word play fun for word study where we tried to find words that began and ended with the same letter. Dante was the winner with this! In The City of Ember, Lina tried to show Lizzie the instructions but she didn't seem to think they were very important...she's made a plan to show them to Doon tomorrow. In Reader's Workshop, we are beginning the Any Book Book Club where we each read a just right book for us and will be able to discuss in a book club type atmosphere. Students are to pick a just right book by Wednesday. In Writing, they are free writing, however, we discussed the non-negotiables of writing as a 4th grader: capitals for proper nouns and the beginning of sentences, ending punctuation, paragraphs and holes on the left! In Math, I taught them the traditional method of multiplication (the way we learned it!) and then they practiced. However, that wasn't the goal of my lesson. I asked them what I did and they explained HOW I taught them: new skill, examples, explanation, practice time, etc. So, they will be planning lessons and teaching math this week! They think this is pretty easy but then I asked them to look at how they would be teaching us a new skill and if they would enjoy learning it this way... back to the drawing board! :) What is your kiddo going to teach the rest of the class?? Then, in Science, we had some discovery time with energy balls. This was so cool! This sparked our discussion on how electricity work. Ask your child-so cool!

Mystery Science

In Word Study, we worked with recognizing and understanding dictionary entries. It took some cognitive flexing for them to make sense of the directions but they did. There was a sub in music so they watched a movie and weren't too happy about it. :( In our meeting, we shared our favorite games and then decided to play a few rounds of Apples to Apples. Then, in The City of Ember, we learned more about Doon and the Pipeworks. They read independently and then Mrs. Hider did some more teaching of author's craft as they read, Bad Seed. She also had them write to a really creepy prompt~I wouldn't even read them! Students were crazy during recess I guess... however, some continued to play Apples to Apples. In Math Workshop, we continued to work on our games and we finished up the day with Mystery Science investigating transfer of energy and stored energy with dominos. Very cool!

Clean up?

So, seriously, our room looked like an explosion of trash happened. Students would literally just drop their wrapper on the floor and not even pick it up. We had paper, goldfish, water bottles, pencils, legos, etc. all over the place and nobody seemed to notice. Ugh. So, we cleaned and then we stopped and we looked around. This is what the room should look like when I say, "Clean up and get ready for ____." So, tomorrow, we're going to use our Mr. Potato Head that so desperately needs some attention, to help. Every time the room is clean, they get a piece. Let's see how long this takes...

We are working with dictionary terms in Word Study this week not necessarily for using the actual paper dictionary but even our ipads. They need to know what they are looking at when looking up what words mean. After Art, in meeting, we shared about our weekend in 4 words or less and then played, Just Like Me! In The City of Ember, Lina enjoyed her first day as messenger but her curiosity did get her into a bit of trouble while at the Gathering Hall, waiting on the Mayor. After reading independently, Mrs. Hider shared about author's craft and why author's make the choices they make. Then, they worked in their StoryWorks with the fiction story about a pretty amazing dog! In Writer's Workshop, they followed a prompt and wrote about receiving a special ring! (However, it frustrated me when they asked if they needed to write in paragraphs...DUH!) After lunch and recess-we made it before the rain!-we worked on creating our math games which took us til the end of the day. 

Fabulous!

It was a great day to have a great day, so we did! We made it all week without our iPads and nobody seemed to even care today! We read more, wrote more and thought more...we flexed and grew our cognitive muscles! Woohoo!

In Word Study, we created word searches yesterday with our high frequency words so today, we switched with a partner and solved. Right after gym, we had a tornado drill. Then, in meeting, we made buckets. These are just visual representations of our feelings. Yesterday, Mrs. Hider read, How Full is Your Bucket? which taught us about adding drops to our bucket (compliments and kindness) or emptying our bucket (put downs, negativity...). After we decorated our buckets, we hung them around the room and will be filling out drops to put in to each other's buckets. In The City of Ember, we followed Lina home and met her Granny and little sister, Poppy. We read independently and then played parts of speech Jeopardy! Man, these kids are way too competitive! It is sometimes very rude... so, after discussing better sportsmanship, we finished out our morning with some Mad Libs to practice using parts of speech! We had lunch and recess and then came in and browsed at the Book Fair. We took our M4T assessment and then went out for some extra recess and then worked on creating our own math games until the end of the day.

Days 3 and 4

We have almost made it a full week without our ipads and we are still, so much more engaged and participating! They, too, are realizing they're able to survive. :)

Yesterday, after Music, we had our final Guidance lesson with Mrs. Wyskiver about bullying and appropriateness with social media. Then, we had Story Time from Space! where a real astronaut on the International Space Station read a book to us! It was very cool! Then, we began our new read aloud, The City of Ember and were introduced to Lina and Doon and Ember. We read independently and then played a game in Writer's Workshop for verbs and adverbs. After lunch and recess, we went over our M4T and then finished up with our Skittle Math. We took a brief break to go watch Mrs. Lairson's 1st grade students' play and then came back to finish our math.

I was out this morning but they finished their informational report presentations! This afternoon, in Math Workshop, we discussed what games have and what we need to do to make successful games. Then, we played some math games so we could get ideas of what we wanted our games to be like. We completed our day discussing the different people in Ohio (in the 1800s) as well as different religions and the evolution of school.

Day 2-no iPads...

We've made it now 2 days without our iPads! (Well, we've had to use them for a few things here and there but basically, we have been iPad free.)

We began our day with a school community meeting where Mr. H discussed being able to adjust and adapt. After Art, in our meeting, we first signed our certificate we received for being an OFFICIAL certified kind classroom! Then, we discussed all of the kind things we already have done this year, as this is national kindness week, and I shared that all of Hilliard is wearing orange on Friday for Hilliard's Day of Kindness. Finally, we listened to the song, "This Is Me," from The Greatest Showman and talked about what we heard and how amazing it is to accept each other, and ourselves, how we are! Next, we began sharing our presentations for our research. There were some really cool and original presentations even though a lot of them researched the same things--perfect! After almost half of the kiddos shared (and over an hour of presentations...), they watched a video and worked more with parts of speech, or more specifically, adjectives. It was indoor recess due to the wind chill and wet conditions. After quiet time and Math 4 Today, in Math Workshop, we got some skittles and did Skittle Math and we got to eat them too! What was the value of your kiddo's skittles? We ended our day looking at fossils, understanding the purpose of fossils and then creating play-doh dinosaurs with only seeing their bones.

No technology?!

I read an article about screen time and part of the quote really stuck with me: "...The device does the thinking for them, and as a result, their own cognitive muscles remain weak." (Liraz Margalit Ph.D)

So, our ipad cart was CLOSED today (and hopefully all week!). We are trying to flex and strengthen our cognitive muscles (or brains!) This was "mean" and challenging at first but as the day went on, we actually had way more participation. In Word Study, we worked with high frequency words by either writing the words in different ways or working with the meaning of the words. After gym, in our meeting, we discussed the above quote and why we need this tech break and then read, Press Here, a book where we got to really use our imaginations! After saying the pledge, they discussed things they can do this week without technology and wrote a goal for themselves. Next, Mrs. Hider finished Restart! Yay! I love happy endings. :) Since we spent so much time finishing the book, we only a short time to learn and review parts of speech. Well, what we thought was going to be review was more about learning it. So, we'll keep working on understanding and applying parts of speech. After lunch and a very, very cold recess (it was hailing...), we worked on a 3- Act Task in Math Workshop. It caused them have to apply the skills they've learned in 4th grade and they had to think, or flex their cognitive muscles! Some persevered and persisted but others gave up too quickly. I was impressed, though, that most of them were able to look at their initial answer and realize that they weren't correct. After math workshop, we discussed and learned about fossils.

Math Monday!

Today was a great day! We did math ALL day in preparation for the next two days of testing! Unfortunately, Mrs. Hider's little one is sick so she was home with him, however, I LOVED doing all of the teaching! :)
For Word Study, we worked with math vocabulary-making sure we knew what all the math words mean. Then, in meeting, when sharing about our weekend, we had to make it mathematical. Some shared the number of games that were canceled due to weather, the number of friends that spent the night, number of days camping, etc. Then, we played, Popple, where we POP on multiples of certain numbers. Next, we practiced using the tools on the practice test and released items and went over the answers and how/why we made the mistakes we made. After lunch and a blustery recess, we worked with practice problems around the room and again, made sure to go over the answers. Hopefully, they feel prepared for the test after reviewing all day! I loved it!