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.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Better
Today was definitely better than yesterday! We began our crazy Thursday withOUT morning choice. Today, we began by cleaning and organizing our binders and our tubs. Then, they moved on to ST Math for i-time. I also opened the warm fuzzy store for the first time this year. Ask your kiddos if they bought anything! After our mindset special, we finished the fantasy chapter and read a tiny bit of girl fiction and found out that Trip is a girl in this chapter! This should be fun! We read independently and then in Reader's Workshop, used the text features we discussed yesterday to answer questions about the story and the author's craft. In Writer's Workshop, we looked at the writing checklist for opinion writing and searched for the differences between 3rd and 4th grade. Knowing the expectations and differences help a lot when learning and writing. Unfortunately, it was indoor recess due to the rain and after quiet time, we went over a couple questions students had with their Math 4 Today and then picked up where we left off yesterday in Math Workshop. I saw a lot of light bulbs today as they FINALLY grasped the understanding of equivalent fractions! Our day ended with musical rehearsal.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Insanity
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results... we haven't earned a potato head piece in quite a while. We are talking too much and it's not just that it's loud and chaotic but our work is suffering! If needed, we're going to be spending some recess time working next week and I absolutely hate taking recess time away because I think it is precious and well needed, however, we are not using our class time wisely...
After a very noisy start to the morning and a good music rehearsal, Mrs. Wyskiver came in for our first guidance lesson of the year. We focused on grit and resiliency. It was fun and I participated in the challenge too! We also watched a video with some special kiddos singing the song, "Stronger." Then, in our meeting, we tried to change our "R" about having a sub during my surgery by asking questions to her ahead of time. They came up with some pretty good questions, like: What is your teaching style?" How do you do rewards? Consequences? Do you stay on task/schedule? What is your favorite subject to teach? Then, we thought it might be good to share some things about us too, so we are going to each share one thing we want her to know about us! After saying the Pledge of Allegiance, we read a tiny bit from Nightmare at the Book Fair. We are still in the midst of the Fantasy chapter and now Trip has a sidekick! We read independently and discussed non-fiction text features and how they help readers using the story in our StoryWorks for Reader's Workshop. In Writer's Workshop, we went over the details from the debate both for and against the idea of "Is it good to be bored sometimes?" After our discussion, they wrote their opinion. In Math Workshop, we continued with equivalent fractions using name collection boxes and clocks or focused on the whole. In Science, we continued working on our landform brochures for weathering and erosion.
After a very noisy start to the morning and a good music rehearsal, Mrs. Wyskiver came in for our first guidance lesson of the year. We focused on grit and resiliency. It was fun and I participated in the challenge too! We also watched a video with some special kiddos singing the song, "Stronger." Then, in our meeting, we tried to change our "R" about having a sub during my surgery by asking questions to her ahead of time. They came up with some pretty good questions, like: What is your teaching style?" How do you do rewards? Consequences? Do you stay on task/schedule? What is your favorite subject to teach? Then, we thought it might be good to share some things about us too, so we are going to each share one thing we want her to know about us! After saying the Pledge of Allegiance, we read a tiny bit from Nightmare at the Book Fair. We are still in the midst of the Fantasy chapter and now Trip has a sidekick! We read independently and discussed non-fiction text features and how they help readers using the story in our StoryWorks for Reader's Workshop. In Writer's Workshop, we went over the details from the debate both for and against the idea of "Is it good to be bored sometimes?" After our discussion, they wrote their opinion. In Math Workshop, we continued with equivalent fractions using name collection boxes and clocks or focused on the whole. In Science, we continued working on our landform brochures for weathering and erosion.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
E + R = O revisited
So, they all confessed as soon as they saw me that their talking and behavior was not ideal yesterday. I asked why and their response was that some feel that they can do whatever they want with a sub there. This led our discussion to them complaining about me being absent and about hating subs. I totally get it. I didn't want to be out yesterday and get poked and prodded and all of that. This then led to a reminder about E + R = O. We cannot change the events that happen (a sub in the classroom for them or my pre-surgery testing), however, we have complete control over our response. After we discussed this from yesterday, I shared with them about our out-of-the-ordinaries for today which was STAR testing. Again, with the complaining. Again, with the, we cannot change the events that happen (taking STAR or giving STAR), but we can change our response! This is the adjusting and adapting part of the R-factor. So, what ended up happening is a lot of kids took their time and did their best work on the STAR assessments which is going to give me a lot of good data to help guide and personalize my instruction. This new response made the outcome much better!
Other than STAR testing, we finished some work up from yesterday in Reading as well as completed some background information for opinion writing using a StoryWorks article on if it's good for kids to be bored sometimes and looking at BOTH sides of the argument. In Math Workshop, we had a gallery walk looking at the posters we made yesterday about sharing sub sandwiches. We had an excellent discussion about this too! Our day concluded by going to the media center and continuing to learn about research with Mrs. Dornburgh.
Other than STAR testing, we finished some work up from yesterday in Reading as well as completed some background information for opinion writing using a StoryWorks article on if it's good for kids to be bored sometimes and looking at BOTH sides of the argument. In Math Workshop, we had a gallery walk looking at the posters we made yesterday about sharing sub sandwiches. We had an excellent discussion about this too! Our day concluded by going to the media center and continuing to learn about research with Mrs. Dornburgh.
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