Week of October 24

Halloween is Coming!

The 4/5 BLEND would love some help with a Halloween Party. (LOW KEY!)

Please contact me if you would like to help.

Thank you to Lisa Ghandour, who is the 4/5 PTO rep. She will be emailing you with updates from PTO meetings. Also, thank you to Shannon Tom, who has been making copies for Mme. Jana and me twice a week. Beau Buck photo-copied and enlarged a 30 shilling note from his personal collection, dated 1776! Many thanks for supporting our classroom.

4th GRADE LANGUAGE ARTS

Spelling: New lists are made on Monday, as before, but this is a reminder that the tests will be on Thursday instead of Friday. Because of our 4-day schedule, I can't give the kids class time to study their words, so this is going to become a homework assignment, in addition to the packets that they bring home.

Writing: We are finishing a second 5-paragraph essay. Students have been using the first (scored) essay to help them with the second. The first will come home as soon as they have handed in the second.

Novel Study: Next Monday we will begin an individualized novel study. Each student is selecting a book from the OBOB list (even students not participating) and this unit will take us three weeks. It will involve nightly homework and an in-class book report. I want to support the students who have taken this on and to give the rest of the class the opportunity to experience some of the same books. I'm hoping that we can come up with enough books since many students own their own copies. I have some, as well. 

4/5 BLEND

French: We are continuing to work on writing, spelling and comprehension with weekly dictation. The week of October 31 we will begin to work in small reading groups (4 - 5 people) with students reading short stories, books and excerpts at their appropriate level.

Social Studies: Students are very enthusiastic about our study of the thirteen original colonies along with the earlier settlements. We will have a test later next week covering this material. We watched a National Geographic video via Netflix instant view titled "The Nightmare at Jamestown." Our read aloud, Blood on the River, is echoing much of the same information, and we are also using our textbooks as source material.

The students have been working on group projects in social studies, and we are taking Monday "promenades," sometimes assigning a buddy and a topic.

I'm looking forward to seeing everybody at conferences!

Week of October 17

We still need a PTO parent rep for the 4/5 Homeroom!

4th Grade Language Arts

Spelling: Most students moved up a level either last week or will begin a new level tomorrow. Because Friday is a homeroom day, I am moving the spelling test from Fridays to Thursdays. 

Grammar: We had a quiz on sentence structure and began working on forming plurals.

Writing: I am handing back the students essays on Tolliver's Secret, and they will use these along with my edits and comments to write their next essay, which will be on the novel of their choice. The emphasis on the first composition was organization. Students will continue to develop strength in this area, but I will also be teaching and assessing paragraph development. We are beginning this project Monday.


Reading: Because I had to return the copies of Carry on, Mr. Bowditch to the IMC, we used a strategy called "jigsaw" to create a synopsis of the remainder of the book. Each student took a chapter and summarized the events. I am compiling them into one document, crediting students with their piece of the puzzle. Next week we will be using listening stations with two audio books:  Blood on the River, a story about Jamestown, and Stowaway. Both are historical novels about colonial America.

Poetry: The students are practicing cursive writing by copying poems into their journals and writing reflections after having discussed the poems and their images in class. Reading poetry requires different reading strategies, primarily an understanding of figurative language. The kids are also memorizing and presenting the poems, which have so far included Tennyson's "The Eagle," and Sandburg's "Fog."

Homework: This week we will focus on possessives but will cycle back through sentence structure and plurals as well. 




4/5 Blend


French: The students loved the video "L'Appartement de Joanna," which is giving them the opportunity to pick up the pace in their speaking. There is also an online activity which requires them to fill in missing words.  I held off on the verb quiz because conjugating is sinking in for some students more easily than for others. Memorizing is definitely the easier half of the battle! 


Social Studies: We had a quiz on Friday covering the struggles faced by the Continental Army and comparing them with those faced by the British. Students were also asked to find examples of factual information from the Social Studies text that was also presented in two historical novels, Tolliver's Secret and The Fighting Ground. We will continue discussing both genres as sources of information and understanding and will add primary source documents this week.


Science: We will start a science unit in November. This will be in French. 


Art: On Friday, I will teach the students some cross-stitch techniques and we will move from plastic canvas to burlap.


P.E. We talk a 30 minute walk on Thursday, with students paired up with somebody who is not in their grade. Going up and down the neighborhood hills and focusing on one new classmate went over well, and we will have a class meeting Monday to come up with different ways to focus our Class Walks, which I would like to do once a week. The kids have promised to teach me some of their games from P.E. so that we can also get into the gym once a week. Music/ukuleles/singing will always on Friday.



IMHO: As I sit here typing, I can't help but reflect on the "largesse," of what we're trying to squeeze into each week of teaching.  I love my work, can't imagine doing anything else,  but the effects of the budget reduction are a reality for all teachers. With respect to our particular program:

Changing math to an English program addresses one set of issues but brings a different set before us.

4th and 5th graders are quickly developing their abilities to think and write abstractly. Science and social studies (content areas) require increasingly sophisticated reasoning and thinking strategies. French adds another layer to the learning process.

French needs explicit, direct instruction in order for the students to be able to function in academic areas.

There is no P.E. program, and there is no music program.


And all of a sudden, it's Friday, and I can't believe the week has gone by. I reflect on the "aha" moments, and the lessons  that worked, and the lessons that didn't work for everybody, and revisit what I even mean by "worked," and if I ever really know what sticks, what sticks but doesn't show- yet,  try to prioritize for the next week, and then drive home, grateful for the authentic relationships I have with my students, and acknowledgment of the fact that they didn't ask for budget cuts, either.

October 3, 2011

Volunteer opportunities! 

I could use some help in the classroom this Friday morning with the challenge tests. It would involve reading lists out loud to small groups of students. (8:30 - 9:00)

The 4/5 Blend is in need of a PTO rep to attend PTO meetings  on the third Tuesday of the  month at 6:30 pm. The rep is an interface between our class and the PTO:  bringing any  issues to PTO and relaying information to our 4/5class. The biggest (one time) chore is to make an email list of 4/5 parents (teachers can't share theirs) so that any information can  be conveyed in a simple group email. 

Please let me know if you are interested in either of these opportunities. 

Oregon Battle of the Books

Sign up has begun for this year's OBOB. Students in grades 4 and 5 need to turn in a signed permission slip to me or Mme Reeve with a list of team members by the end of this week. The battles will happen mid January.  

4th Grade Language Arts

Last week in review

      Most students finished their essays, we had a quiz on Carry on, Mr. Bowditch, had our spelling test on Friday and continued working on subjects and predicates. We also began working on cursive writing.

This week

Spelling

      After three weekly scores of 85% or higher, students may take a challenge spelling test, which covers their entire master list. Many students fall into that category this week, so I hope you will be able to find time to help them practice! Last week's test will come home Monday, and I have indicated on the test if the student will be taking the challenge test.

Writing

     Almost everyone has finished the first essay, and I expect to send those home later this week. I am including a scoring guide so that parents and the students understand what I was looking for in this particular assignment. (The students have gone over it with me already.) If you notice an "error" that I didn't correct on your child's paper, it probably isn't an oversight.  The focus of this assignment is primarily "organization."

Conventions

     We are continuing with subjects and predicates this week in order to build a conceptual foundation for our year-long work on sentence structure.

Reading

      Carry on, Mr. Bowditch will shift to an in-class activity. We will be learning about sailing ships, including terminology and even knot tying!

Homework

      Mme Jana and I have decided to assign language arts and math homework M - W nights because collecting on Friday is problematic- we don't see all of those students- only our homerooms. Instead, we will each give a French, social studies or science homework assignment on Thursday, which will be due Friday.

4/5 BLEND

Last week in review

       In French, we focused on contractions, which are confusing to students particularly when they involve the subject pronoun je. The e is dropped when je is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, and many of the students use j'ai (I have) when they mean je. This may seem small, but it's impossible for a student to move into an understanding of conjugation when they aren't clear about the subject pronouns, or pronouns in general! The students also wrote an autobiographical poem.

      The students made time lines to use as reference during our reading and discussions of events and battles of the American Revolution.  

      Bargello is a style of Italian needlework that became popular in Elizabethan England and was used by Colonial Americans to create upholstery. Students designed a small pattern on paper and have begun stitching their designs on a plastic canvas. 

This week

French

     We will finish the biographical poems, continue working on reading and spelling using a dictee handout. Writing will include conjugation and contractions. We will also do some pre-reading/vocabulary activities prior to watching and discussing "L'appartement de Joanna"  on the Yabla website.

Social Studies

       We will continue with the time and begin looking at the lives of important political, military and social figures of the Revolutionary Period. In addition to several biographies and historical fiction, we will also read George vs. George: The American Revolution as Seen From Both Sides. We will continue with Avi's historical novel, The Fighting Ground.

Art

      Students will be finishing their bargello projects. The next project will be working with burlap and thinner wool. (Note that the article in Wikipedia comments on precision and mathematical counting!)

Homework

      Fifth graders will have a homework assignment Thursday, due Friday. They are to read and make one entry in their reading log/journal. Fourth graders will begin a reading journal in November.