| We had a productive and fun week here in D-405. As mathematicians this week, we really dug deeper into the idea of factors and multiples. We explored the idea, "Are all the factors of one number also factors of that number's multiples?" To investigate this, we found all the factors of 100. Then, we used this to find all the factors of 200, 300, and other numbers. Then, we moved on to 16 and 48. Students had to explain WHY all the factors of 16 are also factors of 48 in pictures, numbers, and words. WOW- this was challenging work! During writing, we have been doing an amazing job revising our personal essays. We have been revising to make sure that our structure is strong (5 paragraphs, with everything in the right place!) We used a "recipe card" to do this. We also revised for elaboration by checking our mini-stories, and using prompts to push our thinking further. We decided that a well-elaborated body paragraph has 10-15 sentences. Last, we also took a closer look at our conclusions to make sure that we ended our essays in a powerful and engaging way. As researchers this week, students finished up their research presentations on a biome. They presented to the class, and we spoke about how good presenters deliver information. We reviewed having a strong voice, giving eye contact, and speaking with expression! We also started our "Navigating Nonfiction" unit. Students all previewed a non-fiction text with a partner by looking at titles, subtitles, etc. They were really into this! We wrapped up Social Studies this week with a review and our Revolutionary War test this week! We have started discussing ecosystems. Our essential questions for this unit are: 1. How do all living things get energy? 2. How do living things and non-living things depend on one another and the environment? 3. What happens if a part of an ecosystem is altered? 4. How do humans positively and negatively impact ecosystems? Have a great weekend! |
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![]() It felt GREAT to have a FULL week of school together. It has been a really fun week. In math, we have been digging deeper into multiplication. We thought about different multiplication scenarios, and discussed key words in word problems that tell us to multiply. After this discussion, we wrote our own multiplication stories that went along with a fact within the 12 times tables. Ask your child what theirs was! After this, we discussed the difference between a factor and a multiple, and what strategies we could use to determine if a number is a factor of another number. For example, is 4 a factor of 51? First, we could multiply 4 x 12 = 48. Then, if we add another 4 it is 52. Therefore, it is NOT a factor. To practice this skill, we played a game "Multiple Turnover." This can be found on Pearson's website. As writers this week, we finished planning our personal essays with a variety of supporting details: mini-stories, lists, examples, opinions, thoughts, and opinions of others. After finishing our "Big T" Plan, we "storytold" our essays across fingers with a partner to prepare for writing. This cycle, we are deciding to draft directly on Google Drive rather than drafting on paper. This is in an effort to prepare students for PARCC, where they will be required to do this. The class is really excited about this! We started drafting yesterday and we will revise next week! In reading, students have been working in their science/research groups to create a presentation on a biome. They are collaborating to combine their notes as a group to create a clear presentation to teach the rest of their classmates about their biome's climate, geographical location, organisms that live there, how they adapt, etc. They have been working really well on these together and I cannot wait for presentations next week! This week, we focused on the battles of the Revolutionary War. Students researched a particular battle in class, and summarized the important information in their words. We jigsawed this activity by having students walk around and teach one another about their battle. We talked about the end of the Revolutionary War: The Battle of Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris. We will have our test on Tuesday after two days of review! Have a fantastic weekend! We have been starting some new units this week, and the class is really enjoying them! In math, we began our Multiplication Unit. We are starting by having an understanding of what multiplication is. Students were introduced to the term "array." This is a rectangular arrangement of objects. We used the dimensions of arrays to understand the factors of a given number. For example, the number 24 can have the following arrays: 1 x 24, 2 x 12, 3, x 8, 4 x 6. Therefore, its factors are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24. The class did an "arrayzing", job at finding arrays for two different numbers, and they used the Chromebooks and "Google Drawing" in order to determine these arrays. After making the arrays, we color coded them depending on whether they were prime, composite, or square numbers. During writing, we generated ideas for Personal Essays, by thinking about important people, places, hobbies, or objects in our lives. I created a movie trailer to help us think about "superheroes" in our lives.
Also, we found ideas by looking at previous entries and finding opinions about them. Last, we listed "things that bug me" and why. At the end of the week, we selected an idea, and began crafting our thesis statements. These are topics, and opinions on those topics. Although we are still in the Revolutionary War unit, students began their research task this week on our next science unit to build there background knowledge. We discussed how to take quality notes in non-fiction text, and students used print and online sources to gather information. Ask your child what they learned about their biome! Last, in Social Studies, we have started the Revolutionary War! Students learned about the "shot heard 'round the world!"- the Battle of Lexington and Concord. We learned about this important event, and summarized the significance of this event as a class. Students shared very deep thoughts about this! Many recognized that this was important because without this first event, the Revolutionary War wouldn't have begun, and we wouldn't have our freedom now. Have a great weekend! We have had some short weeks, but they have been jam packed with lots of fun learning! In math, we reviewed how to estimate before addition and subtraction. This helps us tell if our answers are reasonable. We also played a whole class Zondle Game Show in order to review what we learned about Place Value, Addition, and Subtraction. The kids did a great job with this and had a lot of fun. I am excited to tell students how much they have grown from pre-test to post-test! We will be moving on to multiplication concepts next. In writing, we also finished up our unit on Personal Narrative. Students published on the Chromebooks, edited, buddy edited, reflected, and celebrated. When we shared, we gave each other compliments on post-it notes. We made these compliments small and specific, so that our partners knew exactly what we did well. As readers, we continued to read Shiloh, and analyze the plot of the story. We had many conversations about where we are in the story (exposition, rising action, climax, resolution), and why we think so. We also continued to use strategies like clarifying, summarizing, predicting, and questioning as we read. We started talking about how we can respond to open-ended questions about our reading to show what we know. Please see the presentation on our Student Portal throughout the year to help support your child in this area. It is under "Reading" and "Open-Ended Questions Resources." We responded to a question about Shiloh as a whole class by finding the answer in the text, writing it in our own words, highlighting and writing direct quotes from the text, and explaining how these quotes support our answer. Our colonists in our classroom have gotten quite rowdy over taxes recently! We had students "boycotting" their desks and camping out with blankets and sweatshirts on the floor because of the property taxes! At first, there were more loyalists in our classroom, but now we have mostly rebels. Ask your child which side they choose, and why. We plotted events on a timeline that caused the Revolutionary War (Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, Writs of Assistance, Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Intolerable Acts, Quartering Acts). Then, we used this information along with information in video clips and our read aloud in class to write a Revolutionary War Diary from the perspective of the colonists. They are doing a great job with this! We talked about how this requires the synthesis of information. Students received their new "Homework Slides" in Google Drive today. We went over expectations as a class, and how to complete the assignment. These are due on December 1st. I can't wait to see how they do! Have a great weekend, and I am looking forward to a productive week next week! Above, you will see some SmartBoard slides from our lessons on Open-Ended Reading Questions and an activity we used to review the causes of the Revolutionary War!
![]() We had a really productive and fun week. As readers this week, we prepared our "Reading is Thinking" binders: a place to store our post-it notes where we write down our thoughts while reading. This will also be our place to respond to open-ended reading questions. While reading Shiloh, we used many strategies, including predicting, clarifying, summarizing, questioning, inferring, and connecting. We also analyzed the plot of the book as we read: we are getting closer and closer to the climax! Ask your child which strategies they used while listening to this read-aloud. We began a class chart on Google Drive where we are storing our thoughts. As writers, we published our first piece of fourth grade! We used a checklist to edit our writing. The parts we focused on were paragraphing for change of idea, speaker, setting, and time. We also spoke about punctuation used with dialogue (quotation marks, commas, etc.). Then, we used a revising checklist to check for the areas we focused on in our mini-lessons. We even reviewed our checklist with a buddy, buddy-editing both virtually (inserting comments into the document to our buddy) and in person (sitting side-by-side). We will celebrate and share next week! We are very excited! In math this week, we problem-solved with questions involving the subtraction of money. Then, we moved on to rounding and estimating. We used a number line and place value to round. Check out our "Rounding Rap" video below (don't mind my rapping voice!). We played a game, "Rapid Rounding" to help us round accurately and using a strategy of our choice. I sent a copy of this home with students today, so you can continue to play at home to practice this skill. We have all gotten colonial jobs and wages! Ask your child what their job is. As the Queen of England, I imposed a tax on them, just as colonists experienced the Stamp Act in 1765! This was one of the first causes of the American Revolution. Ask your child how they are feeling about the taxes so far. A HUGE shout out to Mrs. Kurdyla for transforming our classroom into a Haunted House! The class was AMAZED!
![]() This week, we moved on to some word problems with subtraction. We "stuck with" our mileage chart and solved problems based on the distances that we traveled. Beforehand, we reviewed various strategies that we may use to subtract. We focused on the standard algorithm, and reviewed other techniques that we may use to check our work. We also reviewed how you can use addition (inverse operations) to solve problems. In writing, we wrapped up revision strategies for structure and elaboration. We moved on to how we can use craft in meaningful ways, and how this can connect to the "big idea" or significance of our writing. One way that we got "crafty" was through thinking about figurative language. this includes similes, metaphors, and lush description. We thought about important elements of our stories (people, places, events, objects) and similes and metaphors that we may use to describe them. We listened to a real author, Lester Laminack, describe how he did this in his book Saturdays and Teacakes. We called this a "mentor text" and will continue to use him as a mentor author throughout our revision work. Last, we revisited our leads so that they "hook" our readers into our story and looked at stronger word choices in our writing. As readers this week, we continued to review the reciprocal reading strategies (clarifying, predicting, summarizing, questioning). As a class, we discussed using these strategies with the book Shiloh. Then, in our reading groups, students continued to track their thoughts while using these strategies. We have gotten a lot of opportunities for students to also share out their ideas with their classmates. We finished our 13 Colonies posters which are decorating our classroom! Now, we have been introduced to the Essential Questions of our Revolutionary War unit. After hearing these, we created a whole-class KWL chart on our Google Drive account. Ask your child to show you our chart! We will be diving deeper into the Revolutionary War this week.
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June 2015
Author4th Grade Teacher, Jessica Nastasi Categories |