McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of September 22, 2014

If you would like to be notified whenever I post to our class blog, please click on the space to the right, “Follow by Email.”

Adventure-Based Learning

Thursday we had our first session of ABL with Mrs. Murray, and it went really well!  It began with an introduction of the High Five of Respect, a guideline of expectations for all students: I will take care of myself, I will show compassion, I will tell the truth, I will take responsibility, and I will include others.  The kids were engaged in several partner games, including one where two partners had to tie a shoe using only one hand each.  Mrs. Murray does a great job helping students reflect upon and process what they did well, what worked, and what changes they had to make in order to be successful.  Toward the end of the session, students worked in their focus groups (a group of 5 or 6 kids from our class, not to be confused with intervention groups at MIW) to try to keep a balloon ball aloft by using two-finger touches only.   Again, students used a protocol for evaluating their process and made plans to make adjustments to increase the number of touches.  We had some discussion in the classroom afterwards, and I talked a bit about how one goal of the challenges is to get students to a point of (mild) frustration — and then giving them a protocol and support for how to work through it.  Talk about a life skill!

Reading Workshop

In Reading Workshop this week, students worked on the concept of envisioning.  They added details to illustrations of scenes from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, a book all three classes have heard read aloud.  At the beginning of the week, the kids took a survey using their collected reading logs from the past three weeks.  The survey is a Google form, and we used iPads to complete the survey.  The survey is still live on my web page (you can get there through the msad51 web site) if you’d like to take a look.  Next week, I’ll share the results with the kids, and we’ll set goals for at-home reading.

Writing Workshop

We’ve made enormous progress on narratives this week!  The kids worked on creating powerful, sophisticated leads by studying the lead in Jane Yolen’s book, Owl Moon.  That lead gives a ton of information in one sentence, using a number of setting details, showing who is in the scene, and using action.  So students practiced with the narrative I’m writing.  We listed setting details, characters, and actions that would be at the very beginning of my story and then chose ones to use in the lead sentence.  We built a long sentence, modeling it after the lead in Owl Moon.  After practicing with my story, students then went back to their seats with the confidence of having had a crack at it already, and wrote leads for their own stories.  Also, we worked on endings, where the goals are to show the message of the story, to show how the character changed, and/or to show that the character will be OK.  We work all this magic by using an action and/or TFR (thoughts, feelings, and reactions).  Next week: editing and illustrating!

Math

This week students reviewed their Unit 1 assessments. Please look for the assessment packet in your child’s planner. They also took a pre-assessment for unit 2 which will help me plan for the unit and which skills need more emphasis. This next unit covers numeracy - reading, writing and understanding numbers up through 1,000,000; solving multi-digit addition and subtraction problems; examining and interpreting data. We jumped in with numeracy this week and I must say most students have a pretty strong sense of place value.   

Spelling

This week students explored several spelling patterns for long e.  We learned about different blends and how they change the sounds of words.   Finally, we looked at homophones - words that are spelled differently but sound the same.  After discussing the infamous there/their/they’re, students illustrated the different meanings in their notebooks and we read a homophone book, How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear?.

Theme

This week we learned all about fossils.  Students read an article in the National Geographic Explorer and watched a Brainpop video to build prior knowledge.  We also buried gummy bears in layers of “rock” (bread) to see the fossilization process itself.  So far we’ve had one donation of air dry clay, so some of the classes have made a trace fossil, but we are waiting for one more bucket to be donated so that all can partake in this activity.  

Also, students will need to find a rock to bring in to class next week, no bigger than their fist, for our final project.  Finally, we will have a visiting geologist next Wednesday.

STAR Testing

Starting next week, all classes will take the STAR tests for reading during their technology class.   This test gives teachers and administrators baseline information about children in the fall and spring to track growth over time.

Our Own 4th Grade Classmate Devin, a Guest Author at Prince Memorial Library!
Wednesday, Oct. 1 @ 6:00 – 7:30 pm, Maine Student Book Award Author Talk, Megan Frazer Blakemore, Grades 4 and up, special guest author, Devin, Greely Middle School 4th Grader, books for sale, refreshments.

Due Dates / Upcoming Events

Monday, September 29th - Reading logs due / Sneakers for P.E.

Tuesday, September 30th - Study link due 

Wednesday, October 1st - Math journal catch-up / Early Release

Thursday, October 2nd - Spelling due / STAR testing (reading)

Friday, October 23rd - Study link due 

Enjoy the last few drops of summer this weekend!

Dena

Recommended Books

Looking for a new book to read?  Check out the variety of books recommended by Begley and McFarland readers!  We mined our reading logs this week and everyone made a recommendation.

McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of September 15th

If you would like to be notified whenever I post to our class blog, please click on the space to the right, “Follow by Email.”

Adventure-Based Learning

Next Thursday, our fourth-graders will participate in our first Adventure-Based Learning session with ABL teacher Donna Murray.  This is a creative, hands-on program that focuses on each child’s role in a group; cooperation; working through challenges; and persevering.  It’s an important part of our fourth grade year.  We are grateful to PTO and Foundation 51, who have funded this program in the past, and this year our district has taken over the funding as part of our curriculum.  Every fourth-grader will participate with her/his class and several other classes about once a month for about an hour-and-a-half’s time.  Each session builds upon the previous one, with students working through challenges as a group.  They follow a protocol to brainstorm ideas, try them out, evaluate their ideas, and then make adjustments to improve.  It’s loud and active and fun!  And there’s a lot of learning going on.  

Reading Workshop

In Reading Workshop this week, students drew and wrote about their favorite environments in which to read.  I have also been reading with students one-on-one, getting to know them as readers and as kids!  We have reviewed reading logs and are continuing to refine the work on those to meet fourth grade expectations.  Next week, we’ll use completed logs to reflect on our reading habits and share book recommendations.

Writing Workshop

We’ve used two books as mentor texts for small moment narrative writing, Salt Hands and Dad and Me in the Morning.  We are using timelines to plan our own narratives, with a special focus on the heart of the story.  Students also determined a message for their stories, writing out specifically what they’re trying to show as writers — and making sure the details from the heart of the story match the message.  Then, as they planned the stories, they color-coded the kinds of details they’re using, trying for a balance of setting details, small actions, and TFR (thoughts, feeling, and reactions).  Today, we started writing these narratives by actually writing the heart of the story first, giving it the most energy and attention.  When we go to write what happened “just before” and “just after,” the kids will see that they otherwise would most likely have started their stories much too early and carried it on too far.  This is big learning!

Math

Students continued to learn about new geometry concepts this week, specifically around right triangles, equilateral triangles, and acute or obtuse triangles. In addition we reviewed for the assessment that all students took on Thursday. I will be sending home a progress profile packet showing your child’s progress by the end of next week. Our next unit moves us away from geometry and centers the focus around numeracy, problem solving and multi-digit addition and subtraction.

Please note that students who needed to catch up on their math journal pages did start bringing them home on Wednesday this week. Most children had ample time in class to complete the pages, yahoo! This independent responsibility for keeping up with work may be new to some students and may take time to adjust to. While Wednesday is the ‘official’ catch-up day, any child is welcome to take their math journal home on other days should they be feeling like they need additional time to work. Another opportunity during the day where students can put in a little extra journal work time is at morning snack. One of us always has a quiet snack room for students to catch up or complete missing work. 

Keep practicing those addition and subtraction facts, with more emphasis on subtraction. Thanks!

Spelling

This week students explored several spelling patterns for long i and also for the /k/ sound.  We also looked at homographs, words that are spelled the same way but have different meanings (and sometimes different pronunciations).  After discussing several words, students selected a homograph and illustrated the two different meanings in their notebooks.

Spelling homework looked better this week.  Please make sure when brainstorming words, that your child is not using proper nouns (like a person’s name).  Also, please double check to make sure they are using real words (I received some doozies on the rhyming section) that can be found in a dictionary.  Thank you for your continued support at home.

Theme

This week “rocked”!  We learned about the three different types of rocks: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic.  Students participated in various activities where they built rocks and changed them to different rocks (through heat and pressure or melting).  We also finally looked at our halite crystals and eggshell geodes!  Ask your child what we were able to grow! Also, as you look at the labs I've graded, please keep in mind I'm expecting students to use scientific evidence to support their answers; the students are not completely there yet, so I will continue to give feedback to help them improve their work.

Next week we will be learning about fossils!  If anyone is able to donate a bucket or two of air dry clay, please let me know.  I need one bucket for each class.  We will be trying to make our own mold fossils.  Thanks!

Additional activities to try at home:

•Starburst Rock Cycle

•Crayon Rock Cycle

Extra Curricular Activities

Now that school is underway, many extra curricular activities have begun or will begin soon.  Chorus meets on Tuesdays in the morning from 7:30am-8:15am in the music room.  Color Guard will begin on Thursday, October 9th.  The 4th and 5th grade group will practice in the gym from 3-4pm, with a late bus available at 4.  Newspaper and Civil Rights Team will be starting up shortly; we will pass along information as it becomes available.

Due Dates / Upcoming Events

Monday, September 22nd - Reading logs due / Close Buy orders due

Tuesday, September 23rd - Study link due 

Wednesday, September 24th - Math journal catch-up / Early Release

Thursday, September 25th - ABL / Spelling due

Friday, September 26th - Study link due

Have a lovely weekend!

Dena

McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of September 8th

If you would like to be notified whenever I post to our class blog, please click on the space to the right, “Follow by Email.”

Open House

Thank you to those of you who could come to Open House this past Tuesday evening.  As you likely noticed, we prepared much to share — maybe too much? — in a relatively short amount of time!  We are considering doing the presentation all together next year, in hopes that we might avoid some repetition and be more efficient with our time, saving an opportunity for more of your questions.  However, we have spent a great deal of energy of putting together the Team Handbook, which you all should have by now.  Together we have about 400 years of teaching experience (or so it seems sometimes), and we know that there are always frequently-asked questions at Open House and throughout the school year.  Please use this Handbook as a resource to help answer questions as to what we do and why we do it.  Keep it in a safe place for the year; we will refer back to it time and again.

Thank you, also, for returning the Volunteer forms, Parents’ Homework, Internet Permission forms, and Information for our Class Directory.  If you wish to have your students’ contact information included in the Class Directory, you must fill out and return the green Directory Info sheet from Open House.  If you were unable to attend Open House, your child has all the forms in her/his planner.

Immediately, I am looking for a volunteer to help to type up a class directory and to attach the beautiful writing notebook cover collages to writing notebooks (this will take a few hours so best to split between several families).  Sally Somes also needs a weekly parent volunteer for our Library class, which is on Fridays 10:31-11:21.  If you can help with any of these jobs, please email me!  dmcfarland@msad51.org

Reading Workshop

This week in Reading Workshop, we have finished our first read aloud, Marvin Redpost: Why Pick on Me?  If there is talk at home about nose-picking…my apologies.  I have used this text to demonstrate engagement, inferring, noticing writing structures (such as reasons for spaces in the text), understanding perspective — and for fun!  We also used pages from a higher-level nonfiction text to demonstrate and practice strategies for tackling unknown words.  Students each have a bookmark to remind them of those strategies, one of many gifts I’ll give them this year! :)

Writing Workshop

In Writing Workshop, students are working simultaneously on two narratives, trying out revision strategies on both.  The major strategy we focused on this week is to underline with green colored pencil setting details.  Then, we looked at where we used setting details and where they are needed in the story, and used a Post-it and number system to add more.  I also showed students the 4th Grade Narrative Checklist, which I’ll be using to eventually assess students’ narratives.  We are working to help kids understand the goals of each unit and then design mini-lessons to help all students further their work in achieving those goals.  While conferring, I am noticing what kids have learned in previous years and where I see it currently in their writing, so as to celebrate the carry-over from their important work at MIW — and also set the expectation that they should always use everything they know as they write.  Meanwhile, I am reading their prompts and in-class writing to determine individual needs and to plan future mini-lessons.  We are off to a productive start!

Math

Students continued to work on geometry concepts this week They explored properties of shapes and discovered how to determine a shape by its properties. Try asking your child to describe one property of a trapezoid, rhombus and kite. They also learned to distinguish convex and concave polygons. We did some hands-on exploration with building polygons using straws and twist ties. The largest polygon we built was a dodecagon - 12 sides!

Several parents asked about IXL usage at our Open House earlier this week. First, when students are logged in to their accounts their name should be visible in the upper right hand corner of the screen. If their name is not there then they are not working in their account and will not get credit for their work. Also, IXL work does not count toward their fact practice requirement each week. 

To practice math facts in order to meet the weekly requirement of 3x10 minutes per week there are many apps available. Here is a list of just a few available at the iTunes store:

PopMath

Math Bingo

Math Hunt

Sail Through Math

Also, here is a link to great no-frills site which is iPad friendly. http://www.thatquiz.org/tq-1/

This site is nice because students can set their time and select the operation that they need to practice. Students got a quick introduction to this site during math class this week.

Spelling

This week students explored several spelling patterns for long o and also for the /au/ sound.  We also looked at words that have silent letters and identified what makes them tricky for spellers.  I read the book Silent Letters Loud and Clear, which uses a lot of wordplay and clever tie-ins to silent letters.  

Students also had their first week of spelling homework.  This will feel very new to your child for the first few weeks until they get used to the activities and the expectations.  I have given lots of written feedback on the homework to help kids improve.  Some common themes this first week include using capital letters where they are not needed, misreading or misunderstanding directions, and not checking to make sure words match the vowel sound asked for.  Please review the homework with your child and perhaps set a goal for something to pay attention to next week.

Finally, I spoke about Spelling City at open house.  To access our lists, go to www.spellingcity.com, and then click on the “search” tab and select “teacher/parent” from the pull down menu.  Search using my name, “Carrie Begley.”  Our lists should pop right up and be accessible to you.

Theme

This week was all about minerals and crystals!!  We learned what makes a mineral a mineral and how scientists can use different characteristics to identify minerals.  Students completed a mineral identification lab, where they had to observe and record details about a mineral and then use a field guide to try and identify it.  We read a National Geographic Explorer article about crystals, where we learned how crystals form and the difference between crystals and gems.  We are also trying to grow simple halite and borax crystals in class.  I am including links below to websites that give directions for making your own crystals, as I anticipate kids will want to try this at home.  Next week we will learn about the 3 different kinds of rocks.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/crystalrecipes/a/saltvinegar.htm

http://chemistry.about.com/od/growingcrystals/ht/saltcrystals.htm

http://tinkerlab.com/experiment-egg-geodes/

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, September 15th - Reading logs due / sneakers for P.E.

Tuesday, September 16th - Study link due 

Wednesday, September 17th - Math journal catch-up / Early Release

Thursday, September 18th - Spelling due

Friday, September 19th - Study link due

Lunch money

Please make sure your child’s first and last names are marked on the envelopes you send in for lunch money.  This ensures that your child’s account will be credited.

Have a great weekend!

Dena

Check out this article and very short video from the blog of Salman Kahn:
https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/95208400815/the-learning-myth-why-ill-never-tell-my-son-hes

Very important messages for our children -- and ourselves!  I showed the video to the kids today and reiterated the message that when something is hard and we keep messing it up and failing...that's when we are getting smarter!  That's learning!

I will remind them of this often.
~DMcF

Newsletter

McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of September 2, 2014

Reading:

Since we've been in school, we've been focusing on establishing reading routines here at school: logging our reading, paying attention to engagement and stamina, and enjoying read aloud.  Please help your child by expecting that s/he keeps the log and books in the book baggie and brings that to school every day.  Your child should become independent with the handling of the book baggie early on in the year.  I have been listening to the kids read and asking them about their summertime reading habits, getting to know them as readers.

Writing:

In writing workshop, we're already busy!  The students completed a narrative prompt last week, and we are reviewing some idea-gathering strategies to make sure everyone has lists of possible writing topics in their notebooks.  This week, we're also focusing on using timelines as a way to plan and weed out unneeded parts of a story -- which is hard to do if we've already written paragraphs and pages about those parts.  It's easier to eliminate those parts when they are just events listed on a timeline.  We're also getting to know writing partners and each other as a class, sharing small moment stories from our lives.  Paying attention to those little moments helps us realize the value in them. 

Math:

In math we started the first unit in the Everyday Math curriculum for fourth grade. This unit has a heavy emphasis on geometry, and we jumped right in with lines, line segments, rays and angles. In addition, we spent a little time reviewing addition and subtraction with large numbers. Students should be reviewing basic addition and subtraction facts at home. The standard is 50 facts in three minutes with 90% accuracy. There are many web sites and apps for practicing basic facts. I will go over a few options at our Open House next week.

All students spent time on Friday using their IXL accounts. They each now have an active account that they can access at home. I have taped each child’s login and password to the inside cover of his/her homework planner. In the near future I will be assigning IXL specific skills to work on for homework; however students are always welcome to work independently in their IXL accounts.

Spelling:

This week students took a beginning of the year achievement test and a spelling survey.  I am using these two pieces to collect data about what strategies students use to spell.  Next week we will begin the first unit.  Spelling homework is assigned on Tuesdays and is due on Thursdays.

Theme:

Last week students participated in two engineering challenges to introduce them to a set of problem-solving and decision-making steps that we use in 4th grade.  We also started the “naked egg” experiment.  So far we have used vinegar to dissolve the shell of the egg, watched the egg grow as osmosis brings water into the membrane, and added corn syrup to watch the process reverse itself.  Over the weekend the eggs will soak in a bath of colored water and students are excited to see what happens next!  Finally, we started our rock unit.  Students completed two labs.  One lab helped them to discover the qualities that make a rock a rock.  The other helped them to develop their skills of observation.  Next week we will look at minerals before learning about the different types of rock.

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, September 8th - Reading logs due: Parents, please remember to check your child's addition of minutes and sign at the bottom of the log each week. Also due are the students' writing notebook cover collages.

Tuesday, September 9th - Study Link due / 4th & 5th Grade Open House, 6:30-7:30pm

Wednesday, September 10th - Early Release

Thursday, September 11th - Spelling due

Friday, September 12th - Study Link due

Have a terrific weekend!