McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of October 6, 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.”

Reading Workshop

I have been looking forward to this week for a long time!  We started our work with The Fourteenth Goldfish, our latest mentor text and one chosen from the Global Read Aloud selections.  Mrs. Fenwick (6th grade ELA teacher) and I have been meeting and working behind the scenes to create some shared experiences with two of her classes.  The kids are LOVING the book!

     “Reading is thinking” is one of the most under-stated truths in learning.  Our kids have been developing their skills with envisioning, predicting and thinking about the characters’ feelings since they began to read.  Now that students are reading higher level texts, there are more layers to a story and to a character.  Yes, most readers can follow the plot of a story and can answer questions.  But there’s so much more to think about!  So, how does a reader know what to think about?  It’s not like are signs that the author leaves, saying, “Hey, reader!  Pay attention to this!”  Or, are there?

     Mrs. Fenwick uses a collection of signposts to teach her readers what to pay attention to and what to think about as they make their way through a book.  I borrowed some of them to teach to our readers.  The first two we practiced this week.  A “Memory Moment” is when the character stops the action of the story to share a character’s memory about an event.  When this happens, we need to stop and ask ourselves, “Why might this be important?”  And sometimes authors mention a situation, a word, or a phrase again and again and again.  This is another signpost to pay attention to.  When we read something repetitive, we need to stop and ask ourselves, “Why does this keep happening?”

     In their notebooks, readers have two copies of graphic organizers to write about each  of these signposts.  One chart is for practice with The Fourteenth Goldfish, and the other is for recording their thinking in their independent reading.

Writing Workshop

We watched each other’s iMovies in writing workshop this week, and almost everyone has completed the final draft of her/his narrative.  It was a fun project!  Friday the kids showed off their expertise (fingers crossed) with narrative writing in a school wide writing prompt.  Next week, we will start a unit on essays.  The structure we use for drafting essays is very appealing to most people, as it is formulaic and predictable.  It works well for more sophisticated writers and reluctant writers alike.  The growth of fourth graders’ essay writing will be tremendous over the course of the school year.  By the time we get to the literary essay unit in the spring, you will be surprised at the depth of thinking your child will be able to show!

Volunteers

I have started to sit down and assess the needs of the classroom for volunteer help, and I have more to do.  Thank you to all of you who have expressed interest.  I have sent a few emails for specific jobs that people indicated on the volunteer forms that they might be interested in.  I am looking for a parent volunteer to help in the library every other week, to coordinate with another parent who is scheduled on the opposite weeks.  

     And now I’m ready to schedule some weekly help here at school.  Since the priority for my time is to meet with and support all of the students, I depend on volunteers to do things that complement the work in the classroom, such as project preparation, photocopying, laminating, etc.  It will be different work each week, and the scheduled times can be very flexible — though I do need to be able to depend on people on a regular basis for this work.  If your schedule doesn't allow for this, then there will be other opportunities throughout the year that I’ll put out all-calls for.  But if your schedule does allow for regular volunteering time and you’re able to be flexible about the kind of work you’re doing, please shoot me an email and I’ll set up a schedule very soon!  Thank you!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Please look through your inbox to find the email about signing up for parent/teacher conferences!  We understand that your weeks are as packed as ours are, and so we wanted to get this sign-up out to you early to give you a chance to make room in your schedule for one of the times we’ve designated for conferences.  We look forward to meeting with each of you!

Math

Students continued to practice addition with large numbers and we also tackled subtraction with large numbers this week. The focus algorithm is trade-first, which is very much like the traditional method learned by most adults. One thing I am still noticing is many students still need to work on basic subtraction facts. Please continue to practice basic facts through 20 at home. Here are several links and the practice time counts toward the required 3x10 minutes of weekly fact practice.

     http://www.thatquiz.org/tq-1/ (mobile device friendly)

     http://goo.gl/Qwg97L (printable fact check-ups)

     http://www.aplusmath.com/Flashcards/Subtraction.html

     This week students were also introduced to Thinking Blocks-Addition and Subtraction which is an iPad app on our school iPads. This app is great to practice solving word problems. The app progresses from two step problem solving to multi-step problems for more challenge. Students are tracking their progress in their math notebooks. 

Spelling

This week students explored several spelling patterns for the j sound.  We also learned about suffixes and the spelling rules that apply to adding suffixes.

Theme

This week we finished reviewing the material in our rock unit and took the quiz on Wednesday.  We are now participating in a mini unit connected to the Global Read Aloud, The Fourteenth Goldfish.  On Thursday we learned about the Nobel Prize and its founder, Alfred Nobel.  It’s perfect timing because the 2014 Nobel Prize winners are being announced this week.  I was excited to share the news that a teenager was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year - proof that kids can change the world too!

     Today, we started researching some of the famous scientists mentioned in The Fourteenth Goldfish.  After completing the research, each partnership will be making a scientist action figure box.  (That’s what the cereal boxes are for - please send more!)  

     I could use some parent volunteers next Wednesday between 9:05-9:40 for Mayberry, 9:45-10:15 for McFarland, and 1:15-1:45 for Begley.  I need the kids to wrap the cereal boxes in craft paper before adding our information.  Please send me a quick email if you can help!

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, October 13th - Holiday

Tuesday, October 14th - Teacher Inservice

Wednesday, October 15th - Full Day / Reading logs due (Students have their current reading logs to be collected on Wednesday.  They also have their new ones for the week of Oct. 13-20 already.  I’ll be looking for the usual 4 days on both logs.)

Thursday, October 16th - ABL

Friday, October 17th - Study link due

There will be no spelling homework next week. 

Have a fabulous long weekend!

Dena