Newsletter Update for the Week of September 21-25

McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

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Reading Workshop

We’ve finished up our first read aloud, Marvin Redpost: Why Pick on Me?  It has some very funny parts (apologies if your child has been talking a lot about nose-picking!), and I’ve used this text to point out a number of writing moves by the author and to review a story mountain structure.  We also used part of this story for a great discussion on inferring.  I’m feeling out the groups to see what they recall and actively use from previous years, and this is one way I’m working on that.  

    In addition, this week we talked about how we use reading partnerships, and we just scratched the surface about being in charge of our own reading engagement (focus).  For some kids, it’s a novel idea (no pun intended) to accept responsibility for their own focus.  To start this, we are studying our reading logs and are calculating pages read per minute.  There are recommended reading rates for different reading levels (and of course there are all kinds of variables for the kind of text, etc.), but in general ¾ of a page per minute is reasonable to allow for fluent reading and thinking as we read.  We studied an anonymous reader’s log and found that in the exact same book, she was reading ¾ of a page per minute in one session and 1 ½ pages per minute the next time.  We’ll explore possible reasons for this, and we’ll then move toward readers having an awareness of their own pace and engagement: thinking about our own reading process and taking charge of it.  Next week, I’ll teach some strategies to recognize a slip in engagement and ways to fix it.

Writing Workshop

We are straddling two main goals in writing workshop right now.  The first is very general: focusing on writing well, of course.  We’ve  worked through the 4th grade narrative checklist, which we will use throughout this unit to discuss specifically what makes a high quality narrative.  I’ll come back to this checklist again and again to help kids understand how to use it to revise parts of their own work, and more importantly to help them become stronger writers no matter what the genre.  

    The second big goal right now is establishing good writing habits.  For some kids, it’s reinforcing what they’ve learned in past years and to bump it up a bit for 4th grade.  For others right now, that just means, “When Mrs. McFarland says to write, I write!”  I am setting small, reachable targets for all and then extending them for some.  For example, today, I showed them four different ways to write a good lead for a story.  We practiced out loud with partners on my story first, and then I told them to write two leads on their own in their notebooks, using two of the strategies.  For some kids, setting this concrete goal of getting two done is necessary; others just do it.  I’m looking out for those who are hoping to fly under the radar, so that they understand that I expect them to write everyday, to try out new moves, and to show them I believe they can!  Calling those two leads their “ticket to lunch” helped, too.  The fourth kind of lead we studied was very advanced, and I hemmed and hawed aloud about whether they were ready to learn it today, so early in the school year...  But they begged for it (which is the way it should be!), and several kids jumped out of their comfort zones and went for it!  I couldn’t ask for much more than that (today, at least)!

Math

This week students continued to work on rounding large numbers. We also worked on multiple strategies for estimating sums. While practicing the different strategies I have encouraged students to think about which one works well for them. Here are the three strategies we explored:

• round all numbers to the same place value - ex: 500 + 200 + 300 = 1,000
• highest number stays the same - ex: 463 + 200 + 300 = 963
• use friendly numbers - ex: 450 + 225 + 300 = 975

In addition, students reviewed/learned the traditional algorithm for adding large numbers. This is the same algorithm we learned in school all those years ago!

Please note that I now have a link for homework tutorials on my web page. These tutorials are meant to provide support for your child when they are having difficulty at home. I hope they are helpful.

Spelling

This week students explored patterns for long I and learned about homographs.  We also talked about how breaking words into syllables can help us to spell more accurately.  Please encourage your child to proofread their homework carefully (there were a lot of folks who did not read the directions) and to complete both sides - there will always be two sides!

At open house I mentioned the website, Spelling City.  I have posted all the weekly core words, along with other frequently missed 4th grade words.  To access the lists and play the games for practice at home, follow the link above.  Click on the “Search” bar and pull down to Teachers/Parents.  Search “Carrie Begley”.  It will bring you to all our lists.

Theme

This week students studied minerals, the building blocks of rocks.  We watched a video on Monday to learn about minerals.  Then, we completed a mineral investigation, drawing, observing, and researching information about a mineral that they picked.  We even piloted a new app on www.mineralology4kids.org, where kids answer a series of questions to help identify their mineral.  I also shared a fun music parody I found, Mineral Rock Anthem.  On Friday we also started to learn about how rocks are grouped or classified.  We will work more with this next week.

Did you hear we’re putting on a play?  Students did a table read for “Geology Rocks!” on Thursday and Friday.  Next week your child will bring home a script and they will need to begin learning their lines at home.  The goal is to have all the lines learned by Friday, October 16th.  We are looking at putting on the play sometime at the end of October.  I need to study the district calendar before nailing down the date.  Stay tuned!  I will be looking for some crafty parents who could start pulling together some costumes.

Adventure-Based Learning

We had our first of ten sessions of Adventure-Based Learning on Thursday!  Mrs. Donna Murray of Sweetsir School leads the kids in games and challenges in which they practice working together using specific processes.  It’s fascinating to watch kids in these varied scenarios and to support them in finding how to be helpful and productive in a group!

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, September 28th - Reading logs due/sneakers for P.E.

Tuesday, September 29th - Home link due / Newspaper and Chorus after school / Box Tops will be collected

Wednesday, September 30th

Thursday, October 1st - Spelling due / Color Guard begins 3:00-4:00pm

Friday, October 2nd - Home link due

Tuesday, October 6th - School Picture Day

Don’t miss these science opportunities!  L.L. Bean will be hosting a star party and eclipse viewing this weekend, Saturday and Sunday from 7pm-11pm.  Telescopes will be set up and experts will be on hand to talk about what’s happening in the night sky.  Also, next Wednesday, September 30th at 6:30pm the Freeport Public Library will be hosting a talk called, “Comets, Meteorites, and Asteroids.”  The expert speaking is a former science teacher and a limited amount of people will get an asteroid to take home.

Volunteer Opportunities:

The McFarlands are looking for a Room Parent representative to the PTO for this year.  If you are interested, please email me directly.  This job is generally very light. 

Do you have any random fabric tucked away in the house?  Can you sew a straight line?  Do you have a sewing machine?  I am looking for 1) donations of fabric,  and 2) people to sew book bags for our two reading classes (40 in all).  Let me know if you can help!

Have a great weekend!

Dena

McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of Sept. 14-18

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

This week, I am continuing to read with students to listen to what they use for reading strategies.  I’ve been giving them feedback on what I notice.  I’m also asking about reading over the summer to gauge whether there might have been some reading level “slippage” since third grade.  We are also enjoying an old favorite read aloud, Marvin Redpost: Why Pick on Me?  I’ll use this short chapter book to model and review ways to think about the author’s craft moves, what kinds of things we think about as we read, and how to stay accountable to the text (support an idea with details from the story).  I chose this story also to show kids that higher level thinking can and should be done with books that might be a lower reading level (it’s an L).  Sometimes fourth grade readers think they have to be reading very high-level books -- and they miss out on some of the greats!

Writing Workshop

In writing workshop this week, we have been starting to draft small moment stories in our notebooks.  We used a timeline to plan out the story, and I showed the kids how to revise their timelines in order to make their stories more focused.  There was a very dramatic revision move that I demonstrated; you’ll want to ask your child about that.  The kids have also been working with their writing partners, and I’ve listened in on some really productive meetings, where partners are finding meaningful places in a story to make a suggestion -- and some of the writers are actually taking the advice!  That’s a big deal!

Math

This week we started in with the first lessons in the Everyday Math program. Students have been revisiting and extending their understanding of place value in numbers up to the hundred-thousands place, rounding numbers up through the hundred-thousands place and working with data involving large numbers on charts.

    Please note that I now have a link for homework tutorials on my web page. These tutorials are meant to provide support for your child when they are having difficulty at home. I hope they are helpful.

Spelling

This week students started the first unit of the program.  Two of the skills focused on in this unit include vowel types (long/short) and silent letters.  On Wednesday students completed Unit 1’s homework with me in class.  Most were able to finish, though a few did not because our class periods are shorter on Wednesdays.  They understand what I’m looking for in regards to quality and I’m hoping that things will go smoothly next week when it is sent home on Tuesday.

Theme

Students started learning about rocks and minerals this week.  On Monday we completed an investigation called, “Rock, Not a Rock” to help students discover the characteristics of rocks and how to use scientific details to support their ideas.  We went on a rock walk and pick out a rock for further study.  On Friday, students learned how to make careful scientific observations and drawings.

    Thursday was Constitution Day.  By law we were required to teach a lesson about the U.S. Constitution.  I read David Catrow’s We The Kids to each class, which puts the Preamble into kid-friendly language.  We watched the SchoolHouse Rock video on the Preamble, and completed Constitution word searches.

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, September 21st - Reading logs due

Tuesday, September 22nd - Home link due

Wednesday, September 23rd

Thursday, September 24th - Spelling due

Friday, September 25th - Home link due

THE GREELY GAZETTE NEWSPAPER CLUB -  Those students who are interested in joining the Greely Gazette newspaper staff this  year should attend the informational meeting in the GMS library on Tuesday, September 22nd  from 3-4 pm. This year the focus of our meetings will be on: how to choose and research an event or topic for The Greely Gazette, how to conduct an interview, how to construct and edit an article for publication, and how to put The Greely Gazette  together for final publication. While comics may be submitted to The Gazette for consideration, the actual writing comics will no longer be part of The Gazette's weekly meetings. Students may take the late bus home, or have their parents pick them up in the GMS lobby at 4 pm. For more information, see Mrs. Sprague

The Greely Color Guard will begin on Thursday, October 1st.  The first practice will run from 3-4pm in the GMS gym.  Interested students should have brought home a flyer this week.  You can find more information at the club’s website, https://sites.google.com/a/msad51.org/hedman/NYMS/color-guard.  If you’re not sure what color guard is, please follow this link to last year’s performance.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UJO5-fjtyE

Thank you to those who were able to make it to the fourth grade open house on Tuesday!  If you were unable to make it, I have included a parent handbook in your child’s take home folder.  You can also access a digital copy of the handbook on the blog.  Mrs. Mayberry has made our presentation available online: https://goo.gl/hwHuaP

McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

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

We are spending most of our energy establishing and practicing routines, while slipping in a little new learning here and there.  Most students have been doing well with reading logs so far.  Please remember that they are due on Monday, and there is some supervision on your part to help w/ adding minutes and to sign it at the bottom before it’s handed in to show that you’re aware of your child’s reading this past week and agree that the log is fourth grade quality.  What does fourth grade quality work look like?  Well, all fourth graders are different, and while we recognize and accommodate for those differences, we would like students’ work…

• to look like the child tried hard
• to look like the child cares about the work
• to have mistakes erased and not written over
• reasonably neat (or even very neat, if possible)
• to be done in regular pencil only
• to be complete
• to have correct capitalization (Your child has a chart in her/his reading notebook that lists the capitalization rules.)

Please check the log as often as needed to make sure your child is filling it out completely.  There shouldn’t be a whole lot of blanks or question marks.  There may be a question mark when your child has looked for but can’t find the level of a book.  With your guidance, have your child try the Book Wizard at Scholastic.com: http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/bookwizard/

Use this site to check the Guided Reading Level, to find books at certain levels, and to search for books similar to a favorite.  Not all books are in the database, and not all books have a reading level.  Over the course of your child’s reading life, s/he has learned other strategies to choose books that are a good fit, and we call upon those strategies often.

Books your child reads at school and for school can come from anywhere: any of our three classroom libraries, home, book stores, public libraries, etc.  Check out the photo of one of this week’s charts for some guidelines.

Writing Workshop

This week, we started off with a brief review of personal narrative writing (small moment stories), and then students showed their stuff through a writing prompt on Thursday.  While I haven’t read all of the stories yet, I took notes on my observations during the prompt, and I was impressed with what I saw.  ALL children generated an idea independently.  All children were engaged in their work, many for the entire 40 minutes!  I saw a number of students using strategies learned in earlier grades: using interesting leads, using carets to revise(!), and some evidence of paragraphing.  But honestly, what struck me most is it appeared that every child sees her-/himself as a writer, and tackled the prompt knowing s/he could write.  I think this speaks to the consistency and quality of our writing curriculum and the diligence of the teachers at MIW in terms of creating an environment where all children are and feel capable.  I’m very excited about the year ahead with the Mayberry and McFarland writers!

Math:

This week students participated in activities which promoted a positive growth mindset around learning math. We watched several short videos produced out of Stanford University under the leadership of Dr. Jo Boaler. In the first lesson we discovered and discussed how everyone has the capacity to learn math through perseverance. Much like working our muscles we must work our brain in order to strengthen mathematical connections. Students explored how looking for patterns and drawing mathematical representations help to connect the pathways in our brains which allows us to deeply understand math concepts. Along with the videos we worked on several challenging activities that helped to highlight the importance of how we learn math.

Throughout the year I will be encouraging these positive norms in math class.

Next week we will be jumping in with the first Everyday Math unit.

Spelling:

This week students took a pretest and a survey about their strategies as a speller.  These will not be graded and sent home, but they give me an idea of what patterns students know and don’t know, as well as what spelling strategies they have.  Next week we will start our first spelling unit.  I will do the homework in class with the kids for the first week, so they understand how to complete it and what we expect for quality.  

Theme:

Students started the year participating in several engineering challenges during theme time.  The purpose is to introduce students to the 4th grade ABCDE of problem solving (ask questions, brainstorm, choose an idea, do it, evaluate) and to start to develop a growth mindset within each student.  Students built card towers, a structure to hold pennies, and even engineered their own notebook!

Students also had a chance to observe the “naked egg” experiment, which demonstrates osmosis and is an example of some of the kitchen chemistry we’ll do throughout the year.

Next week we will begin our first unit, rocks and landforms.

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, September 14th - sneakers for P.E.

*Tuesday evening, September 15th - Fourth Grade Open House for Parents 6:00-7:00pm (in your child’s homeroom classroom)

Thursday, September 17th - writing notebook covers due

*The Fourth Grade Open House will be Tuesday, September 15th, from 6:00-7:00pm in our classrooms.  You will have a chance to meet all three teachers and learn about your child’s day and the curriculum of fourth grade.  We encourage you to attend and look forward to seeing you there!

News From the First Two Days

McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

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.”

Our First Two Days

"A two-day week?!  What’s the point?"  This was a first for us, and I must say I have loved it!  We have enjoyed the first two days of school all together for both days, just the 21 of us.  We’ve spent almost all of that time doing various kinds of activities to begin to establish who were are, individually and as a group.  This afternoon, we had a productive discussion about how we want our classroom to run, how we want to be treated, and how we will treat others and things around us.  This morning, we worked on placing our names along continuums to answer what kind of learners we are.  I will post a photo as soon as I have the OK from everyone to publish things from our classroom.  I think you’ll find it pretty interesting to see how your child sees her-/himself.

Notices, notices, notices!

I think the reason we have a four-day weekend is so you have time to fill out the back-to-school paperwork!  In the gray GMS 4-5 Handbook folder coming home in your child’s planner today, there are a bunch of items that will help us start off the year, keep organized, help your child, help me…  Please send back all that stuff -- or the items you choose to fill out -- early next week, and I’ll sort it all out and make sure it gets to where it needs to go.  Say, by Wednesday?  I’ll use that as the due date on the kids’ homework planner sheets.

Homework?

Your child is to bring home the purple homework planner every day, and s/he should bring it back to school every day.  We will use a weekly planner sheet that we’ll keep in the plastic sleeve to mark homework assignments and goings-on.  You will need to sign the planner sheet every day there is homework.  We will start this routine Tuesday of next week.  Our regular homework routine will start the week of Open House (which is September 15).  Until then, kids will have just a few homework assignments...But hopefully most of their after-school time will be spent enjoying the last afternoons and evenings of summer!

Soon, your child will start establishing a routine of reading at home, if s/he hasn’t already done so.  More info on that to come at Open House.  For now, everyone will start off with a reading log to help us with that routine, to reflect on our reading lives, and to help set goals for the fall.  The reading log situation may change for some students as the year marches on and as students’ needs change.  Please take note of the Parents’ Reading Survey in the handbook folder; that info can also help me individualize our reading program.

Allied Arts

Our AA schedule is as follows:

Monday: P.E. (Take note that we will have P.E. next week on Wednesday.  All students need sneakers every P.E. day.)

Tuesday: Music

Wednesday: Art

Thursday: Computer

Friday: Library

Next week

Students will begin our regular daily schedule, seeing all three teachers!  The routine is well-structured, and most students appreciate the additional movement and variety.  

I will usually post newsletter updates from our team to this blog each Friday...or Saturday or Sunday.  Stay tuned for more information about your child’s 4th grade year!

Have a great weekend!

Dena