McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of March 14, 2016

*sorry for the delay!*

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, March 21st - snow day!

Tuesday, March 22nd - MEA testing

Wednesday, March 23rd - Early Release Wednesday / MEA testing

Thursday, March 24th -  MEA testing

Friday, March 25th - MEA testing/MEA make-ups

Academic Updates:

Reading Workshop

There is lots of book-sharing, recommendations, and asking for and passing along of historical fiction books in this room!  This week, we have focused on choosing HF chapter books from a wide variety of time periods.  I flipped through the baskets of books, telling the kids snippets about the time periods, plots, and authors, and it ended up being like an auction: “Who wants it?” I’d ask, and hands would go up like crazy!  I have multiple copies for instant book clubs and a bunch of series; many kids are reading the Sarah, Plain and Tall series (by Patricia MacLachlan, author of Journey, our mentor text from the character unit).  Mrs. Begley is reading the series to her class, and the McFarland readers are handing them around, giving advice (“Don’t read the back of the book; it gives away too much!”).  Lots of enthusiasm about books and reading -- what’s better than that?

Writing Workshop

Literary essays are done!  Writers used their Google Drive accounts to type the final drafts this week, and it was so easy to manage since we have 10 Chromebooks temporarily in each classroom, thanks to our upcoming MEA tests (more on that in last week’s school newsletter)!  I’m using the same checklist format to grade the essays as I used for the informational texts.  The checklist itself is familiar to the kids, as we’ve used them in each unit, and I added the E, M, P, D columns to reflect the points on a correlating rubric.  The meaning of the rubric is lost on most of our 4th grade writers, and this checklist has seemed to provide useful feedback.  Plus, it’s short enough to photocopy and send home so parents see the grades and feedback as well.  I’ll share those with you at our upcoming parent-teacher conference.  Next up: historical fiction stories!

 

Math

Let the division learning begin! This week we jumped into unit 6 and have begun the process of learning how to divide numbers beyond the basic facts. The first few lessons involved using extended division facts to answer problems. For example: if  27 / 9 = 3, then 270 / 9 = 30. Students also worked on finding the missing length of a rectangle when the area and one side is known. I have two Quizlets attached to my web page which support much of the work we did this week. Your child may enjoy using these to practice extended division. Due to the focus on MEA testing next week there will be no math homework. Whoot- whoot!

Spelling

This week due to guidance and project work, we didn’t have as much time for spelling.  Students completed homework for Unit 22 this week, but did not take the review.  Next week I will catch the kids up on the lessons of the unit, but due to testing, we will not have homework.

Theme

This week students worked hard to finish up their state projects.  Thanks to Lois Robeck, Tricia Burrell, and Jen Segal for pitching in to help with the trimming and proofreading.  Most students are finished and begun grading their projects with me.  I want students to have a hand in using the rubric and making decisions about how well they have met the criteria.  We will have the projects on display at conferences.

    Today, we had the pleasure of welcoming Frank Von Holzhausen, Zach Vanni’s grandfather, to help us kick off a four session STEM challenge to build a better mousetrap.  Frank talked about his job as a designer, gave background information on mice, and helped the kids to do a little planning.  During the month of April the kids will design and build their trap and Frank will return in May and the kids will present their designs to him.

    Next week most of our classes are shot, due to MEA testing.  Once testing is over, we will begin a short unit on landforms.