Mayberry-McFarland Weekly News

for the week of October 31, 2016

Due Dates / Upcoming Events

Monday, November 7 - reading logs due

Tuesday, November 8 - Home Link due

Wednesday, November 9 - full day / McFarlands have PE (swimming!)

Thursday, November 10 -  ABL (sneakers are helpful) / math journal pages catch-up due / Book Fair Family Night until 7:45

Friday, November 11 - no school: Veterans Day

Monday, November 14 - reading logs due

General News and Announcements

We are finding ourselves getting serious (*insert stern teacher look*) about behavior expectations, as many of you have heard through recent parent-teacher conferences.  We believe that each day every child deserves to experience a classroom community that is safe, productive, and (hopefully) fun.  One specific behavior that is getting in the way is that a surprisingly large number of students are ignoring directions.  This has been highly unusual in past years, as we run a pretty tight ship, as needed.  

    When directions are followed effectively, the climate in the room is impacted in many positive ways:

• Students feel safe.
• Time is used effectively, which means students have more time for learning.

    When directions are not followed, the climate in the room is impacted in negative ways for all members of the classroom community:

• Students feel confused and anxious.
• Time and energy spent redirecting or repeating the directions takes time, energy, and fun away from learning.

    We need your support at home by talking with your child about her/his contributions to our classroom climate.  Of course, discussions will vary from family to family, especially since there are, thankfully, children who try hard to do the right thing on a consistent basis (and we show our appreciation for that in a number of ways).  We appreciate your time and attention to this at home, as we continue to strive for a positive, caring, productive classroom climate for all students.

Reading Workshop

We are anticipating the turning point of our mentor text, Journey.  We are looking for clues:  First, simply noticing where we are are in the book -- halfway -- tells us that we should be on the lookout for details that hint at change.  There’s also a brand new “character” in the book, Bloom, a cat, who is meeting some of the characters’ needs.  We are also noticing how other characters are reacting and dealing with the main problem in the story (that Journey’s mother has left the family).  And we are seeing certain “moments” that Journey is sharing with his grandfather, and that shows us that there is a change in their relationship.  

    We are also revising a big idea that we’ve been growing in our notebooks.  At first, our idea was, “Journey is an angry person,” and we have revised it to say, “Journey is blaming Grandfather for Mama leaving.”  It’s not a book for light-weights!

Writing Workshop

Essays, here we come!  This has been a most productive week in writing workshop.  I’ve shared samples of essays with both classes, so they can see how an essay is built and how it’s different from a narrative.  We also focused on creating strong thesis statements, and partners revised a number of so-so thesis statements.  Ask your child about “bus talk” and why we’re going to avoid using it in our essays.

    I shared the 4th Grade Opinion Writing Checklist, and we took notes on it to get to know what the qualities are of a good essay.  We will continue to refer to the checklist to help us revise our work throughout the unit, to determine teaching points for mini-lessons, and for the kids to ask me to teach certain skills.  Yes, sometimes I make them ask for it!  This can certainly be a time of significant growth for our 4th-grade writers!

Math

This week students took the end of unit assessment for the second Everyday Math Unit. This assessment encompassed being able to identify factors of a given number, multiples of a 1-digit number, extended multiplication with multiples of 10, area of a rectangle, and multiplication number stories. Your child’s unit assessment packet will be either shared at your conference or will be sent home next week.

    We also kicked off the third math unit this week. This next unit has a strong emphasis on fractions and decimals. Students will also continue to strengthen their multiplication skills in this unit.

Theme/Content

On Monday, students took a break from our social studies unit and enjoyed a STEM challenge. After learning how boats float and the concept of water displacement, they worked in small groups to create their own aluminum foil boats. Their challenge was to build a boat that held as many pieces of candy corn as possible. Below are a few snapshots from this challenge.

Students were also introduced to the final project in our cartography/geography unit.  If your fourth-grader starts talking about newly-discovered lands, just know they are getting excited about their project.  Stay tuned!