Mayberry-McFarland Weekly News

for the week of December 12, 2016

Due Dates / Upcoming Events

Monday, December 19 - typed essays due for writing workshop* / reading logs due

Tuesday, December 20 - Home Link due

Wednesday, December 21 - full day / Celebration of Reading all afternoon: Bring books and reading materials of all kinds and something to get cozy with (stuffy, blankie…), and we’ll hunker down and READ!

Thursday, December 22 -  math journal pages: be all caught up / 4th Grade Holiday Swap: All fourth-grade teachers have prepared a winter activity, and students have signed up to participate in three of them...a very fun morning!  (Thank you to those who were able track down and donate wire for my bracelet-making sessions -- I have plenty now!)

Winter Break: Friday, December 23 - Monday, January 2, 2017

See you Tuesday, January 3!

Tuesday, January 3  - reading logs due: 8 different days from 12/19- 1 / 3

General News and Announcements

*Essays due for writing workshop: Most writers are already done and have nothing for homework over the weekend.  If not, your child has the directions on a neon yellow sheet of paper.  Parts about parent involvement are on the second page.  Here’s the link to the directions sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wmU4CVAk6YO9K5NwpJYdSD-8Wbm94wMp4GKJdh60qvA/edit

Adventure-Based Learning

This week, students crossed a river with their entire group using one less stepping stone than the number of children in their group.  Lots of interesting strategies, some frustration, and much success!  See the photos below:

Academic Updates:

Reading Workshop

This week, we started learning about identifying the main idea and supporting details of a text.  We used the lyrics to “Mr. Grinch” and later in the week an article about Michael Jackson.  Mcfarlands will have brought home the Grinch one, assessed for understanding of main idea and supporting details and for quality of work.  I’m almost done with the Mayberrys’.  I’ll have the MJ ones graded by the end of the weekend, to come home next week.  

    We will use different graphic organizers to organize our ideas, and I have a variety of “texts” to try out, including a couple of videos.  The concept of main idea can be tricky.  Soon after vacation, the kids will be working on a research project using a main idea structure to eventually create a presentation to teach others.

Writing Workshop

We got a lot accomplished this week: introduction and conclusion paragraphs earlier in the week, and then typing final drafts on the Chromebooks!  Unfortunately, we didn’t get any takers on the editing help due to scheduling conflicts, but I decided that maybe diving into the typing would support the spelling needs -- from what I have seen so far, it’s helped.  We talked about a couple of ways to use the device to help with spelling.  Kids shared their work with me via Google Drive, and I’ll begin scoring them this weekend.

Math

With unit 3 in the books, this week students started in on unit 4 of the EveryDay Math program. This unit focuses primarily on multi-digit multiplication and problem solving. In the first few lessons students learned to use extended multiplication and learned how to multiply with partitioning rectangles. They are becoming more and more aware of how important knowing their basic multiplication facts has become, keep practicing! Below are pictures of partners using a game on ConnectEd to practice partitioning rectangles.

Theme/Content

This week students continued to learn about challenges faced by the settlers of early Jamestown. In our read aloud, Blood on the River, the settlers have arrived in Virginia. The Virginia Company, a group of investors, have ordered the leaders of the colonists to find a location that meets the following criteria:

• The settlement must be surrounded on three sides by water so they can see any potential enemies approaching.
• The settlement needs deep water so the ships can be accessible.
• The area must not be too close to native people who may not be friendly

The chosen area was named Jamestown, after the King of England, in 1607.

    One of the disadvantages of the site was the access of clean, fresh water. So as a STEM extension students got to design a water filter with the challenge of filtering out a cup of VERY dirty water. Students were pretty amazed at how clear the water from their filtration devices turned out. Below are a few pictures of water filters at work.