Mayberry-McFarland Weekly News

for the week of October 2, 2017

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, October 9: Columbus Day - no school

Tuesday, October 10: McFarlands have P.E. (wear sneakers) / reading logs are due

Wednesday, October 11: full day / Mayberrys  have P.E. (wear sneakers)

Thursday, October 12: be caught up on math journal pages

Friday, October 13: homelink due

Monday, October 16:  reading logs due

General News and Announcements

Planned Absences

Please be sure to fill out a planned absence form if your child will be absent for a few days for a family event/vacation.

MUG Shots (Mechanics, Usage, Grammar)

Check out the MUG Shots your child does on Wednesdays in Writing Workshop!  This is a quick, easy, fun (in my opinion :) way to get in some age-appropriate grammar and mechanics instruction.  The kids have their hands up the entire time and are highly engaged.  It’s also a good way for them to experience getting “grades” on relatively concrete work, prompting them to think: “What did I do well on?  What could I have done better?  What will I pay attention to next time?”

SpellingCity

We have received a few of donations to help us fund SpellingCity for both classes -- thank you!  If you’d care to donate, we’d be happy to put your money toward the cause.  The cost is $60 per class.  Feel free to send in a few dollars.  https://www.spellingcity.com/

Academic Updates:

Writing Workshop

Almost all students have completed a detailed timeline as a plan for their narratives.  Today, we studied the Narrative Writing Checklist, which details all of the concepts and strategies that we’ll focus on throughout the rest of this unit.  

    All students logged on to SpellingCity this week as well.  As with any online program, there are some glitches, and I’m confident that we will work through them!  The main issue is that students who used SpellingCity last year were brought to their last year’s teachers’ groups.  I’ll work on that…  We will spend some time in class here and there for a couple of weeks getting to know the site and program and activities.  Before the end of October, SpellingCity activities will become a regular homework assignment.

Reading Workshop

We did a lot of independent reading this week. During this time, students are logging their reading, and many are pretty impressed with themselves and their accomplishments so far this year, in terms of how many books they’ve been able to finish!  They are also making connections from our minilessons to their own books and characters.  During this time, I ma meeting with readers one-on-one.  Together, we are noting strengths and setting informal reading goals for the fall.

    One opportunity we have all together as a team is a daily Read Aloud.  We meet in Mrs. Mayberry’s classroom after lunch and enjoy some quiet time as Mrs. Mayberry or I read to the kids.  Mrs. Mayberry started off the year with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.  I followed with Marvin Redpost: Why Pick on Me? and am now reading Granny Torrelli Makes Soup.  This time is special because, while our first priority is to enjoy a good book together, we take time to teach and reinforce the author’s writing moves and to connect to concepts we’re working on in Reading Workshop.  We choose books carefully and for a variety of reasons: to give kids experiences with more challenging texts than what they can access on their own; to expose them to the first book in a series in hopes they’ll continue with the series; to demonstrate higher level thinking with lower-level books; to share our favorites…  Despite the demands on our time and on our students’ time, we’ve prioritized this part of the day because it’s simply good stuff!

    

Math

This week students learned to identify types of angles and to differentiate quadrangles according to the number of parallel sides. We also worked on how to determine the perimeter of a polygon. On Thursday students took the end of unit assessment. I will have assessment packets ready to send home by the end of next week.

    Please continue to support your 4th grader with fact fluency. Our next math unit involves a lot of multiplication and knowing the basic facts will help your child successfully meet the standards in unit two.

Theme

In science students completed an activity that explored the answer to this question; Does a mountain last forever? They learned about the two forces that break apart rock, root wedging and ice wedging.  Below is a short video of our scientists hard at work conducting an experiment with sugar cubes and a tumbler.