Newsletter Mayberry-McFarland Weekly News

for the week of March 19, 2018

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, March 26: weekly reading logs due

Tuesday, March 27: No homelink due

Wednesday, March 28: early release day

Thursday, March 29: No homelink due

Friday, March 30: No SpellingCity this week

Monday, April 2 : weekly logs are due / March Reading Calendars are due

Special Announcements:

MEAs are starting on Monday. Tests are given each morning staring at 9:00 and on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons after lunch. Due to the testing schedule students will not have any math homework or Spelling City assignments this week.

On Friday, March 30th, all GMS 4-5 students will be participating in the Habitat for Humanity walk in the afternoon. Please remind your student to dress for the weather on Friday, including comfortable footwear. The walk is a 1-mile circuit in Cumberland Center.  Additional information is posted in the GMS ⅘ newsletter.

Mrs. Mayberry has submitted a grant proposal for various items to enhance a Maker Space for students in both classrooms. If you would like to read about the grant and possibly donate to the funding please click here.

Academic Updates

Writing Workshop

For the first few days this week, we worked on introduction paragraphs for our literary essays.  First, we focused on writing a lead sentence that makes a connection between the story and real life.  Then, we included a one-sentence summary of the story. For example, “Many of us have felt lonely at one point or another in our lives.  ‘Spaghetti’ is a story about a boy named Gabriel who is lonely and then finds company.” The introduction paragraph must also have the three supporting idea sentences and a meaningful ending sentence.  Our next step will be to write the three supporting idea paragraphs.

    On Friday, we completed a practice MEA Writing & Language test.  The kids recognized some of the skills from our past MUG Shots and IXL-LA work we’ve done this year (phew!).

Reading Workshop

Students practiced working in partnerships this week.  We watched a minute or two of a video showing a productive partnership meeting, and students noted what behaviors the girls displayed to make it work well.  Then, students did a shared reading with a partner. Next, they completed a vocabulary response independently. When they shared with their partners, they emulated the work the girls had done on the video.  Soon, we will combine partnerships into book clubs to include shared and independent reading, independent written responses, and conversations within the clubs.

    We also did a practice MEA Reading test, complete with sample student responses and a rubric that explained the reasons for the scores.

Math

In math this week we started unit 6 in the Everyday Math program. This unit focuses heavily on division of large numbers, number stories and measuring angles. In the first few lessons students were introduced to the partial quotients algorithm for division. Overall they picked up this new skill quickly and I heard comments like, “This is fun!” “Can we do more?” These moments truly make my teacher heart sing with joy!

Theme

This week most students finished their famous scientist project. You can view their projects in the case outside my classroom when you come in for your parent conference over the next few weeks.

Mayberry-McFarland Weekly News

for the week of March 5, 2018

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, March 12: weekly reading logs due

Tuesday, March 13: Home Link is due

Wednesday, March 14: FULL DAY

Thursday, March 15: math journal pages are due / No Homelink

Friday, March 16: NO SCHOOL/no SpellingCity this week

Monday, March 12: weekly logs are due

Special Announcements

On Tuesday, March 13th, all 4th grade students will be participating in an Iditarod activity as part of the Adventure-Based Learning (ABL) program. Part of this event will be held OUTSIDE. Please be sure your child has the appropriate attire for this day, including hats, gloves, snow pants, jackets and boots.

*Chorus students will still be having their concert rehearsal from 1:00-3:00.

Looking for: empty cereal boxes and cardboard tubes. Please send these in, and we will gladly repurpose them. Thanks

Kindness Rocks

We are asking students to bring in 1 or 2 palm-size rock(s) with a nice flat surface for a special project in connection with the school’s upcoming Habitat for Humanity Walk on March 30th. Rocks are needed NLT March 20th.

Academic Updates

Writing Workshop

Students have chosen the stories that they’ll be writing their own literary essays about, and they have crafted strong thesis statements.  Students have been annotating their copies of the stories, looking for evidence to support their thesis statements. They’re underlining, using brackets to indicate a longer section of text, using arrows, and writing in the margins their ideas as to how the details connect to their thesis statements.  This coming week, we will work on building solid boxes and bullets plans as the skeleton of the essay.

Reading Workshop

Mrs. Campbell and I have been collaborating to establish what independent work looks like and sounds like in our classroom; the students generated ideas, and they’ve been practicing working completely independently.  This is an important aspect to our upcoming book club work, when I won’t be holding individual reading conferences; I’ll be meeting with clubs and will therefore expect students to be independent.

    We have been practicing noticing details in books, determining what those details might tell us about the characters’ situations, and then asking ourselves, “What was it like to live in that time period?”  Some ideas that students have generated are, “Many people didn’t have enough food,” “Girls were not educated,” and “People had to make tough choices.”

   A higher-level concept that we are working on is identifying a theme of a text.  We are trying to go beyond a “life lesson,” such as, “Being honest is important.”  We already know that, right? So we are looking toward ONE word (sometimes two, less often, three) that represents a big idea.  Some themes we’ve identified are bravery, choices, fear, and freedom.

Math

This week we worked on finding lines of symmetry and we did a lot of work with multistep number stories. Students took the end of unit assessment on Friday. You can anticipate seeing progress packets by the end of next week.

Theme

This week students continued to work on their scientist research project. They are using books and online resources to gather information for a final project. Building in student choice, each child will have the option to select one of four types of final projects. All of this ties into the new read aloud being shared with students titled, The Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer Holm.

Mayberry-McFarland Weekly News

for the week of February 26, 2018

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, March 5: weekly reading logs due

Tuesday, March 6: Home Link is due

Wednesday, March 7: Early release

Thursday, March 8: math journal pages are due

Friday, March 9: Home Link is due/ SpellingCity is due

Monday, March 12: weekly logs are due

Academic Updates

Writing Workshop

We are big-time into our literary essay unit!  This is my second-favorite unit of the year (poetry is #1).  I love this unit, because kids not only demonstrate sophistication in their writing, but they also show sophistication in their reading.  We loop back to many of the concepts from our earlier reading unit about characters: thinking deeply about the character’s traits, how the character changes, what the character learns or realizes, and identifying themes in a text.  Some students might also investigate the author’s craft through the use of figurative language.  Lots of writing progress happens during this unit!

Reading Workshop

I offered a monthly reading calendar to all of our readers for the month of March!  Most students are choosing to try it out after hearing feedback from others who have been using them in January and February.  Please expect your child to share it with you and explain how it works.  One change is that parents need to initial the calendar each day the child reads.  This helps to keep the kids on track, as there is no weekly reading expectation, just a monthly goal.

    In class, we are working on a historical fiction unit.  Mrs. Angela Campbell, our literacy specialist, will be working on this unit with us.  She and I are making plans to have book clubs in which students will work toward meeting standards from the Common Core related to speaking and listening.  These skills will be a priority for language arts instruction K-5 over the next few years.

    In addition, our fourth grade team is so excited to be hosting author Andrew Clements in April!  I ordered as many of his books as my budget would allow for our classroom library, and the Andrew Clements shelf is completely cleared off-- everybody wants one!  We have a chart in the classroom where kids can write their names next to the titles of the books they read.  This serves a number of purposes: to celebrate the accomplishment of reading some of these great stories, to see which books are popular, and to see who has read what so we can get recommendations!  I don’t have all of his books; he has tons out there!  Please encourage your child to seek out his other titles at PML or from other sources.  Here is a link to Andrew Clements’ website with all of his titles: https://www.andrewclements.com/books.

Math

In math this week students continued to manipulate fractions and mixed numbers using addition and subtraction. Also, students had an introduction to gathering data and creating line plots to show their findings.

    Just before vacation students had a little fun with mathballs! Enjoy the action.

Theme

This week students started a new research project where each student selected a famous scientist to learn about. They are using books and online resources to gather information for a final project. Building in student choice, each child will have the option to select one of four types of final projects. All of this ties into the new read aloud being shared with students titled, The Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer Holm.