Have a safe and happy Halloween! Don't forget to bring in candy to don't to the troops in Kuwait- the class with the largest mass will win a pizza lunch (YUM- that's Mrs. Chrystall's favorite food!)
***Don't forget that "Section 1: My Ancestors" and "Section 2: The Interview" must be completed in the heritage project packet by MONDAY! Just complete the packet pages with all the info- we will do the rest in class. Here's the project link again in case you need it.
Parents and students, we have our test of theme and summary on Monday. Please take some to review this concept over the weekend. Here are some videos, practice, and a prezi to help you in your studying efforts.
The Heritage Project
Today I am sending home our Heritage Project packets for parents and students to preview. We are going to go over the project on Monday and I will answer any questions then. I wanted to give the kids their packets today so they can begin planning for their interviews. Interviews and info sheets are due by Monday, November 3rd.
Mystery Reader from Last Week
Thank you to Matthew's dad for being our mystery reader last week. We really loved the spooky and funny short stories you chose to read to our class.
Donated Books!! THANK YOU!
Thank you to Sandra, Adam, Ivan, Leah, and Meredith who purchased fabulous books at the book fair this week to donate to our classroom library.
Buddies
This week we used our iPads to work with our buddies on the "Explain Everything" and "EDU Creations" app. We made podcasts to explain help our friends learn their current math skill, Skip Counting.
The Witches
We were finally able to watch our movie as a reward and have our comparison discussion.
Did you know that you and your child can look through our collection of library books while in the comfort of your home?! This link (http://www.op97.org/mann/mediacenter/index.cfm) will take to you to my library page where you will find all sorts of fantastic tools! If you have a few minutes, please watch the video about searching for books by Lexile score. You will be given your child's Lexile score at teacher conferences. This score is determined during the MAP assessment.
Kids in grades 3-5 should be very familiar with using our catalog! Please let me know if you have any questions, or if I can provide any help in finding a suitable book for your child.
Today is the start of conferences for The Chrystall Miners. I am so looking forward to meeting with everyone. Here are a few important links for your reference:
Homework Help Club: This year at Mann, we will be offering HHC to students in 3rd through 5th grade. It will be offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:00pm-4:00 beginning Tuesday, October 28, 2014. Please use the google form to sign up your child if you are interested in this program.
4th Grade Report Card Info: As a 4th grade team, we complied a list of the standards that will be covered in the first trimester to help parents get a better understanding of the standards based report cards. Please take a look at the link and let me know if you have any questions about report cards at our conference.
Schedule: Finally, please take a look at the conference schedule link again if you need to double check your time. Remember, I'd love it if your child was at the conference. They are who we are conferencing about, and I want make them an active member of our discussion.
In honor of the CAST play we saw today, 1000 Cranes, here is the video to make an origami crane! It's going to take a lot of effort to master this, but I know you can do it!
Parents, remember that conferences are next week. I emailed my conference schedule last week.
Today we planned to watch the movie version of The Witches for our reward and our book/movie talk.... Unfortunately we have had a lot of technology/wifi problems in our district this week so the digital copy I rented wouldn't play. We were disappointed for sure, but I just went on amazon and bought us a copy of the DVD to watch next week (either Thursday or Friday we think)!
Remember, we are starting to read the novel Rules by Cynthia Lord next week (parents, see the email I sent you earlier in the week about this). Please talk to your child about the novel and make sure they are keeping up with their assigned reading chapters.
The 5th graders came to talk to our class about Student Council Service Team this morning. If your child is interested in joining the service team at Mann, they need to complete the application below. It really is a great opportunity so please consider it.
Thanks to Ian's mom, Soumya, for sharing this interesting article about metacognition. It is such a useful skill for kids to learn. I haven't explicitly used the word metacognition with the kids yet, but I will now!
Also, there is another link to teaching kids about neuroplasticity within the article above. I spent some time at the start of the year teaching the kids about this concept and they often refer back to it. Here is the link to the video we watched in early September: http://youtu.be/ELpfYCZa87g It's pretty interesting!
It was time for our "What's in a Name" project display to come down. I know most parents saw it at curriculum night, but I wanted to post for those who missed it.
The name projects came down, so we could make room for common prefixes, suffixes, and bases.
Thursday was our favorite sports jersey day! Look at all those Hawks and Bulls fans!
In social studies, we are using a "flipped classroom" model. This is where the kids will be assigned readings and/or videos to read and/or watch at home for homework. Then in class we can do activities and engage in discussions with classmates. Please be sure your child is doing the assigned reading and that they are reading for real understanding (not just skimming). We call it close reading. Because we did not have to use class time to read the first lesson, we were able to spend our social studies period categorizing, organizing, and analyzing our state maps shading activity. It was honestly the best teamwork I have seen from our class all year. The kids determined what would be considered a majority and what was the best way to collect the data. It was one of the kids ideas to have everyone to leave the maps on their desks and then work in teams to collect data for each category. It was also great for our kinesthetic learners! We had a great discussion following it which naturally introduced the concept of regions. We will also use this information for a mini-research project later in our SS unit!
Look at the engagement and teamwork happening with our kids! I couldn't have been more pleased with what they did with this lesson and what they got out of it.
Math games during the chorus time. This week we played "Closest to 100." It was perfect to help us gain better understanding of the addition, place value, and rounding skills we are working on in math class. I saw some "AHA moments" while the kids were playing. I love when I see things start to click!
And probably the most exciting thing last week was earning our FIRST class reward for compliments received in the hall. I have to say the behavior our class struggled with the most at the start of the year, was moving through the hallway quietly. Kids were talking, yelling, and walking in clumps rather than a line. It was really distracting to classrooms we passed and it was a bad example for the younger kids in the building. I introduced this incentive program 3-4 weeks ago because the class just did not have that internal motivation to move quietly through the halls. Within a week of our incentive program, our The Chrystall Miners were moving through the hallways near perfectly.
We took our vote for the reward today and The Witches movie viewing overwhelmingly won (parents, see the email I sent you on Thursday for more details on this). We will watch the film on Friday. I am really looking forward to the discussion that will follow. Seeing a movie after I have read my book is one of my absolute favorite things to do. I just got the chance to see Gone Girl last night after reading the book a few summers ago- I was talking about the book and the movie the rest of the night (next time I am making my husband read the book to so our discussion isn't so one sided :). I often hear kids say that they liked movies better than books- I want to teach them young that the book is ALWAYS better than the movie! It will teach them to be ferocious readers!
I wanted to remind/inform you that I have been posted the answer keys from the classwork under the math tab of my blog. This is to help students (and parents) with the math homework since the homework mirrors the classwork!
Today was our first day of our first unit in Social Studies. We explored the question: What is Geography? After seeing some examples and some discussion, the kids were able to write a definition of geography in their own words. Since we are focusing on US geography in this unit, the kids explored the states by working in teams to complete a puzzle of the United States. The teamwork was outstanding!
Teamwork exploring US Geography
The final product!
Tonight for homework, your child is going to be asking you about the states they have been to in their lifetime (this is due on Wednesday). They need to shade in their map of the states they have been to in green and the states they would really like to go to in any color of their choice. They must also STAR their favorite state that they've been to. They need to have an accurate key on the map so anyone else who read their map would understand it. Here is my example to help:
The states Mrs. Chrystall has been too and where she still really wants to go!
This morning on my drive to Oak Park from the city, I heard Pharrell's song "Happy." As I was singing along in the car and dancing, I decided to take the theme and run with it. We started our morning by listening to it a few times on repeat while we unpacked our supplies and got ready for the day. Then, we ended up having a 4th grade Zumba party during indoor recess to stay active; I made sure to do the Zumba to "Happy" on GoNoodle. It's not all a coincidence though. First of all, I am so happy with the school year. We really have been learning and growing so much. I can't believe we have only been in fourth grade a little over month. It's been such a positive experience that there is nothing to feel but happiness. More importantly, we are starting a new essay in Writers Workshop next week. The topic is "I'm Happy." I am really looking forward to developing our writing skills further and learning about what makes the Chrystall Miners truly happy!
Next week we have many new things to look forward to. We finished our science unit with a test on Magnetism and Electricity today. So that means next week we will start a four week social studies unit. We will begin exploring geography with an emphasis on states, landforms, and regions. In addition to that we will begin weekly spelling words to improve our knowledge of spelling patterns. I will send an email to parents with more information regarding this later in the week. For homework next week, kids will be color coding the states they have been to and the states they want to go to. Your child may need some help remembering the states they have experienced in their lives. In reading, we are going to take an assessment covering point of view on Monday. The kids are expected to compare and contrast the point in two stories and of course use details from the text as evidence. After that, we will be beginning our work on summarizing and theme in reading. I've noticed the kids can retell a story well but struggle with being succinct when summarizing.
Here are some other exciting activities that happened with The Chrystall Miners this week!
The Chrystall Miners hit the newsstands!
Mrs. Sullivan, our student support specialist, was our mystery reader today!
