Walk to School Week is NEXT Week!

The Green Team invites you to join us for Walk and Bike to School Week, Oct.3-7! Students who walk, bike, or scooter to school will get a reward each morning! Plus, students can wear special colors or certain shirts each day to represent being healthy, safe, and green!

MONDAY, Oct. 3 - Wear RED for transportation safety!

TUESDAY, Oct. 4 - Wear BLUE for water conservation

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 5 - Wear your favorite sports shirt or jersey for exercising and being active for good health!

THURSDAY, Oct. 6 - Wear GREEN for recycling, composting and reusing!

FRIDAY, Oct. 7- Wear Orange or Yellow to represent wearing bright colors when biking or walking outside


The Oak Park Public Library Book Bike will be at Mann after school to allow students to check out fantastic books and participate in fun activities onTuesday, Oct. 4 (rain date Oct. 6).

*A raffle drawing will occur during the week for those students who participate in the Mann School Walk-a-Thon, which will take place during school on Tuesday, Oct. 4 (rain date Oct. 5). Please support the local businesses that have donated prizes for this week: Lively Athletics, Forevermore Dance and Theatre Arts, and Wonder Works.

Math- Tape Diagrams

This week students will be introduced to Tape Diagrams.  Tape diagrams are a very helpful way to model addition and subtraction problems.  Since it is a visual model it requires kids to pay attention to how to set them up; this method and model greatly helps students make sense of word problems and setting up the problems to solve.  Especially the multi-step problems we will do this year!

Here are a few videos to help you get a better understanding of what Tape Diagrams are and how they work.

This is a quick video showing tape diagrams with single digit addition & subtraction to help understand how they work.
 


Here is a longer video showing kids in a 4th grade classroom using tape diagrams to make sense of math.  The days of teaching a formula and asking kids to memorize it are over.  From years of doing that, we have learned it doesn't work.  Kids only remember those formulas or algorithms for a short time and need to be retaught the same thing year after year.  If we teach kids how numbers work with models, they understand numbers and are able retain and apply a concept in multiple contexts.

Reading Update: Out of My Mind

The kids started reading the novel Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper this week. This is a beautifully written story that ties perfectly into our first trimester unit of accepting & respecting.  Students will be doing a majority of the reading at home so we can use our class time for a variety of activities and discussions.

We have divided the book into 4 chunks that we will read over the course of 4 weeks. They will be assigned to read one chunk of the novel each week and that will be due each Tuesday. If they save the entire chunk until Monday to read, it will be overwhelming; please monitor that your child is keeping up with the reading each night.


Helpful Links: 

• Out of My Mind Introduction to the Novel This is the presentation the 4th grade teachers used in class to introduce the novel to the children. 
• Reading Guide Questions that you can discuss with your child as they read Out of My Mind.
• During each chunk, the students will be stopping to think while they read. This is an imporant skill that I often find the kids are not doing. To practice this skill, they will write an annotation on sticky note for each chapter.​   Click here for the Post-It Note Directions

Math Update- Lessons 1-4 Check In

This week we finished the lessons on Place Value of Multi-digit Numbers in our curriculum (lessons 1-4).  Yesterday, all the kids completed a "Check-In" over the concepts in these 4 lessons.  I often give kids check ins after every few lessons to make sure they are keeping up.  I grade it to see if they are understanding the concepts but it doesn't necessary end up as a grade in my grade book- it is more so to inform my instruction.  Today, in math I pulled small groups of students to review misconceptions I noticed on the check in, so your child should have a good understanding of all the concepts in lessons 1-4.   I am going to send home the check ins today, and I ask that you review them with your child and send them back signed on Monday.  I also made the below video that reviews problems from the check in or similar problems.  Please consider having your child watch the below video to work on concepts they are still struggling with.  You might even want to watch this to help understand the place value tables and terminology we have been using in class.

Lesson 1-4 Review Video
Lesson 1-4 Video Handout this is optional to complete the problems along with the video (you can print this out or your child can open it on their iPads and fill it in digitally while they watch the video).

Our first formal quiz will take place after lesson 10.  If all goes as planned, students will take that quiz on Monday, 9/26.  As we get closer to the quiz, kids will write the official date in their planners. Students will receive a study guide next week to begin preparing for the quiz!

Thanks so much for your support from home!

Class Name Voting

Boys & Girls!  You have done a wonderful job brainstorming creative class names.  After spending some time narrowing down our long list together, here are the final names you have to pick from. Please take a moment to think about each name and select your top 3 favorite names!

Curriculum Night Presentation

You CAN Grow Your Intelligence

In reading today, we started working on our nonfiction reading & annotation skills.  We read a fantastic article, "You Can Grow Your Intelligence."  This article was involved in a rather interesting research study that I read many  years ago and it had marvelous effects on student effort and growth!  For homework tonight, I asked the kids to talk to their families about growing their intelligence.

Later this week, we will watch two short, interesting videos: Neuroplasticity and The Learning Brain.  Parents, I suggest taking a few minutes to watch these videos and discuss them with your child too!  This is powerful knowledge for the kids to get their hands on!

Finally parents, if you have the time (this is a longer one), give this article a read: New Research: Students Benefit from Learning That Intelligence Is Not Fixed!  I find this all fascinating and I hope you do too! 

Thanks for your support from home :)

Growth Mindset in Math

I will work hard to foster a growth mindset in all my students this year as I believe (and research shows) it has a big impact on success. We started our journey of growing our growth mindsets in math yesterday!  Here is some of what we did!  Parents, I ask that you take a look at this and try to increase your growth mindset this year too!  Be sure to talk to your child about this!

Here is a list of strategies the kids came up with to get themselves unstuck in math class.