THANK YOU SO MUCH for everything you did to make our Halloween day a success! I really, really appreciate everyone's willingness to help and support our activities for the day. You are the best! Students had a great time applying new math skills to their pumpkins. Our day was so full of learning that we didn't actually get a chance to carve the pumpkins. If anyone donated tools that they wish to receive back please let me know! Otherwise I will consider them a donation for future years. :) You can see all of our halloween pictures in our Class Pictures folder. Thank you to Dr. Sahr who shared her skills in neuroscience with us Friday afternoon. We were so lucky to have her volunteer to show our students what a real-world scientist can do! She shared her sheep & mouse brain specimens with us to really wrap up our Halloween day! We were also able to see her collection of ashes and hear her story from the eruption of Mt. St. Helen in 1980 when she lived in Washington state. What a great experience for our class! Thanks again Dr. Sahr! Students did a GREAT job wrapping up our math unit on 1-digit by 2,3, & 4-digit multiplication! Our next chapter will focus on multiplying 2 digit by 2 digit numbers! Just a friendly reminder to NOT show students the standard algorithm until we get there! It is really important that they understand WHY the standard algorithm is a short-cut that works. This requires laying a solid foundation before introducing it. Please make sure your students are studying and continue to practice their math facts at home! We have quizzes every Thursday in Room 1. Students are tracking their own progress to feel free to ask them about it! Their math fact knowledge can effect their performance within our long multiplication units. I hate to see students get the process completely correct and end up with a wrong answer due to lack of fact fluency! Fluency of 1 digit by 1 digit multiplication facts is a third grade standard that is expected to already be mastered. Please help us to make sure all the students have mastered them! Next week students will be receiving information regarding an upcoming book project involving a RUSH reading book of their choice. All information regarding the project can be found under the Room 1>Assignments>RUSH Book Projects Tab. The due date of the first project will be Friday, December 4. Although we will be discussing and planning all month please be sure to check-in with your students and keep tabs at home!
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What a great week in Room 1! Although I wasn't here for two days we were able to accomplish A LOT and everyone was so well-behaved for our guest teachers and substitutes! New WebsitesWe started work this week with RAZ kids and TypingPal online programs. RAZ kids is a reading program that is already set to your child's reading level. They log on and read any "just-right" choices they wish. The books can be read to them and they can take quizzes at the end. I encourage them to use this resource at home as well! It is perfect for their RUSH reading! TypingPal.com provides an opportunity for students to practice their typing skills. They move through lessons and their progress is marked. Both their log-ins to these programs can be found in their agendas. The links can be found under the "links" tab on our classroom website. HalloweenNext Friday will be a Halloween themed day in Room 1! We will revolving our daily curriculum around halloween-based activities. Additionally, students are encouraged to dress up. Please do not wear any masks or full face make-up, bring in violent or inappropriate props, or change at school. (Costumes must be worn to school.) Thank you to our room parents who have organized a Halloween Party sign-up to help us carry out our day! I am very much looking forward to next Friday! Next WeekClick here to see next week's outlook. Some important highlights are the math multiplication test on Thursday and our Halloween themed day on Friday! We will also be partaking in a digital citizenship assembly Tuesday morning! Be sure to ask your students what they are learning! Computer ScienceWe have begun our unit on coding. I am so looking forward to seeing all these creative, problem-solvers at work as the weeks progress! Our first lesson consisted of viewing a great TED talk by an inspirational 12 year old app creator. We molded our basic understanding of what it means to code and then their task was to code me to make a sunbutter & jelly sandwich! Things got PRETTY messy in Room 1 this afternoon. Through this exercise they learned that step by step directions need to be specific and direct in order to run smoothly. Ask them about today's experiment! Thank you everyone! Have a great weekend!Distributive PropertyWe are starting to learn about breaking numbers apart in order to multiply. Please see these examples of using parenthesis and the distributive property to multiply. Students are tasked with using their skills for multiplying multiples of ten (that we have been practicing with) to break apart a number into multiples of ten so it is easier to multiply. These example problems may be helpful when assisting with homework. I suggest for those having trouble with this concept to focus on breaking apart with addition rather than subtraction. Parent Information SharePlease click here to allow room parents the use of your email address. Social Studies Quiz Next WeekWe spent this week finishing up our Social Studies lessons on map skills! Students will have a quiz next Wednesday. Please use quizlet to study vocabulary. We have reviewed all the terms in class and students know they should be studying! Here are printable flashcards if you would prefer that format! :) Stressed? Anxious?To relieve some feelings of stress or anxiety in Room 1 we are taking part in a breathing exercise study. Students have been practicing with a breathing exercise twice a day that studies show increase their focus and relax their bodies. We filled out a "pre-assessment" for them to rank their anxious feelings on a scale and we will also fill out a "post-assessment" once we have completed the trial. Ask your students to show you their breathing exercise! Additionally, I have gifted them smiley face stress falls that we are using as a tool not a toy. They have (for the most part) been exercising their use of them appropriately. I hope they find these helpful as we move through our days! MassCUE/M.A.S.S. Technology ConferenceI am attending the MASSCUE conference at Gillette Stadium next Wednesday and Thursday so there will be a substitute in my classroom. This is a fabulous technology conference that I had the privilege of presenting at last year! I am so excited to go back and have the opportunity to be a student and learn from educators in other communities. I hope to come back with new skills and ideas for our classroom! Computer ScienceIn accordance with our digital citizenship lessons we are moving full steam ahead with our computer Science skills! Next week we will be diving into the idea of coding and its benefits for people of all ages! Please click here to view my blog post on coding. We will be participating in the Hour of Code with millions of classrooms across the nation during the week of HalloweenPlease stay tuned for information regarding Halloween in Room 1! Students are permitted to wear costumes, however excessive makeup, face masks, or inappropriate props are not permitted. Spelling Extra CreditThe next unit in the spelling book is a "Review" unit. I like to assign those pages as extra credit (pgs. 44-47) for those students who want to help their spelling grades. I will grade those pages out of a percentage and then that percentage will replace their lowest spelling test grade at the end of the term. This is great way to boost their grade! Especially if they have one lower score they were disappointed with!
Area Models (Similar to Arrays)Partial ProductsMath UpdateStudents did a nice job working hard on their Math tests today! They really let their addition and subtraction skills shine! Please look for their tests coming home to be signed and returned :) We are moving onto our next topic, which is "Multiplying by 1 Digit Numbers." Students will be able to:
School-Home Connection Letter for this Chapter: Math Facts QuizzesAs we enter into our next Math Unit it is becoming increasingly important that students have mastered their multiplication facts. Please consider using Xtramath.org or some quizlet flashcards to prepare and study consistently. We will be taking math facts quizzes on Thursdays every week starting next week (quizzes are printed from www.math-drills.com). Although I will be timing them it is ONLY to measure progress. All students will be given as much time as they need to complete their facts sheet. They will begin using one colored pencil and then after 5 minutes I will ask them to switch to using another colored pencil. This way I can see how many they complete in 5 minutes but they still have the opportunity to practice and complete their math sheets. I am much more interested in accuracy and progress than I am in a time limit. The switching colors allows them to see their own progress and we compare weeks. Memory BooksEach of your students have been given a marble composition notebook that they have decorated as their "Memory Journals." Memory Journals are due in class every Tuesday or Wednesday of each week. Students are to write a full page letter about any memories from the previous week or weekend. It could be a memory from home or at school. This assignment will be do the second class day of every week. They are not due on Mondays because I cannot assign homework over the weekend, however, in the past, the majority of parents and students have opted to complete this over the weekend. They will be due Tuesday or Wednesday to give students weekday time to work on their memories. These journals give me a great insight into students lives outside school and also create a great memento of fourth grade memories to reflect on in years to come! I encourage pictures and all sorts of additions to their journal entries! ScienceWe are continuing to learn about Plate Tectonics. This week we focused on the different types of boundaries and what they mean for landforms. We will be entering into a series of "Field Studies" where we will "travel" to different areas of the world that exhibit clear features of the different boundaries. Our first stop is Iceland! Click here to see what we will be discovering about Iceland. As we move through these Field Studies students will be graded on a 1-4 scale by their performance in their notebooks. These will translate to quiz grades that are then factored into their Science grades on their report cards. I just wanted to reiterate that class performance and production is the MAJOR component of their Science grades. Always feel free to slip through their Science notebooks to see what they are doing! **We will be doing a discovery next week on Earthquakes as we finish up our study on plate boundaries. I am in DESPERATE need of shoeboxes for my experiment! If anyone has shoeboxes that they don't mind donating to our classroom it would be VERY much appreciated! Thank you! :) ** Computer ScienceWe are continuing to do our Digital Citizenship lessons. This week we talked about our digital footprints and how to control our public image online. We all made decisions about how we want to be portrayed online and created our own "digital footprints." Additionally, as part of our Science curriculum we will be exploring the world of coding. We are enrolled in this year's Hour of Code and I will be focusing on teaching the important of coding and computer to Science to our class. Please see my blog post regarding coding for additional information: Why Teach Coding? Fall ConferencesI know several of you have already done so but please begin checking your schedules and signing up for a Fall Conference here. Check out our assignments for Next Week!In the 21st Century students need to know many languages to be successful. One of these languages is computers! I firmly believe in the importance of teaching computer Science within my classroom. The majority of students I encounter now will need to be fluent in these skills as they maneuver higher education and future careers. The sooner we introduce these skills or spark their enthusiasm in these topics the better off they will be! Your fourth graders will not be building web pages or writing code for their own apps.......yet! We will focus on the understanding the existence of codes as the building blocks for technology. We will use various physical classroom experiments, web-based pages, and apps to practice and explore these concepts. Code.org is an excellent resource for gaining more information about coding and Scratch.mit.edu is a great web-based program to practice. Additionally, some apps that could be great for home tablets are Hopscotch and Lightbot. It is my hope that we can participate in the Hour of Code movement in December outlined by the videos and information below. Computers are everywhere, but fewer schools teach computer science than 10 years ago. Girls and minorities are severely underrepresented. Good news is, we’re on our way to change this. In one week last year, 15 million students tried computer science! Computer science was on homepages of Google, MSN, Yahoo! and Disney. President Obama, Shakira and Ashton Kutcher all kicked off the Hour of Code with videos. Over 100 partners came together to support this movement. Now the Hour of Code movement is aiming for 100 million students. That’s why every one of our students is joining in on the largest learning event in history: The Hour of Code, during Dec. 7-13. The Hour of Code, organized by the nonprofit Code.org and over 100 others, is a statement that today’s generation of students are ready to learn critical skills for 21st century success. Please join us. I encourage everyone to get involved! Together we can all learn to code! Sincerely, Mrs. Foley Every student should have the opportunity to learn computer science. It helps nurture problem-solving skills, logic and creativity. By starting early, students will have a foundation for success in any 21st-century career path. |
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