Lessons Learned Oct 18-29

We have recently completed a lot of testing. Last week we had our second district writing prompt, reading PMA's, and math PMA's (progress monitoring assessment).

Hats off to Lender Processing Services Inc. (our classroom sponsor), they hosted a wonderful Halloween party for the entire fourth grade on October 29, 2010.  Thank you so much! We enjoyed everything!

Reading:
In reading we finished working with the story Tomas and the Library Lady, as well as read Tanya's Reunion. We completed a variety of activities that accompanied both stories in our center rotations. During our reading time we also focused on the standard of main idea, noting details, sequencing and making inferences. It is important we master this standard because these are key skills for every subject.

On Wednesday, October 27, Biltmore Elementary held its annual Vocabulary Parade. Pre-K - 2nd grade held their parade at 9:30 am, and 3rd- 5th grade held their parade at 1:30 pm. During this event students and faculty dressed up as their favorite book characters and created unique vocabulary posters to celebrate literacy and students wealth of knowledge.


Writing:
In writing we focussed on including great attention grabbers into our papers. We also spent time reviewing punctuation and onomatopoeia.

We continued working on our personal books (the writing piece we will be getting published). Over the last two weeks we have worked to finish our rought draft, and begin the editing process.

Math:
In Math we continued working in chapter three. We continued at perfecting our multiplication tables, as well as work with division, and basic fractions.

Social Studies/Science:
On October 21, we took a field trip to the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens. During our visit we viewed famous works of art about Florida, roamed the gardens to discover and discuss different types of plants and pollinators, explored the hands-on interactive area, and painted our own landscape art.

(One of the pictures we viewed on our trip)

Story of the Week Oct 11 -15

This weeks story of the week is Tomas and the Library Lady. This weeks comprehension skill is sequence of events; the stratey focus is predicting. We will also continue working with determining the main idea and supporting details.

Literacy Lessons Learned Oct 4 - 8

Reading:

In reading this week we studied our genre focus on mysteries. We read two stories from the reading textbook, The Case of the Earthenware Pig, and The Sticks of Truth.  We used these stories to complete a mini unit on the ingredients of a mystery.  We discussed the elements that all mystery stories have in common, and completed a reader's theater where the student's got to "play" detective. Friday we completed our mysteries genre test, relating to the stories and concepts we covered.

Also, in reading this week we worked with the standard of main idea. We all want to become stronger readers, so practicing decoding the main idea or central theme of the story will help us master that skill.  

We also, began our Book-it reading challenge "Race to Save the Words." Book-it is a reading program that rewards students for meeting their reading goals. Each month there is a 25 book challenge. For every student that meets their 25 book goal, they receive a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. "The Race to Save the Words" challenge is a separate activity the Book-it program created to get students excited about reading. Each week there is a new challenge that students must complete in order to get from Planet A to Planet Z on their classroom game board.
This weeks challenge was to load our rocket. We had to proceed around the class and have each student name an object they could bring on the rocket, starting with letter A continuing through until Z. 

Writing: 

In writing this week we kept with the mystery theme and planned and wrote our own narrative, mystery stories.

We also worked on our writing skills, and ways to enhance our writing papers. We discussed juicy color words and completed multiple in class activities for practice.

Homework Oct 4 - 8

Monday: Complete "Planning Your Mystery" work sheet.
Tuesday: Complete the poetry worksheet "How to Eat a Poem."
Wednesday: Writing prompt: write your own mystery, (based on your planning sheet completed on Monday). Study your spelling words.

Reading spelling words:
1). criminal
2). detective
3). evidence
4). suspense
5). solution

Thursday: Complete the scholastic worksheet "A Look at Waste"
Friday: TBA

Story of the Week Oct 4 - 8

In Reading this week we are studying our genre focus on mysteries. The genre focus consists of two reading selections in the reading textbook: The Case of the Earthenware Pig, and The Sticks of Truth. These stories can be found on pages 138-146 in the textbook. We will continue to focus on all the strategies we have discussed, predicting, questioning, and monitor/clarify, while also building background on the concepts/elements of mystery stories.

Lessons Learned Sep 27 - Oct 1

Reading:

In Reading this week we were working with the story By the Shores of Silver Lakes by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We completed different reading activities within our centers that helped with the strategy focus of questioning, as well as continued practice on text features and organization.

On Thursday we celebrated "Real Men Read," and had a guest reader, Mr. Denson, read to our class.

Social Studies:

In Social Studies this week we continued studying the geography of Florida. We finished working in chapter one lesson one and completed the accompanying workbook pages. We also, reviewed our map skills studied in previous weeks.

Writing:

In Writing this week we continued working with narrative stories.

Every student is going to recieve the opportunity to publish their own book. The students will work through the process of writing a book, visiting all stages of writing: planning, writing, reviewing/editing, re-writing, re-editting, final drafting, and illustrating their stories. The books the students are writing can be on any topic and in any format. We began planning for the book writing this week. The students created writing folders with pages similar to that of the final draft. Each student recieved a planning page and began working with their story.

Math:

In Math we have been working on perfecting our multiplication facts. We have been discussing the different properties of multiplication: distributive property of multiplication, identity property of multiplication, commutative property of multiplication, and zero property of multiplication.

Zero Property of Multiplication: the product of any number and zero is zero.  Example: 2 x 0 = 0

Commutative Property of Multiplication: [Also known as order property] two numbers can be multiplied in any order and the product will be the same. Example: 2 x 3 = 6  and 3 x 2 = 6.

Identity Property of Multiplication: [ Also known as property of one] the product of any number and one is that number.

Example: 1 x 7 = 7,  1 x 3 = 3, 1 x 6 = 6

Distributive Property of Multiplication: [Also known as grouping property] breaking apart facts into simpler problems to find the product.
Example: 4 x 6 = (4x 3) + (4 x 3) = 24 ; You break apart the 6 into smaller numbers (3 + 3) to make the multiplication easier.