End-of-Week Update, 9/27

What we've been up to:
Team 20 has done many things this week.  This is just a few of the things we've been up to:

• We had our first timed multiplication quiz this week.
• Almost all of us have finished our puff mobiles.  Now we're testing them to see if they need to be redesigned.  We also are completing time trials to determine our best puffers for the big race on Thursday!
• We are studying hard for our weather test on Monday!
• We have finished our second personal narrative drafts!  Next week will be revising, editing, and publishing!  Be on the look out for our final drafts at Open House!
• We worked on in/out boxes in math and worked with number and shape patterns, too!

We can't wait to show you all we've been doing at Open House next week!

What's coming up / Reminders from Mrs. Adams:

• We will be creating terrariums on Tuesday (10/1).  I will explain to students tomorrow that, with your permission, they may bring in small plant clippings to plant in their terrarium jars.  Clippings with stems that can be planted in the soil are best.  Flowers do not generally fare well in the terrariums, but feel free to give them a try!  If you do not have any plants, I have plenty in the classroom.
• Open House is Thursday, 10/3!  I look forward to seeing Team 20 families and to meeting some of you for the first time.  We will be working hard this week to get our classroom ready for your visit!

Happy Sunday!

Spotlight on Cormac

Cormac shared some amazing photos with us!  This past summer, he and his family visited Mt. Greylock - the highest point in Massachusetts.  It's so tall that you can see New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont from the peak!  Wow!  Cormac knows a lot of information about Mt. Greylock because his mom grew up right nearby.  Ask him for details about his trip and more information!  When we study the Northeast (very soon!!) we will discuss some of the important physical features, such as Mt. Greylock.  Stay tuned!  Thanks for sharing, Cormac!

 

End-of-Week Update, 9/20

Leo just kept SINGING during chorus this week!
He's our FIRST Rm. 20 Celebrity Singer!  We're so proud!

What we’ve been up to:

This week has been as fun as jumping on a trampoline!  We’ve been as busy as a woodpecker pecking the bark of a tree trunk.  As you tell, we have been talking about similes for our writing.  We did tons of writing – we got our first drafts back with comments from Mrs. Adams, we brainstormed stories with "tension" for our new drafts, we made timelines for our new drafts and added planning boxes, and then we drafted for 30 whole minutes.  That’s half an hour!  Mrs. Adams and Mrs. K. were impressed.  In math this week, we completed our place value test.  We approached the test with confidence and courage.  We spent our week preparing for the test.  (Notice all those Wordly Wise words?!)  We did some preparation with Miss Farrell’s class and it was spectacular because we got to work with new people and make new friends.  Leo stepped up at our second chorus rehearsal and was selected as celebrity singer in 4^th grade chorus!  We were so ecstatic and proud!  We had a story teller come in named Len Cabral.  He told us a lot of fun and interesting stories.  Check out the post below for his website and some videos.  We’re up to 45 words that we’ve learned so far in Wordly Wise!  By the end of next week it will be 60!  We worked with our engineering teams and started to develop our first project – puff mobiles!  They’re coming together very fast and they’re looking very good.  It was Corrin’s and Cullen’s birthdays this week – happy birthday x 2!  We’ve done so much hard work this week – can’t wait until next week!

 

Reminders from Mrs. Adams / What's coming up:

• We are starting multiplication next week!  The beginning of our unit will focus on basic facts, so you can start practicing these at home!  Check the math links to the right for some websites.  Daily fact practice will begin to be a nightly homework assignment.  Let's learn those multiplication facts through 12x12!
• Remember that reading for 15 minutes and completing the nightly bookmark log is homework!  Many students have had homework misses this week for not completing the bookmark.  It's very quick and if it's used as a bookmark, they're more likely to remember it!

Have a wonderful weekend, Team 20!

 

Len Cabral, Storyteller!

What an unbelievable treat we enjoyed today!  In celebration of our summer reading, we were treated to a performance by storyteller, Len Cabral.  We were spellbound from the very beginning of the presentation!  He told us stories, talked to us about our own writing and storytelling, and taught us important life lessons!  We learned that it's important to speak your mind, not be a bully, and build bridges between friends.  We noticed SO MANY of the writers' craft techniques we've been discussing in Writers' Workshop - dialogue, feelings, and telling the important parts of our stories in s-l-o-w   m-o-t-i-o-n!  We left the presentation inspired, excited, and glad we did our summer reading!  Thank you, Kennedy PCC for another amazing enrichment opportunity!

Follow this link to Len Cabral's homepage: www.lencabral.com

Check out these YouTube videos of Len Cabral storytelling!  Notice how his stories are very, very small "seed" stories - not watermelons!  Try to see if you can learn the lesson, theme, or message of each story, too!  Enjoy...

Spotlight on Kileigh & Gretchen

In writing, we've talked about how "family stories" are often those that we tell over and over with our families.  They usually start with "Remember the time that..."  They can make good personal narratives because they're usually funny, sometimes embarrassing, and clearly unforgettable! 

Kileigh shared this story and this video with us.  Looks like someone is drowsy (Wordly Wise word!!)  Thanks for sharing, Kileigh!

Gretchen shared this photo with us.  Looks like an amazing time in Pawtucket, RI!  Thanks for sharing, Gretchen!

Can't wait to hear these stories (and more) in writing!

Summer fun with Gretchen & her family!

Spotlight on Noah!

Check out this photo of Noah and his new dog, Fiona!  Getting a new pet is such a special time.  This week in writing, we're going to be brainstorming stories about important people and places.  I think we may need to add "important pets" to that list!  Thanks for sharing, Noah - she's so cute!

Here's Noah & Fiona!

End-of-Week Update 9/13

What we’ve been up to:

This week we’ve been up to a lot of stuff!  This week we learned about rounding.  We drew two branches to show our two choices (for staying or rounding up).  We finished up learning about subtraction and we made a list of mistakes that we should “watch out” for.  On Friday, we had Mr. Adams come in to teach us about engineering.  We are going to build puff mobiles with our team.  We learned from Mr. Adams that engineers can build almost anything!  We also learned that cooperation is the key to building something successfully.  Check out the video he showed us below - "Engineers are Cool!"  In writing, we finished our first personal narrative drafts!  We discussed how important revising is so we can make our stories better.  For example, we learned how to write similes.  We also learned that we want our stories to have a good balance of internal and external details.  In art, we made abstract collages.  We are reading books and we started writing letters to Mrs. Adams about our books.  We can’t wait to get letters back from Mrs. Adams!  We had our very first chorus this week and it was excessively fun!  Mrs. MacMurray and Mrs. Shepherd are looking out for celebrity singers next week, so we are going to try our best and work as hard as we can.  In science, we learned about different weather tools and how they are used.  Some of the weather tools we learned are thermometer, barometer, sling psychrometer, rain gauge, anemometer, and wind vane.  We’ve finished Lesson 2 of Wordly Wise – we now know 30 new words!  In poetry, we are writing bio poems about ourselves.  We’re typing them next week.  I bet next week will be just as awesome as this week!

 

 

Reminders from Mrs. Adams / What’s coming up:

• I enjoyed meeting so many parents this past week at our parent orientation!  If you were unable to come, I hope that you found the packet of information in your child's take home folder.  Please be in touch with any questions or concerns!  Also, please review, sign, and return the blue homework policy sheet located in the back of the packet.
• Thursday is School Picture Day! 
• Friday will be our first math test!  It will be on place value, rounding, addition, and subtraction.  I emailed a review packet that can be done at home to help in preparing for this test.  It is optional and does not need to be sent back to school.  Please let me know if you have any questions!  Please look in "Useful Documents" to the right for the study guide and at-home review packet to download.
• Keep the terrarium jars coming!

Happy Sunday!

Kid President's Pep Talk to Teachers & Students

Maggie sent this my way and I'm SO GLAD she did!  This video made me smile from ear to ear.  It's a message from "Kid President" to teachers and students - that's us!!  In the video, he says "you're here, you take up space, you matter!"  Love that!  He also says that "it's time to be more AWESOME!"  I couldn't agree more!  Can't wait to be more awesome tomorrow - see you in the morning, everybody!

Thanks, Maggie!  Great find!

Spotlight on Alexis!

Here's a photo of Alexis with her mom, dad, and brother at Old Sturbridge Village!  She brought in this photo to help her generate ideas for personal narratives in writing.  Looks like an awesome time, Alexis!  We can't wait to hear all about it in writing.

Do you have a special photo that showcases your family's culture or traditions?  Send it along to Mrs. Adams and we can feature it on the blog, too!

End-of-Week Update, 9/6

What we’ve been up to:

We have completed so much during our 2^nd week in Room 20!  We’ve been doing Wordly Wise this week.  We completed Lesson 1.  We mastered most of the words and benefitted from learning all those words this week!  J  We are going to start reading our first read aloud book, The Sisters Grimm.  We’re curious about it and we already have a lot of questions!  In writing, we have awesome story ideas!  We thought of our top 10 best and worst times, we thought about turning point stories in our lives, and we thought of stories when we felt strong feelings (like scared, embarrassed, etc.)  We pictured our stories in our heads and timelined our stories and even included planning boxes to help us write next week.  In math, we made ballpark estimates and added large numbers using the traditional method.  We created a “watch out” list  for addition with all the things we need to watch out for when we add.  We used base-10 blocks to build numbers.  We reviewed standard and expanded form for numbers – it’s like a Lego pirate ship!  (Ask a Room 20 student to find out what that means!)  On Friday in the gym there were music teachers from all different Franklin schools showing us different musical instruments, telling us what they were, and how to play them.  We learned about string, woodwind, and brass instruments.  (The strings are actually horse hairs.  Don’t worry, no horses were harmed in the making of these instruments!)  They even played music from “Star Wars.”  We have a blue sheet in our folders this weekend with more information!  We’ve mastered so much this week!  Can’t wait to do more stuff next week!  Love, Room 20

 

Reminders from Mrs. Adams:

·         Remember to check out the upcoming dates on the right for important events in the month of September.

·         Next week, students will begin their first engineering project!  We will have a special guest speaker to kick off our project.  The two goals of the project are engineering (to fulfill our technology / engineering science standards) and cooperation (to build communication skills and work as a team toward a common goal).  Stay tuned for photos!

·         Keep the terrarium jars coming!

 

Have a great weekend!

 

 

 

Wordly Wise!

By now, Room 20 students are familiar with Wordly Wise.  We'll be using this vocabulary acquisition program in place of spelling lists / tests this year.  The goal of each weekly packet is to learn word usage and meaning.  Each week's packet will feature 5 exercises (A, B, C, D, E).  Typically, Monday night will be exercise A, Tuesday night B, Wednesday night C, and Thursday night D.  Exercise E is optional (for now...) and students who complete it with their best effort will be awarded a red chip!  The weekly exercises are the same for each week, so even though the word list changes, the directions for the exercises will become increasingly familiar as we progress through the packets.

My 3 best pieces of advice regarding Wordly Wise are:

1. Remind your child to use the word list when completing nightly exercises.  Usually, the answers will jump right out to them if they refer back to the word list.  We spend time in class highlighting and discussing the word list, so they should be familiar with it.
2. Try to familiarize yourself with a few of the words each week so you can pop them into conversations.  The more contexts in which children hear and see these words, the more they are likely to use them on their own!
3. Be patient.  Within a couple of weeks, the exercises will seem routine and your child's vocabulary will be extraordinary!

Here is a link to Wordly Wise's website: http://www.wordlywise3000.com/games/book04.cfm.  We are using Book 4.  The website has word lists, sample sentences, and games to help students learn and practice the words.  Be aware that some of the games require knowledge of multiple lessons' words, so these may have to wait until we've progressed further.