We Are The World

Thanks to the always hard-working Alice Fries, we have a great auction item for Friday's Viva Third Street fundraiser. It's called "We Are the World" and it features our students portraying themselves in national costume or by something which indicates their particular passion. Thanks, Alice and class

Today was otherwise an ordinary Wednesday. We checked homework, read a chapter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and we went to Tech Center. The students worked with Mr. Pratt in History and Drama. After lunch, we continued studying nutrition and went out to PE. I worked with the students, like I did on Monday, on baseball skills.

In math we're continuing to study coordinate pairs and graphing. Next week, we'll add Algebra and Functions to this mix. Isn't it amazing what students learn in fourth grade now?

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write one sentence for each. The words are pavilion, reindeer, repulsive, schemes, and  sensible. (2) Do Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe study sheet for chapter 11. Do "Length of Line Segments," envision Math pp 408-409 and "Amazing Grid" on the back of the answer sheet. (4) Do the division worksheet.

Another Great Day!

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 10 times each and write a sentence in cursive for each word. The words today are harness, immediately, loaves, mustache, and noticed . (2) Do the study sheet for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe chapter 10. (3) Do "Shapes on a Coordinate Grid," envision Math pages 405-406 and "The Other Side of the Line" on the back of the answer sheet. (4) Do the division practice worksheet.

Welcome Back!

I hope everybody had a nice Spring break. The dogs and I went up through the Eastern Sierra to Lake Tahoe and home through the Gold Country. It was fun.

We did the usual Monday things on this very productive first day school day of Spring. We began with some test prep stuff. We'll continue to do this for the next three weeks. We went on to read the ninth chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. For writing we worked on some sentence combining, evaluated a sample paragraph according to a scoring guide, discuss paragraphing, and started a rough draft. All in 45 minutes! Whew!


After recess we went to the auditorium and did some Oliver! practice. You could tell that it had been over a week.... But it will get better pretty quickly. After lunch, we talked about nutrition in Health. We had our usual PE rotations. I started baseball skills with the three classes. In math, the students are working on ordered pairs and coordinate grids. I never did that in fourth grade! Fortunately, it's pretty easy as long as you remember that the x-coordinate is horizontal and the y-coordinate is vertical.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 10 times each and write a sentence in cursive for each word. The words today are bruised, dazzling, delicate, delicious, and disappointing. (2) Do the study sheet for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe chapter 9. (3) Do "Ordered Pairs," envision Math pages 402-403 and "Treasure Hunt" on the back of the answer sheet. (4) Do the division practice worksheet.(5) If necessary, finish items 1-19 on practice test 3.

Getting Ready

Tonight is Open House, and I hope I have a chance to see many of our families there tonight. Open House is not quite the Broadway show it is in some other classrooms, but I hope it is a pleasant time for parents to see what their children have and are learning. We spent some of today - but hardly all of it - getting ready for tonight.

After we checked our homework, we took a look at yesterday's science project. The groups observed that the water had partially dissolved the mock rocks. The students again wrote wrote on their lab papers what they saw - and, in the case of our couple groups, smelled.

Then we poured the liquid into evaporation dishes. When they have dried thoroughly, they will use the hand lenses to examine the crystals which remain. 

Besides our "hands-on" work here, we read a chapter in the Science book and did some study questions. We also read another chapter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We had play practice in the auditorium. The song "Who Will Buy" is starting to sound just beautiful!

We'll have a busy minimum day tomorrow. As usual, we will have a reading quiz and a spelling test. We will also have a math test. This will include, as usual, the "second chance" at the previous chapter. Please review both when doing homework.


Homework:  Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each. The words are precious, reliable, separate, silence, and wrenched. (2) Do the study guide for chapter 8 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (3) Do “Make a Graph” on pages 392-394 and "Test Prep" on pages 396-397 in the math book. Also do “Mystery Machines” on the back. (4) Do "Double Digit Division" worksheet.

Mocking

Today we did all the usual things, but we had particular fun in our Science time. We are starting our Earth Science unit on rocks and minerals. Now geologists spend a lot of time breaking rocks apart with picks and hammers and cutting them with diamond saws. Alas, those school district lawyers won't let us do that in the classroom! So we did those kinds of explorations with mock or fake rocks today. They look a little like cookies, but they're hardly tasty.

The students worked in groups to break them apart and examine the material the mock rocks are made of. A key understanding of this unit is that rocks are different from minerals. Rocks are composites of different minerals.

After breaking the rocks apart and describing the components on their lab sheets, the students added 50 mL of water to some of the material to see how it would dissolve. We will examine these solutions a little more in tomorrow and maybe after the break, too. 

In math, we looked at the difference between mean and median and also discussed range and mode.

Homework:  Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each. The words are occupant, permission, plunging, poisonous, and possibilities. (2) Do the study guide for chapter 7 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (3) Do “Median, Mode, and Range” on pages 390-391in the math book. Also do “Dazzling Data” on the back.

Mean!

Quick post today. We read the sixth chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe today. We also wrote the rough draft of a descriptive paragraph. We'll use that tomorrow to help practice revision and editing. In math we talked about "mean" which is the preferred term in math for finding an average. I made lots of jokes about being mean. We're starting on an earth science unit so read read and talked a little bit about geologists, too.

Students had ample time to get started on their work while their teacher worked on his. So don't be surprised if your child says he or she already completed it. It was a productive day for all.


Homework:  Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each. The words are expected, expedition, experience, general, and mentioned. (2) Do the study guide for chapter 6 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (3) Do “Mean” on pages 388-389 in the math book. Also do “Stamps for Sale” on the back. (4) Do the "Two Digit Division" sheet.Be sure to show all work including the check step.

Spring Break's Coming!

Well, as Spring Break draws near, it's harder for everybody to maintain focus, including the teacher! Still, we had a wonderfully productive day in room 19 - as usual.

We did not have much homework to check from Friday, so we were done with that in a flash. We continued on to reading the next chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In this chapter, Edmund denies going to Narnia and says that he was just pretending to have fun with Lucy. She is distraught, of course, and Peter and Susan begin to wonder if their parents' youngest child is losing her mind. So they go to the professor who surprisingly suggests that there are reasons for thinking that her story is true. We then finished our Quarter Three math test. In writing, we continued to examine real papers for their use of conventions and did a guided revision of a paragraph about an ugly crayon. It is a charming little story, but the author had a lot of problems with spelling, punctuation, and other mechanics, and we had fun finding these and correcting them.

We did a complete run through of Oliver! after recess. It went well, though it is still a mere shadow of how wonderful it will be in June. After lunch, we had our usual PE activities. We looked at line plots in math. This is a pretty easy skill - a way to make a quick bar graph on the fly. It has a way of showing up on the tests in May, too, so I could consider this as a bit of "test prep" as well.

Homework:  Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each. The words are apologize, apparently, arctic, consideration, and difficulty. (2) Do the study guide for chapter 5 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (3) Do "Following Directions," "Sequencing Events," and "Getting the Main Idea" reading skills sheets. (4) Do “Line Plots” on pages 386-387 in the math book. Also do “Life of a Hamster” on the back. (5) Do the "Multiplication Practice" sheet. Be sure to show all work.

A Bully Day

I am not sure that the English refer to something wonderful as "bully" anymore, but it was in that old-fashioned kind of sense a bully day. It was a bully day for another reason, too, but I'll get to that in a moment.

We began by checking, correcting, and discussing our homework as we usually do. The other day I had a meeting with the other third and fourth grade teachers here, and most of them were complaining about how they have so many students who either do not do homework or else do it poorly. I had to make them jealous by telling about how great our room 19 students are at this! We went on to take the usual spelling and reading tests. These should be graded and on the gradebook quite soon.  We then began to start the required Quarter 3 math test. This one is not really fair because it asks them about things that they will not study for a little while. So I gave them some help here; not the answers, mind you, but I helped them visualize the problems better so that they could think them through and find the answers themselves.

In the afternoon we had a very useful assembly on bullying from a woman from the district. She was good and really held their interest.

In the remaining part of the day, we had a short, and pretty easy, math lesson. Most all of them finished it during class or right after so I don't think there is really any homework this weekend. Enjoy!

The Double A Classroom

In westerns there always seemed to be some ranch named the "Double A." Well, today room 19 was a "Double A" kind of place -- assessment and arts. We took our math tests today, and the results are recorded and on the gradebook. That's "assessment". We also worked hard on a couple things related to Oliver! We did a vocal rehearsal on the polyphonic section at the beginning of "Who Will Buy?" just like we did on Tuesday. It's starting to sound pretty good. And then Momo's mom worked with all the orphans on the choreography for "I'd do Anything." It's really cute!

We did some other things, too! We checked, corrected, and discussed homework, partly to help us get ready for the test. We also read the fourth chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In this chapter, Edmund meets the White Witch and begins to fall under her spell. And we also started our unit on data analysis and graphing in math.

Homework:  Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each. The words are professor, several, squirrel, usually, and wretched. (2) Do the study guide for chapter 4 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (3) Do "Listening for Syllables" and "Finding Base Words." (4) Do “Data from Surveys” on pages 382- 383 in the math book. Also do “State Predictions” on the back. (5) Do the "Adding and Subtracting Fractions" study sheet.

Cool

After a couple of pleasantly warm, almost summer-like days, the clouds and fog hung around this morning, making it a cool day. We also did a number of interesting things today in room 19 today, so it was "cool" in that way, too.

As you can see in the picture, we went to Tech Center today. Students worked on their web pages about careers and activities related to technology. They worked really well in teams as they researched and composed their pages and embedded videos.

We also read another chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Again, students took turns reading the character voices with Eli, Megan, Olivia, Sarah, and particularly Austin doing stellar jobs. In the chapter we read today, Edmund makes his way to Narnia and meets the White Witch. We did a little test prep since it's getting to that time of year, and we worked more on problem solving skills in mathematics.

Homework: (1) Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each. The words are knuckles, miserable, noticed, passages, and patience. (2) Do the study guide for chapter 3 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (3) Do "Changing Short Vowels", "Supplying Long Vowels", and "Making Compounds" skill sheets. (4) Do “Solve a Simple Problem” on pages 372- 373 and "Test Prep" on pages 376-377 in the math book. Also do “Tournament Time” on the back.

There will be a math test tomorrow. It will also have the "second chance" for test 14. There will be a History test on Friday. The students will be receiving their study sheets for this today.

Polyphony

After the field trip, back to the old grind! But what a productive grind it was today.


We corrected and discussed our homework first thing in the morning, as we usually do. Then we went on to read the second chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In this chapter, Lucy goes to Narnia through the wardrobe and meets Mr. Tumnus, the faun. The two characters here were beautifully voiced, including accents, by Nathan and Nurjannah. We did a little test prep stuff which also helped the teacher get ready for the next activity. In writing, we're looking at the trait of Conventions - mechanical correctness - and as part of that I gave them an actual student composition from another school with lots of mistakes on it. We read it over and they identified the errors. They'll be writing it correctly tonight as part of their homework. 


After recess, we went to the auditorium where we worked on the very challenging opening to the "Who Will Buy" song. The students are divided into four separate voices and they have to layer in and out. It's hard work, but it is going to be fabulous. It's amazing having fourth grade students doing polyphony isn't it? But that's how talented the students in room 19 are! 


In math, we're looking at how rectangles can have the same area but different perimeters. Similar to yesterday....


Homework:  (1) Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each. The words are enormous, gracious, imaginary, immediately, and inquisitive. (2) Do the study guide for chapter 2 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (3) Correct and rewrite "Holidays". In addition to the spelling mistakes, be sure to correct the punctuation. Write in cursive.  (4) Do “Same Area, Different Perimeter” on pages 370- 371 in the math book. Also do “Rectangular Recreation” on the back.

Exploring Art

Today was our field trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It went really well. The docents were delighted with the students from room 19 and said they had seldom had such cooperative and intelligent students.

The group I went with had a particularly wonderful guide. Here, standing before the large - and to my mind rather ugly - Victorian mirror in the American wing she reminded the students that they are the future of the arts in this country and therefore the most important part of the museum's "collection".

We looked at a variety of different art works in many different genres. Here we looked at a sculpture by Remington.

After about 90 minutes of looking at art, not to mention a couple miles of walking there, the students were hungry. We had our lunch at the amphitheater area behind the museum in Hancock Park. After they finished eating, the students had a little time to play.

Of course, spending time with your friends is one of the best parts of lunch.

Returning to the school we had some time for reading and math. In reading we went began our latest book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In math, we are exploring how geometric figures, particularly rectangles, can have the same perimeter but different areas.


Homework:  (1) Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each. The words are adventure, arrangement, complicated, creature, and daughter. (2) Do the study guide for chapter 1 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (3) Do “Same Perimeter, Different Area” on pages 368 - 369 in the math book. Also do “Area by Design” on the back.