Portrait

What a Great Day!

We had an excellent first day of school. It looks like it may be my best year...EVER!

We began with having the students fill out an interest inventory and a reading pretest. The inventory helps me get to know them better, which also helps me to know what books they might enjoy reading and what subjects they might like to write about. The pretest gives me a rough idea of what skills needs a little brush-up.

We did our opening activities after that. These include the Pledge of Allegiance, Today in History, and counting school days in bases 5, 10, and 12. We will add current events to this soon. I then went over the basic class rules, and introduced some key procedures and policies. There are not many big rules in school, but there are a lot of special procedures to learn for the many different activities. I expect we will be working on this for most of the month; I do not expect perfection here right away!

Then we moved on to Language Arts. Today we mixed speaking and writing. Students interviewed each other and then wrote a paragraph beginning "I'd like to introduce..." about their partner. They learned some interesting facts about each other! This took us up to recess.

After recess, we learned to make simple portraits. The students again worked with the same partner as before. They drew the portrait first in pencil, and then went over it in oil pastels. You can see a few of the outstanding results above. This took a bit longer than expected, so we continued work on it after lunch.

Around one o'clock, we went to Physical Education. For the past several years, room 19 has done PE with the third graders in room 17. Mrs. Caruso, the teacher in room 17, and I went over squad order and warmup exercises with the students.

Returning from PE, we did a math pretest. This one is significantly harder than the reading pretest, and I expect the students to get a number wrong here. I am mostly interested in the things they get correct because these indicate fourth grade skills which were already mastered in third grade. The test allows me to know what parts of the curriculum I do NOT need to intensely teach. That's a big help because there are soooo many topics to cover.

Homework: (1) Complete the final draft of the "I'd Like to Introduce" paragraph. Corrected rough drafts have been returned to the students. Do the final draft in cursive if possible on good paper. Staple the final draft, the rough draft, and the interview paper together. (2) In the Math book, read page 2 about "Benchmark Numbers" and do page 3. Also, read page 4 about "Place Value" and do page 5. We did not discuss these much in class because they are review from third grade. (3) Do "What I Already Know" about California.

Welcome

I would like to welcome everyone to room 19 and to fourth grade. I am excited to have such a great group of students and parents this year. The third grade teachers have raved about what a great group this is, and I am really thrilled to be your teacher.

Our first day of school is tomorrow. This blog is a way for me to let you know what is happening in our classroom each day and what students are learning. It is designed to be interactive:  you can also post comments and questions on the blog and we can create a virtual open house. This kind of communication makes the difference between students just passing and really excelling. 

I will be writing each day about what we did that day, and I will always include what the homework is. The blog page is usually posted first around lunch time, and then revised if necessary towards the end of the day. 

I particularly want to make sure that all parents know about our special Back-to-School meeting on September 9 at 5:00 pm. Please try to make it. Infants can remain with you, and we will make arrangements for supervision for older students. 

I look forward to meeting everyone tomorrow!

Mellow Monday

A pleasant, but uneventful day. We did all the usual things - reading, math, history, and physical education. Mr. Lawton worked with the students on a couple lessons including music. Everything well very smoothly.

I was not able to attend the Havana Nights celebration this weekend - I went to a graduation at Azusa Pacific University that evening - but I understand it was well attended and that a few room 19 parents were there.

Homework: (1) Do worksheet on prepositional phrases. Students may write on this paper today. (2) Do the Expanded Form and Adding and Subtracting Fractions. (3) Do "Water for Thirsty Land" study sheet. (4) Do "Circles," Math page 535, all problems. (5) Make an accompaniment for the Cloud Song for Mr. Lawton.

Magnetism Works even through Water!

After Gladiators

Well, after all the wild cheering and jumping up and down at yesterday's field trip to American Gladiators, it was nice to come back to a calm, quiet classroom. At least it was for the teachers....

It was a very ordinary day. We did language artsand math in the morning. We worked on the writing section of the Open Court test. This one, a diary entry about surviving lost in the woods, is a little more interesting than the average OCR test prompt. In math, Mr. Lawton is working to help the students understand the idea of degrees in a circle and angles. It's easy stuff once you finally get it, but it is not particularly intuitive. Fourth graders typically struggle with this for a while.

We talked and read about the early water projects in California such as the Imperial Valley and Los Angeles Aquaducts. We also played some softball, getting into our own Spring training.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Wordsearch/Spelling Jumble and the Crossword Puzzle. Both of these are direct preparation for the test. In fact, they're the words from the test! (2) Do the Perimeter/Area and Algebra review sheets.

Not so Hot ... Thankfully!

The heat wave broke today, and everybody in room 19, both students and teachers, found things much, much more pleasant today. Indeed, everything was quite pleasant today. The students did reading as usual and we corrected our homework. Mr. Lawton led the students in a review of some of the basic ideas of plane geometry and polygons. After recess, Mr. Lawton also had the students do some experiments with magnets. You can see some of the interesting things they were doing below. Students continued working on the play which we will be presenting next month. This play, based on Native California sources, will involve students in all aspects of the creative process. It will be great!

Speaking of great things, we will be having our field trip tomorrow to see the filming of American Gladiators. As parents already know, the students will be returning to school late, probably close to 3:30. Please be sure your child has a sack lunch.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Open Court packet. This covers the last part of the "Anne Frank" story and the beginning of the "Music and Slavery" selection. (2) Do the math packet. This covers polygons, area and perimeter, equivalent fractions, and division.

Experimenting With Magnets

The Area of a Cereal Box

Rectangular Prism

One of the rites of passage of any new teacher is having your professor come during student teaching to observe you and provide a critique of the lesson. Today it was Mr. Lawton's turn as his professor from CSULA watched his lesson on determining the surface area of a rectangular prism. Mr. Lawton came in with dozens of small cereal boxes. The students cut these up and determined the size of the area by putting them on a sheet of graph paper. They did a great job with this activity and it served as a great introduction to learning the formula. The students now get the idea that there are six faces on a rectangular prism and that the total area is equal to the area of each face. It was a lot of fun, and the students were marvelously cooperative. Some pictures of this activity are found above.

We also spent some time in Tech Center beginning to learn the garage band program. The students had composed some short rhythmic and melodic motifs during music time, and we had recorded them playing these on boomwhackers. The short passages are known as "ostinati" and they serve as the underpinning for a melody. In the upcoming weeks students will be refining their melodies to make them work well with the ostinati.

The rest of the day was pretty regular. We checked homework, did reading, went out to PE, and, of course, had lunch and recess.

Home Studies: Last night was pretty heavy so we'll take a day off. Enjoy!

Stopping Global Warming

The highlight today was an assembly, sponsored by our Friends of Third group, which gave the students an overview of the problem of global warming and offered them some simple solutions for using less energy and creating less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It was an informative if sober way for us to end our day.

The rest of the day was pretty straightforward. We corrected and discussed an number of assignments from last Thursday and Friday. We did reading. We did our usual rotations and exercises at PE. Mondays are usually pretty straightforward days and this was fit that pattern.

Homework: (1) Do Test Best, pages 39-45. (2) Do the two pages in the History study guide. (3) Do the "Adding and Subtracting Fractions" and "Division of Money" sheet. (4) Do that Math CST release questions Mr. Lawton handed out.

Smooth!

Today went quite smoothly. We did reading and then corrected the language arts homework. Mr. Lawton worked with the students on area and perimeter. This is a hard concept at points for kids to grasp. They get the formulas easily enough, but understanding what they mean and when to use them is harder. Mr. Lawton is working hard to move the children beyond mechanically applying the formulas to real comprehension. It isn't always easy....

We read a little of Great Horn Spoon. We practiced singing "California Here I Come." We talked about time zones and started on the history packet.

After lunch Mr. Lawton started teaching the students "Cloud Song." This is a Native California song which they will be singing and performing on recorder and Orff instruments. There is also a short play which goes along with the song. The students will be getting this ready for a performance in the late Spring at a "Music on the Green" evening sponsored by Friends of Third. It should be great.

Finally, the students worked in Read-Around Groups to edit each other's adventure stories. They then started on their final drafts. The last forty five minutes of the day was blissfully calm as the students diligently worked on their final drafts.

Homework: (1) Finish final draft of adventure story. (2) Finish history packet. (3) Practice Test, Test Best, pp 31-38. (4) Commas, Your, you're. (5) Fractions and Multiplication. (6) Released Test Items.

Quiet Day, Quick Post

It was a quiet day today, particularly after all the hustle of last week's Open House and Earthquake Drill and the other stuff. We did reading, we worked on some review sheets in language arts, and we took a Science test. Mr. Lawton continues to work with the students to develop their musical understanding, and to help them master some of the fine points of geometry. It was all fine.

Home Studies: Very light today. A few students are finishing a composition that was due last week, and a couple are also finishing up this morning's language arts work. Other than that, nothing special today. They'll be a bit more tomorrow.

Open House Music

Peaceful and Productive

Ah, once Open House is over teachers feel like they can breathe again. Now we can quietly get ready for testing and the end of the year stuff. Today was just that sort of day. We read "McBroom and the Big Wind," a tall tale during Open Court Reading. This is a silly story about how wildly the wind can blow in Texas during the winter. Students always enjoy details in this story like jackrabbits flying through the sky like geese.

We did an art project after this which explored "flowing rhythm". In art, rhythm refers to repetitions of lines or patterns which create a sense of unity in the work. Students were asked to think of something in nature, like wind or waves, which demonstrates this kind of flowing rhythm. They used cut paper to give the impression of the kind of rhythm they sense in these things. You can see some examples of this below. Many of these were quite good!

After recess, we corrected home. Mr Lawton introduced the concepts of relative scale and solfege after lunch. We played a quick kickball game with room 17, and then the students returned to the classroom where Mr. Lawton led them through an activity to explore symmetry in the shapes of letter.

Home Studies: (1) Write the rough draft of a tall tale. Be sure to take a realistic situation and then make it ridiculous by using exaggeration. This should be a minimum of two full pages in length. (2) Do the "Simplest Form" and "Multiplication" worksheet. (3) Transposition worksheet for Mr. Lawton.

After Open House Glow

What a wonderful evening! Our students gave a marvelous musical performance last night under the capable direction of Mr. Lawton. I have to admit that right up to the last minute I was not sure it was all going to come off, but it was great! We had a great response from parents, and the parents of students in the third grade who were coming here to check things out for next year were mighty impressed, too.

Today we had an opportunity to look at some of the other classrooms in the school. We certainly have capable students and teachers here at Third Street, and it was hard to find a classroom that wasn't a knockout. Still, you know which one had to be my favorite.... We also spent the morning planning and writing the first draft of a survival/adventure story. We discussed how authors often begin stories "in medias res" - Latin for "in the middle of things" - and include the exposition material in flashback. That was the technique used by the author of "Nachito's Teachings," the last story we read in the Open Court anthology. Students then did a flow map of their story and started on the rough drafts.

After recess we went to Tech Center where the students worked on some pages which may or may not be included in the yearbook. After lunch, we Mr. Lawton led the students through our pieces from the performance last night which I filmed them. I will be editing this and uploading it in a couple days to YouTube and linking it to the blog. We went out to PE, and then Mr Lawton discussed symmetry and other geometry concepts with the class.

Home Studies: (1) Do the flow map and the first rough draft for the adventure story. The rough draft should be at least three pages long, skipping lines, writing only only the front side of the paper. Again, students started this during class. (2) Do Chapter Review, Science, pages B86-87. (3) Do the Division practice sheet. (4) Do "Symmetrical Figures," Math, pages 488-489, problems 1-16 only.

Welcome Mr. Lawton!

Well, it's been a couple weeks since I have posted, but it has been so hectic that I have hardly had time to write.

We have been busy since we have been back. I had the pleasant surprise to learn that Mr, Richard Lawton, who had taught Music to our students earlier in the year, would be working with us doing his student teaching. Mr. Lawton, also known to many of you as a parent here at Third Street, has worked for the district as a substitute teacher, but is now getting his full teaching credential. His ultimate goal is to be a music teacher. We are delighted to have him here, and he will be doing providing our students with a great deal of supplemental instruction in Music.

We are continuing with all the usual stuff -- Open Court reading, Math, Science, and the like. We are getting ready for Open House also, organizing materials and starting to put together books and other Open House materials. And, of course, we are always thinking a bit about testing coming up, too.

Home Studies: (1) Do Science questions, page B67. (2) Do "Graph an Equation," Math, pages 463 - 465. (3) Do the Math worksheet. Make a number line as needed to determine the value of x.

Corks under Water

Teaching elementary school was once famously compared to trying to keep 30 corks under water at the same time. Not every day is like that, of course, but some days can be. Today the students knew that they were going to be spending the last hour of the day playing on the yard while teachers had release time, and that simple change of schedule seemed to create enough excitement that it was hard for them to think of anything else!

Despite this, we got some good work done. We will be starting on the "Surviving" unit in Open Court next week, and we "frontloaded" this by writing and illustrating stories of personal survival. These were quite varied. Some survived fires; others natural disasters; and one or two wrote about surviving their fourth grade teachers. You have to take these in good humor.... We also went to the library and corrected our homework. We discussed the different types of rocks, reading a chapter from the Science book, and we also talked about the Celsius system and negative numbers generally. At 1:30, the corks popped out the door and the teacher breathed a sigh of relief.

Home Studies: (1) Make a tree map of the three different types of rocks. List at least five facts for each type including how each one is formed. (2) Do "Celsius," Math, pages 440-441. (3) Do "Negative Numbers," Math, pages 442-445.

Some Desert Landscapes

Quiet and Industrious

It was a quiet and productive day in room 19. We started the day by finishing up some of the watercolors that the students had started yesterday. That may seem like an odd way to start the morning, but it was a practical solution to dealing with wet art papers. After the students did their art, they did the "Checking Skills" section of the Open Court test and finished the rough draft of the composition. This is the most important of the writing assessments for the students because their score will appear on the report cards as the "Language Arts Performance Assessment" and they will receive an "invitation" to attend summer school if their score is below a 3. This gave them some motivation to work hard!

After recess we did a gallery walk where we looked at some of the watercolors. Many of these were quite good! I will post some of them on the blog tomorrow. The students have also become quite good at giving compliments to each other, very specific praise using art terminology. We then reviewed a the gold rush era and the students took the Chapter 6 test in history. As usual, this was an open-book, open-note exam so it helped to develop reading skills as much as assess factual knowledge. While a few students were finished quite early, most took some or all of the time between lunch and PE to work on this as well. Results will be on the gradebook soon.

At PE, about half the class played soccer while the other half did handball. Both groups seemed to have a good time. We came back to the classroom where students chose writing response partners. They read the rough drafts of the OCR essay which they had started earlier, and then moved on to do the final drafts.

Home Studies: (1) Do "Diagram," Math, page 433, numbers 1-7 only. (2) Do the "Chapter Review/Test," Math, page 434 and the "Cumulative Review," Math, page 435.

Dr Seuss's Birthday

Last Friday, our class and room 5 celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday. First and fourth grade students read the books together and did a word search. Thank you to Mrs. Mark for coordinating this annual fete.

Testing and Getting Ready for Testing

I have not been well lately, so forgive the lack of an entry on Friday and the short one today.

We had a pleasant day. Students began work on their Open Court tests, a mini-ordeal which will take up a good portion of the week. In particular, they started work on the writing portion of this test. This is known in LAUSD-speak as the "Performance Assessment" and it has its own line on the report card. Worse still, at least from the students point of view, is that any score under a 3 on this somewhat complex writing prompt will make the district's computer spit out an invitation to attend summer school, a letter which the students would rather not take home. So they worked pretty hard on it....

Speaking of tests, tomorrow is the state Writing Test for fourth graders. Please send them to bed early and to school on time! Because of this, homework will be very light.

Home Studies: (1) Finish the division worksheet. The students already had about 30 minutes to start on this, so most should be close to finished or done. (2) Do "Capacity," Math, pages 428-429. Be sure to read page 428 carefully even though the problems do not begin until the following page.

Salt

Thursday

The highlight today, as you can see above, was the culmination of our three-day residency with Mr. David Lewis of "We Tell Stories." The students had a blast reenacting this story with Mr. Lewis today.

The rest of the day was a bit of a let down. We corrected some, but not all, of yesterday's homework. We took a Science test. We corrected a math test. We began an art project which we'll finish tomorrow.

Home Studies: Enjoy a rare night off!

Mr. Lewis

Improvisation and Pantomime

Today we began again with Mr. David Lewis, the artist-teacher from "We Tell Stories." Today Mr. Lewis worked to develop some basic theater skills with the students. Since he is planning to have them act out the "Salt" story they read a couple months ago, he had them become characters from the story and he interviewed them. You can see him doing this in the photograph above. He had them use their imagination to add details to the story (for example, when he was interviewing students who were the cooks to the king) or by changing details of the story (for example, changing the sons to daughters). He also had them manipulate some imaginary items like balls again in preparation for what they will do tomorrow.

The rest of the day was pretty ordinary -- and a let down after all that fun! We checked and corrected homework. We went to the Tech Center where we started to add our stories to our think.com pages. We went to PE, took a math test, and did some independent work (while the teacher finished grading the history tests). Very, pleasant quiet day, overall.

Home Studies: (1) Finish the study sheets on "Good Times" and "Thirty-first State." Be sure to answer in complete sentences. (2) Read "Linear Measurement," Math, page 422 and then do problems 11-29 on pages 424-425. (3) Do the math worksheet. Be sure to do the check step, probably on a separate sheet of paper.

We Tell Stories

Today, tomorrow, and Thursday we have Mr. David Lewis as a visiting artist-teacher. Mr. Lewis works for a wonderful theater troupe called "We Tell Stories" and we have had them working with second and third grade classes at Third Street for about three years now. Thanks to an unexpected opening, we were able to schedule them to work with our class this year.

We'll have more about Mr. Lewis in tomorrow's blog.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Chapter Review, Science, pages B31 and B32. Page B31 should be copied because this makes it more useful when students take the test on Thursday. These are open-b0ok, open-note tests. (2) Do the "Review/Test" and "Cumulative Review" in Math, pages 418 and 419. (3) Do the Multiplication Worksheet.

Mystery to Medicine Cartoons

Dry Day

Well, it was not raining today so the children had recess and lunch. They were happy; their teacher was happy. Who could ask for more?

We did cartoons this morning, as you can see above. This was designed to give them an opportunity to work on storytelling and visual arts skills in a medium they really enjoy. There was a nice quiet atmosphere as they students worked on these little gems. All of them had to tell a story that was somehow related to medicine, our Open Court Reading theme.

After recess we corrected homework. We also took our class photo for the yearbook at this time. After lunch we read and discussed a chapter in the Science book on the "Mass Movement" of landforms. We went out to PE (since it may have been our only chance for the week) and when we came back we correct our math test. I also discussed the idea of functions with the class and showed them how they regularly solve problems like 3x = y in real life. This helped them understand the math homework for tonight.

Home Studies: (1) Do the three pages of the Open Court Reading packet. There really is not that much to do here. It sounds much, much harder than students will find it. (2) Do the Science questions on page B 11. Be sure to copy the questions. (3) Do the Multiplying Money and Adding Fractions worksheets. (4) Do "Change Linear Units," Math, pages 410-411.

Rainy Days and Wednesdays

Despite the rain, we had a pleasant and productive day. After our Independent Reading period, we corrected and discussed our homework. We finished reading the "Gold Rush" chapter in the history group, discussing the pros and cons of each of the three major routes to California. After our inside recess, during which most students quite sensibly got a head start on their homework, we went to the Tech Center. Here the students typed up a story they wrote yesterday on their think.com page and began to create an appropriate picture in Kid Pix to illustrate it. They will be finishing this in the classroom or at home.

During lunch we watched The Wild to console ourselves for dealing with the rainy weather. Once the movie was over, students worked on a math test, an open book history test, and some even had some time to get a good bit of the homework started.

Home Studies: (1) Complete the Gold Rush packet. (2) Do the division worksheet including the check step. (3) Do "Fractional Parts," Math, pages 406-409.

Valentine's Day Dance

Valentine's Day

"These are the times that try men's souls." Thomas Paine was not talking about Valentine's Day, but we teachers can be forgiven if we think he might have been. Only Halloween and the day before Winter Break seem to have the children so frenzied.

Remembering this, I decided that we would do calm things as much as possible today. So we spent the morning working on Independent Reading and then doing a packet of comprehension materials related to the "Shadow of a Bull" story. After recess we corrected homework and the students who brought enough candy for the class passed it out so they could consume it for an unhealthy lunch. After lunch we correct our math test, and I have already sent out the results of that in an email to parents. We met again in read-around groups, this time for editing. Students then had another quiet work time to start on final drafts and other works.

Students ended the day on the yard as part of the Dance-a-thon sponsored by Friends of Third. You can see some pictures of that above.

Home Studies: (1) Finish the final draft of the Johnson/Picotte essay in cursive. (2) Do the Subtraction and Equivalent Fractions worksheet. Show regrouping! (3) Do "Choose the Appropriate Graph," Math, pages 106-109.

More Out than In

We were out of the room it seemed like more than we were in it today. We had a wonderful assembly from the We Tell Stories people, an organization which will be working with our class later this month. They brought to life - and in one case improved - three of the stories in the Open Court reading series. We also went to Tech Center today where the students continued work on Renzulli or Think.com. After lunch, we met in read around groups to review and revise our compositions comparing the two doctors. We went to PE, and then we took a math test. We'll correct and record it tomorrow.

Home Studies: (1) Finish the second draft of the essay comparing Dr. Johnson and Dr. Picotte. (2) Read "Double Bar Graphs," Math, page 100 and then do the problems on page 101. Do "Reading Line Graphs," Math, page 102. (3) Do the division worksheet. Do not forget the check step!

Vermicomposting in Action

Similar and Different

Students started getting ready today for the writing section of the California Standards Test. This is given to fourth graders early in March. One frequent topic is to have students compare and contrast two characters. So we are doing a practice run using two of our Open Court stories.

We discussed the direction in class this morning and had time to get started, BUT, in case they cannot remember, here are the directions.

1. The first paragraph is the introduction. Tell a little bit about both stories. End the paragraph with the topic sentence. The SUGGESTED topic sentence is "Dr. Johnson and Dr. Picotte are similar in many ways, yet different, too.
2. The second paragraph covers the similarities. The first sentence here should be your topic sentence.
3. The second paragraph covers the differences. The first sentence here should be your topic sentence.
4. The fourth paragraph is the conclusion. This is the hardest part to write because it is so open-ended. Students could reflect on whether the similarities or the differences are more important or just comment on the characters in some way.
   

Home Studies: (1) Complete the rough draft of the compare and contrast essay for the two Open Court stories. (2) Do the chapter review, pages 96-97. (3) Do the multiplication practice.

A Short One

I am having all kinds of problems with Blogger - particularly with pictures - so I'll keep this one short just in case in loses everything again.

Home Studies: (1) Finish the flow map for "Picotte." (2) Do the "Capitalizing Titles" and "Graphic Sources" worksheets. (3) Do "Stem and Leaf Plots," Math, pages 90-91 and "Compare Graphs," Math, pages 92-93. (4) Do the Fractions and Multiplication review worksheet.

Worms, Worms, Worms!

What did you do in school today? We did worms! Today rooms 18 and 19 started our vermicomposting project. We will be collecting food scraps at lunch and feeding them to worms. The worms can digest their body weight in food each day, and their, well, "droppings" are incredibly rich compost. This will help reduce the amount of material which goes to landfills as well as enriching the soil around our school. We are very excited about this pilot project. A big thank you to Ms Heckman, shown above, a parent active in Friends of Third. Also, thanks to our administrative team represented above my our ever enthusiastic Mr. Wilson.

In other news, we started the Renzulli program today. This program is specially designed to meet the needs of gifted learners, but offers a variety of fun activities for all children. Since it is a web-based program (http://www.renzullilearning.com/) students can work on it at home as well as at school. Students enrolled themselves today and created user names and passwords. Most also completed their profiles which will guide them towards activities which are geared towards their interests and learning styles. Thanks to Mr. Abrams for helping us get set up and to Ms. Limb for letting us know about this program.

Home Studies: (1) Do Reading Strategies for the "Susan La Flesch Picotte" story in Open Court. (2) Do the Study Guide for the "Picotte" story. (3) Do the double bubble map on the back of the third page of the study guide. (4) Do the two math pages on Equivalent Fractions and Algebra. Use a "guess and check" strategy to determine the value of x. (5) Do "Line Plots," Math, pages 88-89. Be sure to read the explanation on page 88 carefully even though this is basically a review of third grade material.

Quick Post

I have to run off to a meeting so here's the homework:

Home Studies: (1) Finish the Science chapter review on page A 159. For numbers 18-22 write out the question with the correct answer only; for numbers 23-28 write a sentence or a short paragraph as needed to answer the questions. (2) Do "Median and Mode," Math page 87. Either research or guess at the data needed for number 5. (3) Do the "Chapter Test/Review," Math, page 256. Be sure to show all work, including the check for numbers 7-22. (4) Do the "Cumulative Review," Math, page 257.

Perfect!

Wow! Days just do not get any nicer than today was. Everything went really smoothly. We began with reading, and then did a crossword puzzle on using medical terms and a punctuation review. We went over some of the work they had done with the substitute. Following recess I gave the students some time to get started on the study guides for the chapters they read with the substitute. After lunch, we read about "Restoring Habitats" and talked about some things we are doing or going to do to help the environment. We had a nice rotation of activities at PE, and I then went over how to do estimating with division. This last skill is a little tricky, so the students may need some help with it tonight.

Home Studies: (1) Do "Word Study" and "Vocabulary from Context" for Picotte story. (2) Finish History study guides for lessons 1 and 2 of chapter 5. We began these in class. (3) Do chapter review in Science, page A 158 only. (4) Do "Collect and Organize Data," Math, pages 83-85. (5) Finish "Estimate Quotients," Math, page 255. Again, we began this in class.

The Division Monster

A really quick post as I have to get things ready for the next two days. I'll be at Wilton Place School for some tedious math workshop - mandated for all fourth grade teachers - and the students will, of course, have a substitute.

Today we started the standard algorithm, or procedure, for long division. This is one of those moments when children can start crying hopelessly during homework. Division is not that hard, as all of us who have mastered it know, but the students are sure that they can somehow skip steps instead of learning to do those steps quickly. So, division is the only real homework tonight, but it should be more than enough.

Home Studies: "Division Procedures," Math, pages 247 to 249.

Tuesday, Short and Sweet

Another uneventful but very pleasant day. We did Reader's Workshop, as usual, to start the day, and I am pleased with how aware our students are of the different reading strategies, and how they use a wide-range of strategies to enhance their reading of the books they choose for themselves. We reviewed the Word Knowledge and Vocabulary from Context assignments they did for homework. Particularly with the the Vocabulary, I prod them to see what clues in the sentence help reveals the meaning of the word. Admittedly, my occasional incompetence typing does not help here. They were stumped by the sentence about the groom carrying his "bridge" across the threshold. My bad, as they say....

We reviewed the basic assignment for paragraphs one, two, and three of the "I Search" paper. I then assigned the students to groups where they had an opportunity to read their papers aloud and get some feedback from their peers. Teachers call these "read around groups", or "RAGs" for short. Sometimes they work really well. Today it seemed a bit perfunctory. Anyhow, students will be working on second drafts as part of their homework.

After recess we finished watching Ramona. For such a sentimental old movie, its amazing how it affects the kids. I heard one girls say, "I started to cry at the end." Maybe I'll start a new generation of TCM or AMC watchers. I hope so!

After lunch, I introduced them to another division strategy, repeated subtraction. Like drawing pictures, this is another really slow and annoying way to solve a division problem but it shows that students truly understand what division is, and not just how to manipulate numbers through an algorithm.

Home Studies: (1) Do the second draft of the beginning of the "I Search" paper as discussed above and in yesterday's blog entry. (2) Do page 245 in the math book. Problems 1 -10 must be done using the repeated substraction strategy. (3) Complete and organize the booklet for unit two of History, "Newcomers to California."

I Search

Here are of the Double Bubble Maps that students worked on last week.

Today was quite pleasant, apart from having the office call rainy day schedule for part of our recess. We spent most of the morning reviewing our Open Court packets to date, and students are now aware of what papers they may need to locate or do over. For those who have lost papers, I will be providing them with some extra copies. After recess we watched a little more of Ramona. It is a corny movie, but effective. Students are definitely enjoying it, and learning a lot about the mission period.

Today we are starting on our first "I Search" paper. The I Search paper is an alternative to the traditional research paper. There are a few key differences. First, the I Search paper is personal. Unlike the research paper, it is written in the first person. Secondly, the I Search paper describes the process of learning about the subject more than attempting to cover the topic. In an I Search paper, students write things like, "I found a book in the library that was about Flemings life. In that book, I read that...."

For today, the students need to pick a topic related to medicine. It could be a famous scientist or a particular disease. They will then write three paragraphs about it.

1. In the first paragraph, they will tell what topic they picked, and most important of all, why they picked that topic.
2. In the second paragraph, they will write down what they already know about this topic.
   
3. In the third paragraph, they will write down some things that they wish to learn about the topic.

Again, all of these will be written in the first person. Each paragraph will be at least five sentences, and students need to skip lines. We will be working on these tomorrow in Writer's Workshop, and talking some more tomorrow about where they will go from here with the paper.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Word Study & Vocabulary. (2) Do the first three paragraphs of the I Search paper as described above. (3) Do "Divide with Remainders," Math, page 243, 2-38. Be sure to make a model when the directions call for it.

The Day that Wasn't

Well, the power was went out at 2:30 in the morning, and our parents understood the problem and took their children home. By 9:30 almost everybody was gone; by 11:30 everyone was gone. Now, the power did come on again around 10:00, and for a while I wondered if we should just have "stuck it out." But it went out again a little after 1:00 and it was a dark and cold afternoon. The District tells us that there will be a generator ready tomorrow morning - it is being delivered this afternoon - just in case the DWP has not restored power, and it will be kept at school throughout the day as a backup. So tomorrow should be normal.

Home Studies:  Obviously, not today.

Think.com

Today we had our most productive session yet in Tech Center. Mrs. Skaggs had been telling me for a couple years about how much she liked Think.com, a web community for students developed by the folks up north at Oracle. It allows students to create and publish work, collaborate with others on projects, and to send messages to other students. But, since access is limited to schools and everything is under the supervision of their classroom teachers, it insulates them from the dangers of unfettered access to the Internet. We will be using this more in class, and parents will be sent some forms to approve student participation. I think this will be a great opportunity for our students to develop both their technical and language arts skills.

Home Studies: (1) Do the study questions for "Bridge Dancers." Remember to answer in complete sentences. (2) Do "Multiply Greater Numbers," Math, pages 226-227. Please show all work. (3) Do the "Life in Mexican California" study sheet.

Ramona

This week we will be watching Ramona, the 1936 version of the classic novel by Helen Hunt Jackson. The film is hardly Citizen Kane: Don Ameche is wooden and Loretta Young is not much better. But with all its flaws it gives a nice visual sense of what it was like to live on a California rancho. It is hard to students today to imagine what it was like to live in a wide-open California, with no freeways or shopping malls or suburban sprawl. There was still a little of that California left when the film was shot, and just seeing these landscapes is well worth the 84 minutes of the film.

There were a number of silent versions of Ramona and probably the best of them was the 1928 version starring Delores del Rio. The pictures in the YouTube video are of her, not of Loretta Young. The song was written for her to sing during promotions for the movie. It became a huge hit. It makes me a little melancholy when I hear it. One of my sisters was born with dark black hair, and my father called her his "Ramona" when she was a baby. I can still remember him singing this song to her when rocking her to sleep. We lost my dad to lung cancer in 1999.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Open Court packet. (2) Do "Multiply," Math, pages 221-223. Copy problems and show all work.

Drawing Feelings

On Thursday we discussed gestures and how body language can convey emotion in a picture. The students worked in pairs. While one person demonstrated emotion through body language, the other person made a quick sketch. They then traded roles. After they had both sketched some different positions, they colored them in using crayon. We used tempura paint to create a neutral b;ck background. Students are still completing these assignments.

Today was pretty quiet day. Students went to the library. They had a quiz over the "Sewed Up His Heart" story and took a chapter test in math. We read a bit in the Science book about progression -- how ecosystems change over time in response to fire or the creation of new land by volcanic activity or the recession of a glacier. We read a short story in the Storyworks magazine and checked our homework. We went out to PE.

Home Studies: (1) Do "What Did You Think," Storyworks, page 21. Copy and complete. (2) Do the grammar worksheets on subject and object pronouns. Put all answers on a separate paper. Do not copy the sentences. (3) Find a newspaper or magazine photograph or clipping which relates to medicine. These will be placed on the Concept / Question Board. (4) Do the questions on page A 135 in Science. Copy the questions as well as answering in complete sentences. (5) Do the four math worksheets.

Science Text, Science Test

As you can see from the pictures above, we had a Science test today. There is way too much content in the Science text for students to be expected to remember each word or detail, so we concentrate on getting the over all idea as we read and discuss or do hands-on activities. The tests are designed to be review activities and to help the students develop their reading skills with complex non-fiction texts. That's why all the tests are "open book."

They do, however, take a while to grade, wonderful as they are....

Home Studies: (1) Do the "Authors Purpose" worksheet. (2) Do a multi-flow map of "Sewed Up his Heart". (3) Do the Growth of the Ranchos and Rancho San Miguel worksheets. (4) "Solve a Simpler Problem," Math, page 215 and "Chapter Review" and "Cumulative Review," Math, pages 216-217.

New Year's Resolution

A bit of a belated New Year's resolution -- I will be better not only about getting grades on the gradebook but emailing results to parents as they happen. I am adding a new category to the gradebook too: homework. While I am ambivalent about how much to stress homework I am a little troubled by the sense that a few of our students have that they are not quite accountable. So while homework contributes does not directly affect the grade is most cases, consistent problems in doing homework usually indicate problems. So please keep this in mind. One day now or then with incomplete homework is not a problem. Not having the homework completed every day means a lack of seriousness in studies.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Open Court packet including the crossword puzzle, the wordsearch, and the Drawing Conclusions worksheet. (2) Do the Adding Fractions and Multiplication worksheet. (3) Do the History review sheet and map exercise.

Slow and Steady

I am feeling somewhat better today, and our time seemed to go relatively quickly instead of dragging on and on. Nothing particularly special today -- more work on the "Sewed up His Heart" story, reading and writing workshop time, checking homework. All the routine stuff. But, as I've said, more than anything else it is on these routine days that students really make gains in their skills. If we did not have the special days with art and music and field trips and science experiments, school would be so boring nobody could stand it. But at the same time, those special events only take their meaning from the more routine day, like today.

Home Studies: (1) Do OCR study questions and spelling sort. Be sure to answer the comprehension questions incomplete sentences. (2) Do Sentence Chef, Storyworks, p 14. Copy the paragraph on to the white paper as well as doing it in the booklet. (3) Complete the Chapter Review in Science, page A 127. (4) Do "Estimate Products" in Math, pages 210-211, and "Model Multiplication," on page 213. Copy problems 1-5 and show all work on page 213: the rest can be answers only.

Productive

It was a productive day in room 19, even if the teacher is still feeling under the weather. After our Independent Reading, we read and discussed "Sewed Up His Heart" in the Open Court textbook. This is a hard selection - students were really fumbling over some of the medical terminology - but worthwhile. It is the story of Daniel Hale Williams, the African-American surgeon who performed the first heart operation in the world. It seems particularly appropriate to read it on the eve of Martin Luther King's birthday.

We did a little grammar and cursive review from our Storyworks magazine after we finished our first reading of the story, in part because students were a bit restless after the long selection. We also read the adaptation of "Horton Hears a Who" in the same issue.

After lunch, we talked about the Mexican War of Independence, and connected it to the American and French Revolutions. We discussed how after the fall of Spanish power in the New World, the mission system collapsed in California with both good and bad results, particularly for our native peoples. We went out to PE where we are starting soccer skills. We came back to class, corrected our math test - results are on the gradebook - and got our homework.

Home Studies: Do Word Knowledge and Vocabulary for "Sewed Up His Heart." (2) Do the Chapter Review, in Science page A 126 only. Do NOT do page 127. (3) Do "Patterns with Multiples," Math, pages 206-207 and "Multiply by 10", pages 208-209.

Who Am I?

The teacher could barely talk today, but we still had a great learning experience. After our usual Reader's Workshop time, the students reviewed plurals and posessives. They then went back over the Open Court selection and picked a major figure from medical history. They wrote a little riddle about that person and then made an illustration. You can see a couple of these "Who Am I?" posted above.

We corrected our homework and discussed the math. There will be tests tomorrow in Open Court, Math, and probably history. After lunch, we read about the different types of water ecosystems -- freshwater, saltwater, and brackish -- and the characteristics of each. We played kickball with room 17 to break up the afternoon. We ended the day with an independent work period so that students could go home with as little homework as possible.

Home Studies: (1) Do the review questions on page A 121 in Science. Students should copy these questions as well as answering in complete sentences. (2) Complete pages 11-14 in the current Open Court packet. This includes a worksheet on apostrophes and some spelling and theme connections. (3) Do the Chapter Review, page 202, in Math. Students should copy the questions and show all work in number 4-23. (4) Do the Cumulative Review on page 203 of Math.

Great Moments in Medicine

It's that time of year when we all seem to get sick more frequently, and today I woke up feeling a bit of a cold. Or maybe it's the flu. I can never get those two straight. Anyhow, I was not feeling bad enough to stay home, but not up to speed, either.

But the students were great and we had a good day. We finished reading the "Medicine: Past and Present" selection in Open Court, and then the students did a couple flow maps to show some of what they learned. We called these "Great Moments in Medicine." Some of the best ones are still in progress, but here are a couple examples:





We went to Tech Center after recess. Mr. Abrams had the students work on autobiographies so they could learn to use the outlining mode in Microsoft Word. After lunch, we corrected homework, went to PE, and then they finished the last portion of the Unit 2 OCR test. We'll grade that tomorrow.

Home Studies: (1) Open Court reading packet, pages 6-10. This week's quiz will include some of the words with the -el ending as a short spelling section, so study these carefully. (2) "Multiply 4-Digit Numbers," Math, pages 197-199, all problems. (3) "Write an Equation," Math, page 201.

Some students will also need to finish their flow map.

Terrific Tuesday

A couple of our very creative patent medicine advertisements.

There are always new students at the beginning of each January, and we have several in fourth grade this year. We received a new student, Heejin, from Korea today, and Mrs. Cha received two students yesterday. So we started the day moving a couple children and me giving up my extra desk so that room 18 could have another table. It was a little hectic, though hardly chaotic, in room 19 this morning.

Our day has been quite predictable. But, as I've pointed out, predictable and boring are often good things in school. These kinds of unmemorable days are when the most learning takes place. We read and responded in journals. We checked our homework. We began assembling our latest Concept/Question board. We read a little from this week's Open Court selection. We worked on our Writer's Workshop compositions.

We continued to work a little more on the Open Court Unit 2 test. We corrected a couple sections today and did some vocabulary review. We also discussed the importance of estimating answers when solving big multiplication problems like 2,879 time 8, and students decided when exact answers were necessary and when only an estimated answer was required. Not interesting stuff, but the sort of things they will need day to day as adults.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Open Court vocabulary review sheet. Think carefully about the meaning of each word. (2) Do "Estimate Products," Math, pages 188-189, all problems, and "Multiply Three Digit Numbers," Math, pages 193-194, numbers 2-41 only. (3) Do "Connect Main Ideas" and "Apply Skills," Social Studies, pages 162 and 163. Be sure to copy the "Connect" section. No need to copy the questions in "Apply", but answer in complete sentences.

We're Back!

It's hard to get back into the routine after three weeks away, but things went pretty smoothly today. We had a fund-raiser assembly first thing, and nobody seemed to enjoy sitting on wet benches on a cold morning. We scurried back into our warm room as soon as possible, and we started the New Year with cleaning out our desks and changing seats. We shared a little about what we had done fun or interesting over our vacations.

Our new theme in Open Cort is called "Mystery to Medicine." It is supposedly about the development of modern medicine from folk medicine roots, but the selections are so slanted towards the wonders of folk medicine that without a little guidance I think the students end up thinking that the shaman is superior to the surgeon. As teachers, we do the best we can sometimes with the tools we are given.... Anyhow, to introduce the theme we discussed 19th century patent medicine and how these "miracle elixirs" were advertised and sold. I shared some examples of these I found on the Internet, and then the students came up with some advertisements for their own patent medicines. I'll show some examples of these on the blog tomorrow. Many were quite creative!

The rest of the day was pleasantly uneventful. We read and discussed a chapter in the Social Studies book; we did another section of the Open Court test; we corrected a math test left over from last week; and we discussed how easy it is to multiply big numbers like 200 times 3000.

Home Studies: (1) Chapter Review, Social Studies, page 163, numbers 1-15 only. Write definitions only on numbers 1-6. Be sure to answer other questions in complete sentences. (2) Open Court packet, pages 1-5 only. (3) Math, pages 186-187, all problems.