African-American History Month

 

Golden

Today was a really splendid little day. It was pleasant and productive – everything you could want a day of fourth grade to be.

We started out with some vocabulary work during Independent Work Time. I had the students use dictionaries here today to work on this critical skill. I then presented the students with a rubric to help them evaluate the rough drafts of their writing. This is an approach to teaching writing through the “Six Traits” began in the Pacific Northwest and is spreading through the country. Several student volunteered to read their stories to the class and then their peers explained which score, a 1, a 3, or a 5, they would give them based on the rubric. This made the feedback surprisingly concrete and the students were quite fair to each other. I then paired the students up and each person listened to his or her partner’s story and offered a score and a critique based on the rubric. We concluded our morning by starting on our latest Open Court story, “The New Doctor.” We’ll finish this tomorrow.

Like we usually do on Wednesdays, we went to Tech Center. The students had written stories on Monday about their clay figures, and they typed them up on Microsoft Word. Ms. Richard ably helped them to understand some aspect of that program like the Page Setup dialogue box and the Formatting Palette.

After lunch we changed seats. The students had been asking for this for a while, and it always gives me an excuse to make them clean out their desks! We then continued with the PBS Gold Rush film. Although written more for adults than children, the film provides a wonderful mix of primary source materials such as photographs and dramatic reenactments (such as Sam Brannan walking down the streets of San Francisco crying, “Gold! Gold from the American River!”) which allows the students to really connect to the period.

We practiced more Charlie Brown. We will be having auditions here next week, and will be starting to work extremely intensively after this. I will have a parent meeting next week to line up helpers for this fun project.

We finished up with Math. We started on subtracting fractions with unlike denominators. The students are starting to really get the hang of this.

Homework:  (1) Revise the story. Students do not need to rewrite their rough drafts but should mark them up extensively with insertions and deletions. They can creatively cut and paste with scissors and tape to rearrange elements or add entire sections. This will be collected tomorrow. (2) Do “Subtracting Fractions with Unlike Denominators,” envision Math, pages 258-259.

Colorful Ceramics

Claymatious!

 

Going Native

We had a day where more than minds were growing in room 19. Today we planted our California Native Plant Demonstration Garden.

A couple weeks ago, our existing sword ferns and canna lilies were transplanted to new homes. Yesterday, after school, several volunteers helped amend the soil by adding wonderfully smelling organic matter. They had a good time with this!

Today, under the leadership of the ever-amazing Alysoun Higgins, the students worked in groups of four to plant the new plants.

They dug holes and planted the plants carefully.

They created watering berms around the new plants to help them hold in the extra moisture they will need until they are fully established.

Our native plant garden will help the students to understand the marvelous natural flora of our state. Native plants support native wildlife; they consume far less water; they have minimal need for chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

It is our hope that this garden will become an inspiration to the rest of the school, and this will be the beginning of remaking the Third Street School grounds into a predominately-native landscape.

A big, big thank you to Alysoun Higgins and Laura Salwet for planning the garden and selecting the plants. A huge thank you to our wonderful Third Street PTA which funded this learning experience.

Homework: (1) Review the spelling words. (2) Do “Adding and Subtracting Fractions with Like Denominators,” envision Math, pages 253-255.

Students will also be working on the rough draft of a story. This is not due until Monday, so I will provide more details and explanation on Friday’s blog post.

Very, Very Calm and Quiet (and that’s OK)

We had a very quiet day today. We had both a history and a math test. The results of the history test will be emailed to you some time today; the math test will be graded and recorded tomorrow. We also went to Tech Center where the students did work on both their PowerPoint business plans and worked on their typing skills.

Homework:  (1) Do spelling words 11-20. Like yesterday, find both a definition and write an original sentence.  (2)  Do “Bridge Dancers” Word Knowledge and Vocabulary. (3)  Do the medical terms crossword puzzle. The wordsearch on the opposite side is optional. (4) Do “Equivalent Fraction” and “Lowest Form” worksheets.

The students will also be taking home their History tests to be signed and returned.

Colburn

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful three day weekend and has been enjoying this fabulous weather. What a change from that dreary – if necessary – rain!

Today being Mardi Gras, I asked the students to journal about what they would do if they could to be wild and crazy, without, of course, violating any laws. Some of the responses were quite amusing! We then went on to correct and discuss our homework.

We had a musical day. First, we went to Mr. Lawton. He had the students working on a really nifty version of the ballad “Streets of Laredo” as a way to introduce the concept of ostinato, a repeated rhythmic pattern. He then went on to have discuss the idea of writing pentatonic melodies. The students will be doing this with the lines they used on the music staff paper and in their art last week.

We had only a short recess, alas. But after recess we went to the auditorium where we had the pleasure of listening to the students from the Colburn School of Music. Probably the highlight of this concert was the performance of Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy by this amazingly talented 13 year old violinist.

 

The orchestra also performed excerpts from Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Mozart’s overture to La Nozze di Figaro. We also had a fun little piece for tuba and orchestra, though the students had trouble with the low notes of the tuba because they sounded like, well, you know what. Fourth grade has always been thus….

We finished the day doing “recess buddies” with our kindergarten friends. That sort of made up, I hope, for the minimal recess.

Homework:  (1) Spelling this week features common medical terms. Students need to know both how to spell the word and what it means. Find and copy the definition of the word from a dictionary. Please include the name of the dictionary used. Write an original sentence for each word. For tonight, do spelling words 1-10 only.  (2) Do the “Author's Purpose” and “Drawing Conclusions” worksheets. These are quite easy.  (3) Do “Problem Solving, “ envision Math pages 243-244, and “Test Prep,” pages 246-247.  Review fractions generally. There will be a test on chapter 9 tomorrow. (4) Do the “Equivalent Fractions” and “Fractions in Lowest Form” worksheets.

Special!

OKAY! We started out this morning on a really fine note by learning that so far … we’re number one in the coin drive! We were on our way to the library when he heard this, and everybody became so loud and excited Ms. Caruso had to come out and scold us! Sorry, room 17! We need to keep up the good work, however. Keep those coins and bills coming in. Remember, it all goes for a great cause.

We had lots of special things today. Even the ordinary things, like library, we did at slightly different times which made them seem a little special. The California Dance Institute (CDI) is really making our Fridays special. The students are really enjoying this program a lot!

Our CDI teachers and Sam, the accompanist, are forcing the students to really listen to rhythm and to understand meter and to use their bodies to both develop these concepts and show their mastery. That is what I see going on as a teacher; the students are only aware that they are having a fantastic time. A big, big thank you to our parents who helped us raise the money to make this happen.

We also did Physical Education at a slightly different time – 11:00 am. This was because Angel, the campus aide hired by Friends of Third, was there to help us with PE. Angel was really impressed by our system of rotating students through a variety of different physical education activities, and was really happy to a member of a the dynamic team that includes Mr. Pratt and Ms. Caruso. This meant we had a second lunch today. That too, was a little different and … special.

We watched the last part of Ramona. The story finally grabbed the students at the end. There were gasps when Allesandro was shot by the evil American settler, and sighs when Felipe rode up at the end to save Ramona and her baby. Our course, the real reason for watching the movie – it’s depiction of life on a California rancho in the mid-nineteenth century – worked even on the less sentimental members of the class.

We finished the day by working on comparing fractions. The students worked with partners using fraction tiles on this. While they were doing this independently, I had each Science group come up to add new organisms to their aquariums. They all got to add a snail as shown below.

We also added Duckweed and tiny crustaceans known as Gemarus. 

Students had about an hour to start on their homework assignments at the end of the day, and many are not that long. 

Homework:  (1) Do the “Using Reading Strategies” paper. This is the one where they attach the post-it notes which they used while reading the story. (2) Do the study questions for “Sewed Up his Heart”. (3) Do “Comparing Fractions,” envision Math, pages 241-241. (4) Do the equivalent fractions and multiplication practice worksheets. (5) Do review questions 10-14 on pages 225 of the California book. The students do not need to copy the questions, but should answer them in complete sentences. (6) Do the “Music Terms” sheet for Mr. Lawton.

Lines and Shapes

Sorry for a couple days with no updates on our class or the homework. Earlier this week as I was walking my dogs we were attacked by a neighbor’s dog. My dogs were unscathed, but the stray took a nice bite at my left hand. It has been throbbing for the last couple days and typing has been particularly painful. It also left me feeling rather grouchy. However, the hand looks and feels a bit better now.

We had a productive day, as usual, even if I was not Mr. Charming. Our big project for the day involved the story “Sewed Up His Heart” from the Open Court reader. This is the story of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the pioneering African-American surgeon who did the first heart surgery in the world. The title came from a newspaper article written about Dr. Dan, as the selection calls him, and it inspired us to write our own newspaper articles to work on the summarizing strategy.

First, I went over the format and parts of a newspaper and a newspaper story with the students.

They then met in small read-around groups and revised the newspaper-style summaries they had written the night before as part of their homework. The final drafts were to create the front page of the newspaper with the story about Dr. Dan on it. The results were quite varied, and most were extremely good.

 

In the afternoon, we worked on the art and music project for Mr. Lawton. The students here first used the piece of music paper and made a wavy line on it. They then made exactly the same line on a piece of art paper. Once they had that line, they incorporated it into a picture. I was delighted by the variety of ways they did this. Here are only a couple of the many great pieces.

 

 

We also did a gallery walk and shared compliments for the fine and creative work.

We skipped math today in the interests of time, and also because I had somehow managed to do the pages out of order. I think I’ve fixed my mistake.

Homework:  Nothing today except to finish any unfinished work.

Digging Out

It was a pretty great day here in room 19. We started off with a journal assignment about where and when you would go if there were such things as time machines. We had some really creative and interesting answers to that question.

After that, the students started work on advertisements for prescription drugs. As you recall, our new unit in Open Court Reading is called “Mystery to Medicine” and it explores the nature of medicine and helps students to think about careers in the health sciences field. So each year I always talk about drug advertisements – it’s sad how familiar students are with this genre – and I invite them to create their own medicine and market it. I’ll show some examples of their work tomorrow, but I promise you there will be some quite creative and sometimes funny stuff.

Today we started work on our new, native-plant garden, thanks to the hard work of Alysoun Higgins. She led a small army of student volunteers who dug up some of the old plants. They had a great time!

 

We also started watching the 1936 version of Ramona,  the Helen Hunt Jackson story which did so much to romanticize the Spanish and Mexican colonial periods in California history. The plot is pretty corny, but the film gives a remarkably good view of what it was like to live on a rancho in Southern California in that era. We will be watching the movie in 20-25 minute increments during the week, and I have multiple-choice questions for the students to answer as they watch the movie. This keeps them really focused on the story.

After lunch, we did physical education. We started a new color grouping system to integrate the students from the three classes, and it was overall quite successful. After PE, we took a look at equivalent fractions in math.

Homework:  (1) Do the apostrophes worksheet. (2) Do the Word Knowledge and Vocabulary from Context for the “Sewed Up his Heart” story. (3) Do the division worksheet. (4) Do the Factors and Algebra worksheets. (5) Do “Equivalent Fractions,” envision Math pages 231-232.

Some students will also need to finish their prescription drug advertisement.

CDI

Despite the rain, we had a most productive day - as usual. After our journal time, we went to the library where Mrs. Koneff discussed the upcoming author's visit by Hanoch Piven. Mr. Piven is known for his art work which uses objects to make pictures of people. Mrs. Koneff showed the students examples of Mr. Piven's work, and then showed them a self-portrait in the same style.

The students will be invited to apply for the opportunity to take part in a workshop with Mr. Piven next month.

After library, we went over to the auditorium for our first CDI session. Our leaders, Rebecca Wink and Liz Jemielita led the students through some warmups and then showed them a film about the origins of National Dance Institute. CDI, the California Dance Institute, is a part of this program.

Having a live musician, instead of using taped music, is a hallmark of the CDI program. Our pianist this year, Sam, is also a quite capable drummer, too. What a treat to have the students work with a professional musician!

CDI is a very high energy dance class. The students generally work in unison groups on the same moves at the same time. This lessens the possibility for embarrassment. As you can see, it's fun!

That was definitely the high point of the day. The rest of the day was far more routine. We checked and discussed homework. We took our spelling test. We studied fractions a little more.

By one thirty, after no recess or lunch, I was pretty tired of hearing their voices, so I passed out homework early and ran a study hall. As a result, many of the students may be finished with more than one of the assignments below.

Homework: (1) Do the Flow Map of "Great Moments in Medicine". Be sure to put events in order and do a good picture of each event in colored pencil. (2) Do the review questions on page 225 of the California history book. Students only need to do numbers 1-9 but they should copy the questions. (3) Do "Fractions and Division," envision Math pages 228-229. (4) Do the "Triple Play" multiplication practice sheet.

Monochromatic

Sorry for a couple of days without entries. As some of you know, the last 48 hours have been pretty tumultuous for me. Things are much calmer now, and I thank you for your many expressions of support.

We had a good day, as usual, today in in room 19. We started, again as usual, with journaling. The students were asked to tell about an embarrassing experience, either real or fictional. The entries were great, but the real-life ones were particularly well-written.

We then had our elections for class representatives. The students seeking office made speeches, and then all the students voted. I am please to announces that our class representatives will be Katie Higgins and Luca Arroyo, and that Caleb Gerber will serve as the alternate. Congratulations!

We finished reading the history of medicine selection in the Open Court book. I tried to supplement the dryness of the reading with a little of the blood and guts background that I know that fourth grade students love. We started on a flow map here, and we will be working some more on that tomorrow.

Yesterday we took the LAUSD Quarter 2 test. I was not happy that this test covered things which the students had not yet had a chance to study, so I had them write their answers also on a sheet of lined paper. We graded that test today, and all the items I deemed unfair became extra-credit. I’ve posted the results to the gradebook, and they were generally quite good. 

After lunch we practiced Charlie Brown a little more. We discussed fractions of a whole and fractions of a set. This is review, and none of the students seemed to have the slightest problem with these concepts. We then went on to Art. Today we were looking at the idea of monochromatic color schemes. We were again using tempera, and again we had some great pictures.

Homework:   (1) Please review the spelling words. (2) Do the “Using Reading Strategies” sheet – this is the one where students paste in their post-it notes. (3) Do the study guide for the Open Court story. There are a lot of questions here, but they are sequential and there are page numbers to guide the re-reading of the story. (4) Do “Regions and Sets,” envision Math pages 225-226. Not that page 227 is NOT assigned. (5) Do the “Factor Fiends” and “Subtraction Masters” worksheet.

Quick Post

Just a quick post today – I’m working hard to get through a backlog of papers.

Homework:  (1) Do the circle map and the concept and question page. Pick one of these concepts or questions and put it on the word card. (2) Do sentences for words 1-10 only. (3) Do the “Mexican-American War” study sheet. (4) Do “Generalizations,” pages 214-215 in the math book, and then do the multiple-choice review on pages 216-217. (5) Do the division worksheet.

Tranquil

Another quiet day in room 19, our hometown….

We started with journal writing. The prompt today was “You have been abducted by aliens. Explain how this happened.” They like that a lot! We went to the library where Mrs. Koneff explained the new “Dewey Dollars” reading contest. We took our spelling test and checked, corrected, and discussed homework. We talked about the Bear Flag revolt and read a chapter in the history book. We read a section in the Science book about freshwater environment. This ties into our work with the aquariums. We practice Charlie Brown and we went out to PE. In math, we are continuing our look at solid figures in Geometry.

A big thank you to all the families who have contributed towards the cost of the CDI program. Our classroom participation is about 60 percent right now. We would like to get at least a little something from each family here, so if you have not yet contributed please send in a check (or cash if you wish in a sealed envelope with your name on it) as soon as possible.

Homework: (1) Do the “Bear Flag Revolt” study sheet. (2) “Do the “Freshwater Environments” study sheet. (3) Do “Views,” Envision Math, pages 212-213 and “Building Blocks” on the back of the answer sheet. (4) Do the “Multiplication Fiends” worksheet and “Factors”. The factoring exercise was hard for the students yesterday, so we are having some more practice here. We discussed it at length, but parents could help by double checking this one.

Soft … and Loud

It was a pretty quiet day - at first  - in room 19. We began with our journal writing, and then we did the vocabulary section of the Open Court unit test. Thanks to the crossword puzzle and the other review activities, the students did quite well. They then went on to work on revising, editing, and writing the final draft of the essay from the same test. This took longer than expected, and they worked on it after recess as well.

It was after lunch that things weren’t so quiet any more. They were fun! We are picking up our life science unit which has been on vacation for a while. We are starting on an “aquatic environments” investigation, and, as part of this, the students made aquariums. Picking out the fish was definitely the most fun part of this!

After we finished this, we went on to art. Today lesson was supposed to deal with shades of color and using tempera paint to achieve these gradations. I’m not sure we really did as much as that as I had hoped, but there were some very fine paintings done anyhow.

The end of an otherwise wonderful day was only marred by me losing my keys. Send up thoughts please for them turning up….

Homework:  (1) Do the quotations worksheet. Look at the examples carefully to find out what to do in each section. (2) Do Exploration 2 vocabulary. (3) Do the “Regrouping” and “Factors” worksheet. (4) Do pages 210-211 in the math book plus the enrichment activity on the back of the answer sheet.  

Elections

Today was Election Day at Third Street School. We began the day with an assembly in the auditorium where all the various candidates for office made speeches. This was pretty long, but surprising not as boring as I expected it would be. A couple of the speeches were actually amusing.

Back in the room we voted using a make-shift election booth.

The students voted one at a time, in secret, while the class did other things.

After recess, we went to Tech Center. This was not a particularly productive session in the computer lab owing some some problems Ms. Richard says they are having with the wiring. After lunch, we correct our homework. We went out to PE with the other classes. In math we started on solids (such as rectangular prisms and cylinders). Most of this is review.

Homework:  (1) Complete the rhythm worksheet activity for Mr. Lawton. The students had a good amount of time to start on this in class and most of them finished it there. (2) Do pages 207-209 in the math book. (3) Do the multiplication worksheet.

Dry and Sunny

The day was dry – well, at least until the final bell rang – and the teacher was sunny.

We started off with journaling. We reviewed all the different parts of speech in preparation for the “Checking Skills” part of the Open Court Test. We went to see Mr. Lawton who taught a marvelous rhythm lesson. After recess, we checked, corrected, and discussed our homework. After lunch, we did Math. We’re still in geometry, and today our topic was circles. This is an easy one for the students. It was starting to get cool, but our kindergarten buddies came over bundled up nicely.

Homework:  (1) Do the spelling jumble. (2) Write 5 compound sentences. (3) Do the vocabulary review sheet. (4) Do “Circles”, enVision Math pages 204-205 and the enrichment sheet on the back. (5) Do the division worksheet.

Blue Skies, Nothing but Blue Skies

First, let me offer a couple pieces of Friday’s art. I was just so eager to get home Friday I forgot all about the blog. Sigh.

 

I was GREAT to be off rainy day schedule. We had a productive day. We worked on parts of the Open Court test, read about some of the early pioneers to California including the famous Donner Party – yum, yum! We went out to PE for the first time in a week and we review quadrilaterals in math. Overall, a nice day.

Homework:  (1) Do a sentence for each spelling word. (2) Do the “Trails to California” study sheet. (3) Do “Quadrilaterals,” Envision Math pages 202-203. (4) Do the division worksheet.

Ya Basta

Enough already! It’s time for a break from the rain. The ground needs to dry out and the students need to get to go outside for recess and lunch. Or maybe the teacher needs them to get to go outside….

We started on the Open Court reading test today. We’ll be doing more of this over the next two or three days. We finished off the art project. Well, actually most of us finished it up. A few students will be taking this home tonight. We read a chapter of Island of the Blue Dolphins. We talked about Jedidiah Strong Smith and the first Americans to come overland to California. And we finally we reviewed polygons.

On a sad note, I received news that the California Dance Institute program is off – at least for now. Friends of Third does not have sufficient funding for this at this time. There will be a letter home about possibly funding it through fourth grade donations. I guess that will come home on Friday.

I had to cancel homework club today because I learned I was having unexpected company for dinner. So it’s off to Ralphs. Joy….

Homework: (1) Do the vocabulary review crossword. (2) Do the “More and More Division” worksheet. (3) Do “Polygons,” enVision Math pages 198-199 and the enrichment activity on the back of the page. (4) Do the “Trappers and Traders”  study sheet and the “Measuring Distances on a Map” worksheet. (5) Do the rhythm activity for Mr. Lawton.

It was a Dark and Story Night

Well, maybe it wasn’t night, but it certainly was dark and stormy today.

We did a lot of quiet things today. We checked, corrected, and discuss our homework. We did some preparation for state testing. It works best to do this occasionally for a couple months before the big day instead of cramming it all  in the first week of May. We did have enough of a break in the weather to get out for recess. But after recess we had a big disappointment:  our Tech Center time was cancelled again! So I had the students start on the weekly art project a day early. We’re doing desert landscapes – you’ll see some wonderful examples later this week.

After lunch, we read through Charlie Brown again, and we reviewed for the history test. We did our math, and then we ended the day with the history test itself.

Homework:  (1) Do the “Prefixes” worksheet. (2) Do the “More Division Practice” worksheet. (3) Math, pages 196-197.

Rain, Rain

Yeah, I know, into every life some rain must fall. But does it have to do it all in one week? What was bad about the drought, anyhow….

Despite the rain – and the very exciting rolls of thunder which accompanied it – we had a productive day in room 19. We discussed homework, of course, at the beginning of the day. Then we started to read and discuss the “Salt” story in Open Court.

We went to room 33 for music while it was still reasonably dry and Mr. Lawton had his usual energetic and engaging lesson with the students.

He concentrated on introducing ideas of rhythm and meter with the students today, and he did so by having them do a little footwork.

This was particularly apt teaching technique because the term meter actually refers to the dances that originally accompanied Greek dramatic poetry.

After we came back to the classroom, we finished reading “Salt” and the students pasted the post-it notes that they use to practice their reading strategies onto the appropriate page in their unit booklet. They worked on predicting, questioning, and visualizing today.

We watched part of The Witches during lunch. After lunch, we did math. We are starting on a plane geometry unit right now. We will still be reviewing division, and probably having another test on that at the beginning of next week.

Homework:  (1) Do the Unit 2 Spelling Review jumble. There will not be a regular spelling test this week. (2) Do Math pages 194-195. (3) Do the Division worksheet. (4) Do “Salt” study questions.

Symbols

Today we were artistic.

After reviewing the “Birth of a Baby Food” story, we talked about cause and effect. We then used one of our Thinking Maps, the Multi-Flow Map, to illustrate the factors which led to the development of Gerber baby food and the impact that this product had on the Gerber family and the larger society in the 1920’s. The example below had particularly fun illustrations.

After recess, we talked more about the rancho period in California history.  We discussed the hide and tallow trade, and the students pretended to envy the Californio children who only had a few weeks of school at the most each year.

After lunch, we had another read through of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. There’s a lot of talent in room 19, and it’s going to be hard to pick just two people for each of these parts.

Thursday is our regular visual arts day. Our lesson today dealt with complementary colors, that is, those that are opposite each other on the color wheel. The suggested activity for this in the art curriculum was to have the students pick several symbols which said something about the school, and to use complementary colors for each symbol. I added a little to this assignment because I also had the students write a paragraph explaining their choices. Here is a good example:

     Today in Art we made symbols. The first symbol I made was an eraser. In school, you need erasers because you make mistakes. My second symbol was scissors. You need scissors in Art. Finally, my third, and final, symbol was the flag. You need a flag in school to say the pledge of allegiance.

We finished by taking a math test . We’ll correct it tomorrow and I will post the grades as soon as possible.

Homework:  (1) Do one spelling sentence for each spelling word. (2) Do the “Conjunctions” and “Compound Fractures” worksheets. (3) Do the “Life in Mexican California” study sheet and the accompanying “Rancho San Miguel” map reading exercise. (4) Do the “Dividing Money” worksheet.

Read Arounds

I have a vague feeling of doom every time that the day begins with precipitation, but everything went quite well today in room 19. We learned a lot and we had some fun, too.

We started off checking and correcting homework. The scores for the last couple days are posted on the gradebook. Students did quite well with prime and composite numbers. A few did not complete the poem/song lyrics assignment for Mr. Lawton, and they will need to get that done tonight in addition to any other work. We then finished reading “Birth of a Baby Food” – not a deeply fascinating story, but a good illustration of how people can make a fortune doing things which make the lives of others less stressful and more productive.

After that, I split the class into groups of five and the students read the stories they wrote on Monday to each other.

This is a technique called a “read around group” (or RAGs, if you are a connoisseur of educational acronyms). Each student reads his or her own paper; the other members of the group are supposed to give each writer at least one specific compliment and offer one suggestion or area of clarification. It seems easy, but the students find giving constructive feedback surprisingly hard. The students started revisions – second rough drafts – after they finished their group discussions.

We successfully avoided rainy day schedule, and the students all went to recess as scheduled. YES! (Not their reaction….) After recess we went to the Tech Center where Ms. Richard worked with them on both typing skills and their business plan power point presentation.

After lunch we had our first read through of the play.   We have a lot of interest in the various parts, and already some strong contenders. We went out to PE. As I mentioned on Monday, room 37 is now going us for PE, and I worked with those students to teach them to warm up routines. We had about 15 minutes of free choice activities, and then the students washed up.

We finished the day in the auditorium where Ms. Limb went over the plans for the new Student Council. A lot of our students are interested in running for office!  It should be great!

Homework:  (1) Finish the revision (second rough draft) of the holiday/vacation story. (2) Do the spelling wordsearch. (3) Do the study questions for the “Baby Food” story. (4) Do pages 182-184 in the math book as well as the test prep section.

Prime Time

This seemed like a even shorter shortened day! But I didn’t hear any students complaining….

We started off, as usual, checking, correcting, and discussing homework. Most of the students did well with the factoring, though a few still seemed confused by the concept. We then went on to start reading “Birth of a Baby Food” in the OCR anthology. We will finish that tomorrow.

Today was our first music class with Mr. Lawton. I intended to take some pictures here  to show you some of the fun things he did with the class, but somehow left the memory card in the computer. So you’ll have to wait for next week. But, if you are not familiar with Mr. Lawton’s program you can check his blog.

After recess we did math. Today we learned about prime and composite numbers (and hence the title of this post). Again, most of the students mastered this easily, but it would be helpful if parents gave a quick review of the math homework tonight to double check comprehension.

After recess, we finish watching the Charlie Brown video. The scripts came this afternoon, so we’ll do a read-through tomorrow and start casting soon.

We finished up with reading buddies as we usually do on Tuesday afternoons.

Homework:  (1) Do the spelling jumble. (2) Do “Prime and Composite Numbers” pages 180-181 and the “Pyramid” worksheet on the back. (3) Do Mr. Lawton’s lyric writing exercise.

A New Year

Welcome back! Happy New Year to everybody!

First, let me thank all the families for their extraordinary generosity at Christmas. I was touched by the kind words in the card and I must say that the cash inside came inside very handy during the holidays! There were a number of other gifts which I received as well, and if I were the person my mother wanted me to be I would have already responded with my thank you notes.

We had a good first day back. We spent the first few minutes getting reacquainted, and then the students started writing about their breaks. I gave them the option of writing a personal vignette (nonfiction) or a story (fiction). We shared rough drafts. On Wednesday, the students will work on revising these and doing second drafts.

We will be reading “Birth of a Baby Food” next in Open Court, and last year one of my parents led the class in creating baby food commercials as part of this unit. I loved the lesson, and I still had the baby food jars left over so the students had a chance to do it this year. We talked about the classic advertising and propaganda techniques – appeal to authority, bandwagon, glittering generalities, and so forth – and the students used these as they improvised their ads. We filmed them as you can see below.

After recess, we read some more of Island of the Blue Dolphins. We talked about the rancho period in Southern California and read the accompanying chapter in the book.

We are going to be working on Charlie Brown in earnest now. The Farrington family kindly agreed to photocopy the scripts for us, and while we are waiting for these to arrive we’ll be reviewing the video and a prior student production from another school. We’ll be doing casting soon, and I’ll be begging for parent help…. Before we started to watch the video, though, we did a theater exercises as a kind of refresher.

We did PE today with room 37 as well as room 19. It’s a fewer more logistics with a third class, but it makes it easier also to have a third teacher working with an activity. Math was about factoring – not a particularly hard concept for the students.

Homework: (1) Write the spelling words in syllables. (2) Do the “Word Knowledge” and “Vocabulary from Context” papers in preparation for reading the story tomorrow. (3) Do the rancho study questions and the worksheet on historical maps. (4) Do “Factors,” envision Math pages 178-179 and the “Division Amazement” on the back.