Hard Stuff and Fun Stuff

Thursdays are so regular and ordinary. As much fun as Tech Center and Library and PE are, it’s nice to have just a regular day in the classroom.

Today we basically finished off the Money unit in Open Court. Students successfully answered the many questions they had asked about money at the beginning of the unit, and added even more ideas to our Concept/Question board. We also worked a little on improvisation, with students practicing telling the King Midas story as if they were doing standup comedy. They liked that approach.

After recess we first practiced cursive — something we’ll really work on in these last two months as we get them ready for fourth grade — and we started on a music composition project. Today we rolled dice to generate pentatonic melodies. It worked surprisingly well!

We had a Science test after lunch. This was an open-book test, yet I think we will be disappointed in the results. I may send this home for a signature tomorrow after we correct it. We finished up with discussing how to do estimation in math. This one is always surprisingly difficult.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do “Estimating Quotients, “Math, pp 342- 343. (3)  Do the regrouping practice sheet.

Gray but Good

A gray day, but pretty productive. We had a math test today which will be corrected and posted on the Gradebook tomorrow. We did a number of theatre arts activities based on the Golden Touch story. We reviewed 6/8 time in music and continued our exploration of the idea of musical textures.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do “Connect Concepts,” Science, c94, 9-16. COPY! (3) Do Math review worksheets..

Nice Day

A pleasantly uneventful Monday. We shared some weekend fun activity. We had independent reading. We started a new story in Open Court, “The Golden Touch,” a retelling of the King Midas legend. We switched seats. After recess, we studied 6/8 tempo, getting the idea that the first and fourth beats in the measure are particularly stressed. We worked on another body percussion piece and started talking about texture in Music. We went to the Tech Center where Mr. Merkelson helped us with our portfolio projects. After lunch, we had PE, and in math we caught up — more or less — with our counting in Base 8 and Base 10 and discussed the meaning of having remainders in real life (or as close as you come to real life in math book problems!)

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do Vocabulary Review, Science, c94, 1-8 only. Copy the sentences. (3) Do Chapter Review, pages 336-337. Be sure to show ALL work, even on page 227.

Plowing Ahead

Today we more or less finished up the Open Court tests. Tomorrow we will do a quick double check of a few things which might have confused students, and then we will correct the tests. I try to make these tests more about learning than assessment — I think the students are tested too much as it is.

We’re continuing to plow on through division. Students who have truly mastered their times tables are finding this relatively easy, but those who are still skip-counting or using fingers are finding this nearly impossible. Please be sure to check your child’s work tonight and help them with this.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling for the test tomorrow. (2) “Practice Division,” Math, pp 232-233, all problems.

Long Division

It was another great day. We worked a lot this morning on following up on the “Four Dollars and Fifty Cents” story we read yesterday. Students put themselves in small groups, and they practiced reading the story orally with expression. It was great to see them working so independently. They then started on the study questions for the story. They will need to finish them tonight — except for the group which works with Mrs Hammer. They will do the questions tomorrow. We also reviewed some of the common spelling rules for plural and the like, and with those things fresh in mind we took the Spelling section of the Open Court Test.

After recess, we started outlining a particularly dense chapter in the science book. We then turned our attention to learning long division. If students know their times tables, this will be relatively easy. If they are still unsure of sections of the tables, this will prove quite hard indeed. This is the bulk this this evening’s homework.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Math, page 329-330, numbers 2-29 only. SHOW ALL WORK! (3) Do all cursive lowercase letters three times each.

Welcome Back!

I had a great break, and it sounds like most of the children did, too. Still, it was great to see everybody today.

We had a perfectly regular Monday, including Tech Center and PE. We took the first part of the Open Court Test. We read the story “Four Dollars and Fifty Cents” from the Open Court book and discussed this amusing tale about a deadbeat cowboy. In Music we discussed “duration” and reviewed axial movements.

In Math, we’re did simple divisions with remainders. Most got the idea. The homework extends this slightly into 2 digit answers. They may need some help here.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. No cursive practice with this — they need more help here and we’ll work on this during Independent Work Time.  (2) Do “Model Division,” Math, pages 326-327. (3) Do the Perimeter and Area review worksheet. Be sure to find BOTH for each problem.

One of the fantastic spring haiku poems.

 

Students made spinners for probability experiments.
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Students made spinners for probability experiments.

 

 

Have a Great Vacation

This week was one of so many emotions, and so much to do. We started with the tragic deaths on Monday, and our whole school community, even those of us who did not know the children, struggled to comprehend this terrible event. Somehow, by Tuesday evening, we managed to have Open House, and the children performed wonderfully. Rain on Tuesday and Wednesday made things tougher for children and teachers. Thursday seemed relatively normal, and today was, well, different.

We had a minimum day today, and the relatively short instructional time was cut in half by our earthquake drill. I was surprised by how well the children took the tedium of the drill. Learning to be bored, and making the best of wasted time, is a real art. We sometimes forget, as Einstein said, that "creativity is the residue of wasted time."

Homework: I have a backload of stuff to grade and I think it's only fair to give them a break while I catch up! However, reading, practicing times tables, and working a little on cursive are all worthwhile projects to do with your children to keep some forward momentum in these areas.

Great Day

It was an altogether great day.

This morning we started with a quick quiz on inflectional ending spelling patterns, and the students did quite well on it. We went on to silent reading, trying to add as many stickers as possible to the chart before Open House. We continued on in the Open Court book to the story “Kids Did It … In Business.” We did blending and discussed the vocabulary. We read and discussed the simple story.

After recess, students worked on a science wordsearch. In music we worked on hearing and imitating dotted note patterns, understanding and moving our bodies to four-four beats, perfecting a couple body percussion rondos, and working on our “fruit pie” canons. You’ll probably see some of these at Open House.

After lunch, we worked on probability in math. You can see our experiments with spinners in the picture above.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Cursive practice, using words 23-30. (3) “Musical Palm Tree” questions. (4) Experiments, Math, pages 275-277.

Don't the thin branches and the slant of the trees evoke spring nicely here?
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Another evocative picture.
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Wet!

Rain, rain, go away!

A reasonably productive day, all things considered. We spent the much of the morning working on spring haikus and doing drawings which showed overlapping and depth. Writing lines of the appropriate number of syllables was not that hard for the children, but making sure that this was really about nature and included a feeling or other personal response — well that was harder. Drawing a group of trees starting to bud was also surprisingly difficult for many, despite the good examples given in our art textbook. This is the way, though, that children begin to really grow in writing and art.

We sort of skipped recess — which annoyed more than one little one — but after that we spent a productive hour reading the science book and talking about energy. Their questions and comments were quite good, sometimes too hard for me to answer. (I’m a little fuzzy about the connection between magnetism and energy. I know there’s electromagnetism, but obviously there’s no energy in the magnets on the refrigerator.) As I’ve gained experience as a teacher I’ve learned to be a lot more comfortable saying, “You know, I’m not sure….”

We watched part of Jungle Book during lunch time, and they seemed to enjoy that. After lunch we checked yesterday’s homework, got today’s homework, and went home — in the rain!

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Practice cursive using spelling words 8-14. (3) Do the Addition and Subtraction worksheet. (4) Do “Likely and Unlikely,” Math, pp 270-271.

Sleepy Day

Today seemed a little bit sleepy. We started on a new story from the Open Court book called “The Musical Palm Tree.” This is a tale of a young Puerto Rican boy who wants to buy a lace shawl for his mother. He shows tourists around the San Juan area to raise money for this present. It’s a nice introduction to the second big concept in the Money unit — the idea of business. Some of the Spanish words in the story, though were a bit unfamiliar to many of the children.

We went to the Tech Center where students worked on HyperStudio stacks. After lunch, we took a math test. The results are on the Gradebook, and they’re a little disappointing. We will go over some of the misunderstandings, and probably take the alternative version of the test in a few days.

Third grade teachers had a meeting at 2:00 p.m., so the students ended the day with a little free “P.E.” on the yard.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling words. (2) Practice cursive by doing spelling words 1-7 five times each. Use the cursive paper. (3) Do “Possible and Impossible,” Math, pp 268-269.

Students getting ready for PE relay races.
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And back they come!
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Hump Day

Wednesdays are often called the “hump day” and our weekly trip to the library makes ours a most delightful hump. Today I was very proud as students answered Mrs. Koneff’s questions about the Dewey Decimal System — something we’ve never really discussed in class — with absolute perfection. “This is the first class this week that has been able to answer all these questions correctly,” she remarked. I beamed, and so did the students.

We also read about the history of money today in Open Court and talked about chemical changes in Science. We learned about “mode” and “range” in statistics (stuff I never learned about until college). These students must be a lot smarter than I was, because they do so well with this advanced content.

Homework:  (1) Line Plots, Math, pages 256-259. (2) Equivalent Fractions worksheet. (3) Science questions, page C51 — please answer in complete sentences.

The Day Zipped By

It was a fast Tuesday. I had a meeting this morning with the ELAC group to discuss the GATE program. Students worked on the Flow map and Anna study questions during this time. We then practiced pantomiming “A Story, A Story” to the narration of a student. We corrected our math.

After recess we worked on Math again, this time discussing scale in bar graphs. We turned our attention to improvisation in music, specifically what is called “Question and Answer” in improvisation. This is a key skill, and though our questions and answers can be improved, we made a good start.

After lunch we had PE. Students did either relays, handball, or basketball. They did their laps, too — which they love so much!

Homework:  (1) Complete Flow Map on “Anna.” (2) Complete the study questions on “Anna.” The students who work with Ms Jan do not need to do this tonight — they’ll work on it in group tomorrow. (3) Do Bar Graphs, Math, page 253. (4) Do Reducing Fractions Worksheet.