Week In Review

It was another great week in 4th grade! This week we hammered out our class t-shirt design and got started with our #TweeterOfTheDay. Take a look at what we did in each subject.

Writing Workshop
"Studying the Craft of Language Through Mentor Authors"

• Read Like a Reader vs. Read Like A Writer 
• Word Choice 
• Sentence Fluency

Science
"Structures of Life"

• Crayfish Behavior & Structures
• Vertebrates: Fish vs. Amphibians
• Students took notes on the structures of each vertebrate and discussed the function of each structure.
• Students used their notes to create a foldable comparing fish and amphibians.
• Vertebrates: Reptiles & Birds

Reading
"Interpretation"

• SRI Assessment
• Interpreting Characters - Preassessment
• Reading Intensely
• Taking Responsibility for reading "Just Right" books
• Collaborating

Math
"Addition, Subtraction & Place Value"

• Numbers Through One Million
• Number Names
• Expanded Form
• Numerals
• Relationships in Place Value
• We learned that there's a relationship between two digits that are the same in a muli-digit number.
• For example, in 4,556 the 5 in the hundreds place is 10 times more than the 5 in the tens place.
• Comparing Whole Numbers
• Students compared whole numbers up to the 100,000 place. 
• Students learned strategies for comparing numbers that may start with the same digits.

Reminders

• If you weren't able to attend curriculum night, all of the information you need can be found here on the blog.
• Check our class calendar for important dates - click here to see the calendar.
• "Like" us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MrsWoodsWorkshop/
• Follow our #TweeterOfTheDay on Twitter - https://twitter.com/WoodsWorkshop

16-17 Curriculum Night

Weren't able to make it to Curriculum Night?

Don't worry, I've got you covered. Everything you need is below. Let me know if you have any questions!

Mrs. Wood's Workshop - Facebook Page

Week In Review

We made it through our first full week of 4th grade! We've got some exciting things happening in our room, check out our Week in Review!

Are you following our class Facebook page? We'll be sharing pictures and other fun stuff over there!

Writer's Workshop
"Building a Community of Writers"

This week students studied punctuation in writing along with learning 4th grade "non-negotiables". We set up our Google Classroom and students completed their first writing pre-assessment online. Near the end of the week students were tested on 4th grade accountable words. A list of words will be coming home next week for your child to work on. 

Science
"Structures of Life"

We began reviewing our Experimental Design Diagram where students refreshed their understanding of independent and dependent variables, constant conditions, and writing a hypothesis. Students learned more about how science classify animals. Our crayfish also arrived on Friday, we'll be learning more about them next week!

Reading
"Building a Community of Readers"

Students learned that different text bands (levels of books) will have different characteristics. We started by looking at the NOPQ text band and read Thank You Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. Together, we worked to identify traits of a book in the NOPQ text band. 

Next, we studied the characteristics of the RST text band. We began reading Tiger Rising by Katie DiCamillo and taking notes about the characteristics of an RST book in our class notebook.

For more information on reading level expectations click here. Still have questions, let me know!

Math
"Addition, Subtraction & Place Value"

On Monday students took the first Math Benchmark of the year. These assessments are designed to show growth through the year as they test students on end of year expectations. Students will take another benchmark in the winter and again in the spring. 

Next we began talking about the Math Practice Standards, these are things mathematicians will do all year long as they work to solve problems.

Finally, we learned how to play "Close to 1,000" and spent some time working on our Moby Max accounts.

Reminders:

• Be sure to check the class calendar, located here on the blog.
• If you haven't sent in $2 for your child's student planner please do so next week.
• Send in your Orchestra Registration Form if you haven't already.
• Curriculum night is Wednesday, August 24th.
• Scholastic Book orders are coming home this weekend! You can shop online by clicking HERE and entering our class code - M97HD.

Week In Review

Each week our newsletter will be published digitally to the blog. As the year gets in full swing I will give a brief description of what we're doing in each subject, but for now I will share a little bit about our first week of school.

Wednesday, August 10th, 2016

Students worked in cooperative teams to teach the class expectations. They covered expectations for the hallway, the carpet, the tables, at recess and lunch.

We read Swimmy by Leo Lionni and talked about the great things our class can accomplish when we come together to work as one. 

Students created their Class Dojo student accounts and designed their monster. If you haven't created your parent account yet please check with your student for the informational flyer.

Thursday, August 11th, 2016

Students spent time brainstorming and deciding on a class name! We will proudly be the....Gumballs this year! We began work on our t-shirt design and class mission.

After deciding our class name we created a list of Leadership Roles for our classroom. We were able to come up with 20 Leadership Roles, one for each student.

Finally, we began setting the stage for our Reader's Workshop. Students answered 4 questions about what they believe Reader's Workshop should be like. During this time students also began filling their book boxes with "Just Right" books. After everyone was stocked with good reading material we worked on building our reading stamina. On our first day of independent reading we hit 30 minutes of non-stop reading.

We ended our day by reading Juice Box Bully.

After reading this story we decided that instead of having a long list of rules we would have a class promise.

Friday, August 12th, 2016

We spent our morning discussing Writer's Workshop. Students helped to create a list explaining what it looks like and what we want our purpose to be during Writer's Workshop. Students got a chance to work in their Writer's Notebooks today as we brainstormed possibly story ideas. 

Later in the day students applied for their classroom leadership roles. They will be announced on Monday! 

During reading we read Junk Yard Wonders and then continued to work on our independent reading stamina. Today students read for 37 minutes! 

Finally we played "Guess That Student" a game designed for students to learn more about each other. 

Class Dojo

Our classroom will be using Class Dojo to keep parents in the loop this year! 

Each student has a unique code that will be coming home this week. Please register your device when you get our Dojo newsletter.