Our week

I can't believe we are wrapping up this school year! It's bittersweet... I've seen such growth and independence and I'm so sad to say goodbye but I'm so proud of them for what they've become!

This week, in Math, we practiced division and worked on our games/projects. Most students chose to make games while a few decided to complete the project, "If I had $1,000,000." Lina and Doon have found the way out of Ember! in Read Aloud and are ready to begin their journey but first, they need to hide from the guards that are trying to capture them... In Reader's Workshop, we got our books to begin our book talks/literature circles. Some are reading a mystery, The Westing Game, or a fantasy, The Castle in the Attic, science-fiction, Half-Magic, realistic fiction, Flying Solo or a biography, Who Was Harry Houdini?. They started the books and set up their reading schedule. In Writer's Workshop, we are working on pieces for next year's 4th graders by creating brochures of Room 110 or writing letters for what to expect or creating a fun narrative. We are working with completing the writing process, editing and revising to make complete 4th grade pieces of writing. We have applied for Statehood to Mr. H, in Social Studies, so we are busy creating state symbols and designs for a flag. Finally, in Science, we are working with electricity. Students have a wire, battery and light bulb and are working in groups to discover how to make the bulb light.

Reflections

I'm not sure what it is but every day around 2:15-2:30, we fall apart. We get chatty and loud and end our day on a sour note. Around 3:10, enough was enough. Those that were doing great all day (I think 8), received a treat and the rest of the class received a speech about how I can't fix this problem. They need to take a look at themselves and their behavior and fix and modify so that we can enjoy the final days of this year. They seemed receptive so hopefully, we'll do better.

Mrs. Vidic came in for Guidance this morning where we looked at interests and job ideas for the future. Then, in Math Workshop, we did some multi-digit multiplication and division review and then got started on our math project-using what we've learned this year. During lunch, some of the kiddos wanted to begin clubs so we had Club Day and got a few of them started: Film Club, Engineering and Architecture Club, Reading Club and Crafting Club. Once we came in from recess, we listened to 2 pharmacy students about medicine safety. Then, in Read Aloud, Lina took Doon to see the Instructions and they agreed that they were important and had something to do with the Pipeworks. The next day after work, Lina met Doon at the Pipeworks and they went to find this secret door but it was locked and there was a secret visitor.... Finally, we ended our day discussing economics. We began reviewing some vocabulary and discussing opportunity cost and then talking about entrepreneurs and how you can begin with a problem and discover a solution as a start.

This crazy WEEK!

On Monday, we had our field trip to the Ohio Supreme Court and Ohio State Capital-which were both phenomenal! :) We had a long recess and completed some Math practice and read some of City of Ember.

On Tuesday, we practiced algebraic expressions in Math Workshop and how to use a formula sheet in the morning. In the afternoon, we read City of Ember, worked on trying to complete our Ohio Inventor trading cards and then went to our outdoor classroom to finish up our lighting investigation for the Ohio Energy Project. **Students also brought home the rest of their FREE supplies like 3 LED lightbulbs, a LED nightlight, a faucet aerator and a shower aerator....

On Wednesday, we spent the entire morning taking the Math AIR test. Some, actually most, worked extremely hard to show what they know. Kudos for that! In the afternoon, we read City of Ember, read independently/finished our trading cards and fossil study work, went to Art and then finished up Science by testing appliances to see how much energy they use. We tested: a crockpot, hair dryer, straight iron, phone and charger, just the charger, laptop and charger, ipad cart and Lucky's light. The crockpot and hair dryer used the most energy and the technology used the least...this led the kids to come to the conclusion that appliance that also use heat or thermal energy, use more energy! (And that Mr. L was correct that my phone charger doesn't use energy unless my phone is plugged in...)

Today, we had meeting where we discussed our passions. Mrs. Bednar's class invited us to their passion project showcase next week and that prompted our discussion. Our discussion led them to ask to start some "clubs." So, on Monday, those that are interested will come up with all the logistics for their club of choice. The clubs will meet on "B" day (since I don't have a duty and can monitor). Some of the clubs might be: debate, film, reading, football, crafts, gymnast, video games, etc. This afternoon, we read more from City of Ember, read independently/worked on finishing our trading cards, started a new story in StoryWorks and learned some new vocabulary with it too and did some free writing. Then, we decided to use inspiration from Lina in The City of Ember, and watched a video about the book, Ada's Violin, about an up-cycled orchestra where the people of a "slum" in South America (I think) have created an entire orchestra of instruments from trash. We planned out our ideas and students will be looking at home for recycling and used items to bring in tomorrow so that we can create new things!

Productive but loud

This morning, I was a professional development meeting so the kiddos worked with Ms. Kelly on Reader's and Writer's Workshop to continue researching Ohio's Inventors and making their "trading cards." They also read independently and Ms. Kelly read, The Boy Who Invented the TV for Read Aloud. They had gym and then I was back for lunch and recess. They begged for me to read some of The City of Ember, so today was Lina's first day as Messenger. One of her messages took her to the Gathering Hall for a message to the mayor. Then, in Math Workshop, we looked over the AIR testing blueprint for the upcoming Math Test and then took the practice test using the protractor tool and the draw point and connect line tools on the ipads. After going over the answers, we found that we still would like some review with algebra and expressions as well as using the formula sheet for conversions of pints, quarts, cups and gallons. We finished up our day with a special Peeps MakerSpace challenge.

2 out of 4!

Sometimes the shortest weeks take the longest to complete!

Today was an ok day. We discussed in meeting trying to reward those that are staying above the line but for some reason, they didn't like that so much. They didn't feel they should be rewarded for doing what they are supposed to be doing. Although I COMPLETELY agree, I explained that we need to do something to recognize those that are staying above the line. So, we are still working on how to best KEEP our behaviors ALWAYS above the line. Our morning question was for Ticket Tuesday: If you just won tickets to your dream concert, who would you see and who would you take with you? So, in our meeting, we discussed how we made our choice for who we'd take with us. Then, we played category challenge but added some complexity by passing 2 balls around while having 2 different players. In Math Workshop, we reviewed conversions and then finished our relay race. While the relay race was challenging, they didn't fare so well... Tonight's homework is to work on some conversion problems in their green workbook. :) We had music today, lunch and due to the early morning rain, indoor recess. In The City of Ember, we learned details about Lina, her sister, Poppy, her granny and her shop and apartment. We read independently and visited the library and then in reader's Workshop, continued researching Ohio's inventors. Some were able to move forward with creating their trading cards too. Finally, we completed our day by continuing our investigation of lighting and the most efficient type of bulbs.

Important question!

Our morning question was for Make a Choice Monday...burgers or fries?! :)

We began our day by finishing up our M4T from last week and our Ohio Dailies. In our morning meeting, we discussed all of the out-of-the-ordinaries this week and what we need to do to be successful this week-one thing we talked about was with trying to find a prescription for the deltas that made last week unsuccessful at times. Then, we shared about our weekends. We also played a new(ish) game, "What are you doing?" After writing our SMART goals, we practiced conversions, especially within the metric system. We ended with a conversion relay race but ran out of time so we'll finish that up tomorrow. Today was Art and then lunch and recess and we began a new read aloud, The City of Ember. They are very intrigued from just the first chapter! Once we finish the book, we will be completing our very own City of Ember! We read independently and in Reader's Workshop, used QR codes to research Ohio Inventors. We came back to the Ohio Energy Project for Science and began investigating lighting by comparing incandescent light bulbs, CFL bulbs and LED bulbs.

Beautiful day!

The weather is gorgeous... as I type this blog while outside enjoying it!

We began our day with M4T, Ohio Dailies and i-time where some finished excavating fossils that we began yesterday, some worked on the blogs while others read and did some other work. Students worked together to try and complete a word search for our morning question and in Math Workshop, we found area and perimeter of shapes that I made using tape on the ground. This ended up taking the entire time! So, we wrote in our planners and went to Art, lunch and enjoyed a lovely recess! After recess, we continued working on our vocabulary from Miss Alaineus: a Vocabulary Disaster. Then, we read independently, blogged or visited the library and in Reader's Workshop, read the paired text in StoryWorks about the history of television and then completed a response comparing and contrasting television over the course of the timeline, on the ipads. I am impressed at how much better their writing has become but they still ask if they need to use paragraphs! Yes! Finally, we ENDED our day with our meeting and talking about how they can prepare for the testing tomorrow and Friday: get a good night's sleep, eat a healthy breakfast, bring in a small pillow or blanket, get excited to show what they know, etc.

Meh

Well, today was pretty much just as frustrating. Maybe it is our schedule of being a little "off." Let's go with that. Anyway, let's hope that tomorrow will be better. We began our day with M4T and Ohio Dailies. Our morning question was, "Today, I will...." We had an electronic free i-time due to testing in 5th grade which bothered some kiddos but we managed. In our meeting, we reviewed our Plus/Delta/Prescription chart that we made previously and discussed our below the line behaviors lately and what we can do to get back above the line. We played Category Challenge, said the Pledge and wrote more specific SMART goals. In Math Workshop, we practiced area and perimeter with a game-Cover the area, an Exit Slip and an application activity-garden and creating a zoo enclosure. Today was gym, lunch and outdoor recess and instead of Read Aloud, we continued our work with vocabulary and Miss Alaineous a Vocabulary Disaster. Then, we read independently and then in Reader's Workshop, we worked with identifying and understanding informational text structures by completing a matching activity and by reading two stories about Alcatraz and identifying the informational text structures. Finally, we completed our day by making imprint fossils of our handprints and did a little excavating of some "treasures" too.

Hectic...loud...ahhh!

Oh my, it has been a day! So many kiddos were out of control today. Our schedule was a little off but it shouldn't have made them crazy...tomorrow we are going to have a do-over and try again! :)

We started our day with M4T and Ohio Dailies. Our morning question was for Motivational Monday and they had to write motivational messages to each other and then in meeting, talked about Autism for Autism Awareness/Acceptance Day (month), by reading My Brother, Charlie and sharing ways we can accept others. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and then wrote our SMART goal for the week. In Math Workshop, we learned/reviewed area and perimeter and then did some practice. Math was cut short as we had a school community meeting where we learned more R-factor practice with "Adjust and Adapt."

Then, we headed to Music, lunch and outdoor recess. For Read Aloud, we read, Miss Alaineous: a Vocabulary Disaster and did some practice with vocabulary words. Next, in Reader's Workshop, we read 2 Greek Myths and tried to understand the figurative language used...it was hard! Finally, we moved on to Social Studies to complete/fix our Branches of Government. Our day concluded with another Music where we met with 5th graders to discuss their experience with the musical as we will be doing another one next year!

TGIF!

Today was a good day-Friday's are always good! We began by taking our M4T assessment with the incentive of donuts on Monday for 2/3 of the class receiving 8, 9 or 10/10... In Science, we started by observing fossils and replicas of fossils. Then, sorted cards to put them in the order that some fossils are created. Next, we read the book, Fossils Tell of Long Ago. One student made a connection to our Ohio Energy Project when reading that coal is actually a fossil that coal is a fossil fuel so... ! LOVE to see these connections happen! In Math Workshop, we continued measuring using protractors and added some art to it by making designs that contained certain angle measures and other geometric samples. After cleaning up, we headed to Art, lunch and indoor recess. After recess, in Read Aloud, we finished reading The Fourteenth Goldfish! I won't tell you what happened but it was a happy ending and a possibility of a sequel. We read independently and then in Reader's Workshop, worked with some activities to help us find theme, since we struggled a bit with this yesterday. In Writer's Workshop, we did some free writing.

Practice makes perfect!

Our day began as usual with M4T and Ohio Dailies followed by i-time and morning meeting. In our meeting, we went over the blueprint for our first AIR test next week. They know exactly what they have to do and about how many points there will be. Then, they worked either on their own or with a partner to take the first practice test. As a whole, they did pretty good but 3 areas of weakness stood out: figurative language using greek mythology, informational text structures and theme. The 2 latter were areas I had noticed previously that we needed work with. The greek mythology though... Anyway, we'll work to help fill these holes or to make them feel more secure over the next few days leading up to the test. They know how to access the site and can continue to practice at home if they start getting nervous or feel unprepared. Next, we continued our work with measuring angles with protractors in Math Workshop. They are doing pretty good with this skill! They have always done pretty well when they get to DO things though. We had gym (which this is the first time they've ever groaned when I told them it's time for gym-that last gym day must've really hurt their legs!!), lunch and recess. In The Fourteenth Goldfish, a little romance sparked between Raj and Ellie and grandpa started getting some bad "growing pains"...I hope this isn't a side effect from the T. melvinus... We read independently and in Reader's Workshop, worked to find theme. This didn't go very well so we'll be working more with this tomorrow! Finally, in Writer's Workshop, we finished up our response to the reading about rainbows from yesterday and then switched papers and analyzed each other's responses.

Busy, busy

Tuesday:
We began our day with M4T and Ohio Dailies and then in our meeting, we shared our favorite songs and for as much as these guys listen to music, they can't name their favorite songs! We played a little game of "Finish the song..." where someone would begin a theme song or any song really and the rest of us finished it. Then, in Science, we started by drawing a picture of a dinosaur then discussed how we were able to draw a picture of something we've never actually seen in person--fossils! and read a book about fossils. In Math Workshop, we took our post-test over unit 7 and our pre-test for unit 8. Most only needed to answer a few questions for the post-test as they did well on the check in we took before break. We had Art, lunch and indoor recess and then read more of The Fourteenth Goldfish. Today's reading was kind of blah to me. We're still learning more about Melvin (grandpa) and the relationships between him and Ellie and him and Mom and there are some funny parts but after reading such amazing and dramatic books earlier this year, this one is just kind of ok for me. Has your kiddo mentioned it? We read independently and then in Reader's Workshop, worked on inferencing with "Lost and Found" from StoryWorks. We analyzed the comparing/contrasting about the oak and birch trees and then improved the writing to make it "really good" not just "ok."

Wednesday:
This morning, we completed our M4T and Ohio Dailies and in meeting, shared what homework we did last night--some didn't do anything and others read while only 2-3 completed some math work and no one had started or worked on their book review writing yet... we played coseeki and it isn't much easier with less people either. In Math Workshop, we learned how to measure angles using a protractor and then went to Music, lunch and a beautiful outdoor recess. There was a substitute this afternoon but my plans were for them to read, Fossil Girl for Read Aloud, work on the theme in Reader's Workshop, write their own response to a reading in Writer's Workshop and learning about the branches of government for Social Studies.

Welcome back!

I missed them so much! I loved seeing everyone today and getting back into the swing of things. Once we said hello and got caught up, it was time to get to work! We began our day with Guidance and then had our class picture. Finally, around 10:30, we got to Math Workshop. Before break, we did a check in on our Unit 7 understanding and I found that most students needed a more secure understanding with sorting and classifying shapes based on their attributes as well as some application of understanding symmetry so we practiced and reinforced that understanding today. We had gym, lunch and recess and in The Fourteenth Goldfish, we learned a little bit more about grandpa and his relationships with Ellie and her mom. After reading independently, we read, Lost and Found in StoryWorks and worked with the vocabulary found in the story. In Writer's Workshop, we read two stories about trees and then discussed how we would attempt the prompt to compare and contrast the two stories using evidence from the text. Finally, we read about the NW Territory's next steps toward becoming a states and found that we need to create a government and want a democracy like Ohio, so we need to learn and understand our 3 branches of government. To begin this understanding, we watched a School House Rocks video, "Three Ring Circus."

What do you like that is green?

Our day was filled with some out of the ordinaries. We took a fossil pre-test so that we can begin our fossil study when we return. Then, Mrs. Andrews came in and showed us all of the tools available for us when we take the AIR tests next month. We are taking the assessments on the ipads and I want to be sure they get assessed on the content-not the format. We will continue to "play around" with these tools in class but they can also access the practice test and tools at home through a link on my Canvas page. Next, we took our unit 7 math check in to see what we need more practice with or re-teaching on when we return and after we finished, we had some fun with BreakoutEDU digital. Today was Music, lunch and indoor recess. After cleaning up from recess, we read The Fourteenth Goldfish, read independently, completed our reader's responses and narratives and then spent the remaining time making leprechaun traps!

Trying to finish up

This is how the week before a long break always ends up...spending the last couple of days tying up loose ends so that we aren't left in the middle of projects when we head out for Spring Break.

Wednesday:
In Math Workshop, we learned about symmetry by reading, Seeing Symmetry and then completed some activities followed by using symmetry to create SuperHero Masks! However, to personalize learning, we also made hair bows and sunglasses and antennae... :) Then, after Gym, lunch and recess, in The Fourteenth Goldfish, we actually had 2 really great impromptu learning moments. This book has a lot to do with Science so they were talking about Jonas Salk, the scientist that discovered the vaccine for Polio. Well, my grandfather was the last person to die in Ohio of Polio. So we looked up the newspaper article and read about it! (It was when my dad was 10 so I didn't know him.) Then, they were talking about how Scientists never give up and how Science is like a puzzle which led us to look at famous failures. We read independently, blogged and worked on our discussion post for the debate question in StoryWorks: Should gum be allowed in school? In Writer's Workshop, we continued revising, editing and completing our final copy of our narrative using dialogue. We concluded our day with Social Studies and a little on the fly project we began about our classroom becoming a "state."

Thursday:
Today was crazy. We had special at 10:00 and then the 5th grade musical performance at 10:50 and then they wanted me to read more from The Fourteenth Goldfish. While today's reading was good, nothing jumped out at us like yesterday! Then, we had lunch and outdoor recess and then we did our Math Workshop. It was pretty differentiated with kiddos in 3 different groups based on their needs, but worked with classifying shaped based on their properties, name symmetry and began designing a geometrical town. At 2:00, the OSU researcher came in and gave the pre-test over fossils and then we worked on finishing up our reading and writing work from the previous days'.

Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day! (and my Adison's birthday!) Our morning questions today was, "What is your favorite kind of pie?" and surprisingly, a few kiddos don't like pie, at all! We worked on our M4T and Ohio Dailies (which now I can tell they are actually completing them because they are starting to talk about facts they are learning!). In our morning meeting, we shared about our evenings and then played, "Laughing Bandana." Math Workshop was all about Pi! We brought in circular snacks but before we ate them, we read, Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi. This story taught us, in a punny way, how to find pi by measuring the circumference and diameter of circles. So, we measured our circular foods and then ate them, after they helped us find pi! What did your kiddo eat for their circular snack today, other than the cookie I gave them?! Today was Music, lunch and indoor recess and then we read a little bit more from The Fourteenth Goldfish and found out that this cranky 13-year old truly IS her grandfather! He has found a way to regenerate senescence (we learned what these science terms meant...) While half of us read independently, the other half worked on a padlet helping to explain the above terms-then switched. https://padlet.com/heather_lambrig/the14thgoldfish1 In Reader's Workshop, we got our new StoryWorks and read the debate article about allowing gum chewing in school. Then, they formed their opinion and wrote their "argument" on a discussion thread in Canvas. We continued revising and editing our narratives and then finished brainstorming steps needed for us to become a "state."

Prescription for shout-outs

I felt like I worked at a carnival today...I walked around carrying raffle tickets for those that waited to speak, quietly, with their hands raised. At the end of the day, we put all of the tickets given out into a drawing and Miren won! Hopefully, this will help to quiet us down and keep us from shouting out! :)

We are getting our M4T checked by me this week to hopefully improve our accuracy on Friday assessments as well as getting caught up on our Ohio Dailies work. In our morning meeting, we tested out our contraptions from the MakerSpace challenge on Friday. We wrote new SMART goals and then did a little "Mrs. L says" to review our geometry terms. In Math Workshop, finished up our work with applying our geometry terms to look for attributes in 2-dimensional shapes. After writing in our planners, we headed down to Art, lunch and outdoor recess. We began our new Read Aloud today, The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer Holm. So far, we've met the main character, Ellie, her mom, babysitter and some grouchy, kid that she thinks is her grandpa?! We read independently for about 20-25 minutes and then worked on our reader's response in Kidblog. We also voted for March Book Madness and replied to others' responses. In Writer's Workshop, we focused on REVISING our narratives. Instead of hoping to not have any marks on our papers, we are trying to make lots of marks. Finally, in Social Studies, as Ohio is working toward statehood, we decided, maybe we (Room 110) can try to become a "state." We brainstormed potential steps to statehood!

Dogzilla!

Our day began as usual with our M4T assessment and Ohio Dailies, however, according to the substitute from yesterday, they were pretty chatty, so we worked quietly this morning. Then, we worked on finishing up understanding our geometry work from yesterday and doing some application of the vocabulary using two-dimensional figures. After we got to a stopping point with our math, we moved on to MakerSpace which was a Dogzilla challenge using the book by Dave Pilkey. It was great! I can't wait to test them out on Monday. After gym, lunch and a chilly recess, we came in and worked to complete our Writing about reading on Kidblog that was started yesterday and continue writing our narratives that we began with LEGOs. Finally, our day ended by helping the 5th graders out by being their audience for their upcoming Jungle Book Musical practice.

I surrender...

By the end of the day, I waved the white flag and surrendered. Teacher 0, Class 1. :0) It was just a little hectic trying to get some things to the point where I needed them to be, as I will be out tomorrow for my uncle's funeral. It wasn't a bad day, just stressful for me.

We started our day working on our M4T and Ohio Dailies and then worked on bettering ourselves during i-time. Then, in our meeting, we finished reading Inch and Miles and completed our Pyramid of Success!

In the book, they used a lot of alliteration so we also took some time to describe ourselves using alliteration. Fun! We began Math Workshop by practicing our geometry terms with Mrs. Lambright says and then used geoboards (either the real deal or the app) to practice making them and finished the day showing our understanding on paper. There wasn't a substitute for Art today so instead, we played Nasra and Ava's math Kahoot! and Matt's fraction/decimal Quizizz and had some free art/free time before heading to lunch and recess. After coming in from a very windy recess, we completed a padlet to decide on our next book for Read Aloud and read independently. While the students worked on that, I dished out ice cream for our most recent potato head celebration! They topped it with chocolate and/or strawberry and/or sprinkles! We skipped Reader's Workshop today and finished building our narrative ideas in Writer's Workshop using LEGOs. Finally, we FINALLY completed our Save the Penguins! Science project. Busy day, right?
(Check out Facebook for pictures of our celebration and alliteration!)

Safety Drill

Well, we only had 4 kiddos out sick today so I think we may be getting better...

After completing our morning work and i-time, in meeting, I shared some positive messages that I use to help feed my (and other's) positive dogs. I shared the idea that Justin Timberlake shared during his acceptance speech at the iHeart Radio Awards this past weekend that 'to be different means you will make a difference.' **Our wonder, from 365 Days of Wonder, today said something similar, "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Then, we read a little more from Inch and Miles about building our Pyramid of Success and added two new bricks, alertness and self-control to our pyramid. In Math Workshop, we began by sharing our geometry scavenger hunts using AirPlay and the ipads and they did an amazing job with finding pictures around the building that represent different geometry terms. Then, we played a cool card game that uses mental math and strategy~Oh No! 99! In the midst of Math Workshop, we took time out for a safety drill. This time we discussed barricading and/or fighting as part of Run, Fight, Hide, and discussed what we have here in our room to help keep us safe. We kept our conversation serious but not scary and decided we practice fire drills-even though we've never had a fire and tornado drills-even though we've never had a tornado. We had Gym today (it looked like a lot of fun too!), lunch and indoor recess. After recess, we wrote in our planners and then finished brown girl dreaming. It was a wonderful book and we liked it but we were ready to move on. We read 2 serious books in a row. We did learn a lot about civil rights and that time period though! Next, we read silently and then finished up with showing our understanding of character and theme in The Unstoppable Ruby Bridges. We took a brain break with GoNoodle and then discussed the parts of a narrative and what makes a successful narrative. Finally, we brought the LEGOs out and created our narratives!

a little healthier...

We started the day a little healthier with only one kiddo out, however, at the end of the day, one had gone home with a fever, another went home with either a reaction to medicine or a secondary infection, one was laying miserably in the corner and another felt awful and was in the clinic. OMG! We need to get our class healthy...I'm not sure what's going on because it seems like it's just our class...I hope I'm not a carrier monkey and just spreading illness... :\

In our morning meeting, we summed up our weekend in one word: terrible, boring, finally, Mohican...were just some of the words shared. In Math Workshop, we took our Geometry pre-test and then went on a Geometry hunt around the building taking pictures of the geometry we found. Today was Music, lunch and indoor recess. After recess, we read brown girl dreaming and although Jacqueline is strengthening her writing, she's writing the life she wants-not has. Then, we took a few moments to get caught up on a few things: we voted for the Sweet 16 books for March Book Madness, logged last week's reading minutes read at home and set our March Book-it goal to increase our reading stamina and increase our minutes for this week, voted on our next celebration since we completed our potato head on Friday and then were able to read independently. After visiting the library and reading, we shared our vocabulary words that we learned last week and put them into a chart so instead of working hard to learn 27 new vocabulary words, we worked smart and each learned 1 and shared so now we will know 27! Then, we (tried to) read The Unstoppable Ruby Bridges drama, however, our lack of stamina and focus won and there was too much movement, losing places, "giving up", etc. so we discussed that sometimes, stamina matters and we don't get endless amounts of time to complete things. Hopefully, the point was understood. (Feel free to help reiterate this at home!) We then, took a brain break (GoNoodle) and completed the setting work on our drama. After another quick brain break, we moved on to finish up any NorthWest Territory work. Unfortunately, again, the lack of stamina and focus came back so some might need to work on this at home.

Small class

With 9 kiddos out sick today, it was a small class! However, we weren't able to do more because we'd just need to do it again for the 1/3 that are out! So, we began our day with only 6 kiddos out so after completing our M4T assessment, in our meeting, we reviewed our Plus/Delta/Prescription Chart and went over our quote from yesterday about AVERAGE. We had a pretty good discussion and then moved on to Math Workshop where we finished up review, practice and application of previously learned skills. We had art, lunch and indoor recess because of the wind chill and only read a little bit from brown girl dreaming. Jacqueline's words are coming more and more and her sister didn't even believe they were her words because they were "too good." We also read a little from Inch and Miles about success and are learning the steps of the pyramid of success. Today, we learned about cooperation, friendship, loyalty, hard work and enthusiasm. We read independently for a good chunk of time and some students went to the library and in Reader's Workshop, we read the drama, The Unstoppable Ruby Bridges together with parts. I have to say, Mrs. Bridges was great! :) (ask your kiddo!) To finish up our day, we wrote poetry to be added to our poeTREE and worked on our information about Ohio becoming a state.

Stock in Lysol

We started our day with 4 kiddos absent and by 9:15, 2 more went home with fevers. We've had strep and croup and I've had flu at home so if your kiddos are complaining of something, it is probably true! I'm getting Lysol and Clorox wipes and going to sanitize the room tomorrow morning so we can hopefully kill all the germies currently living in our room. (I'm currently at home writing this while taking care of my sickies and will be sanitizing my house too!)

For Thoughtful Thursday, our morning question was, Think about it Thursday: hmmm... what do you think about this quote... “Average. It was the worst, most disgusting word in the English language. Nothing meaningful or worthwhile ever came from that word.” -Portia de Rossi So, in our morning meeting, we made a plus/delta/prescription chart of the things that are going well +, the things that can be improved upon and a prescription for improving our deltas. We had a great discussion and even put some things in place already. (I'll send a pic home tomorrow but I forgot to take one this morning before I left.) After a quick GoNoodle brain break, we got to work on reviewing and applying math with a lot of the same activities from yesterday. We had gym, lunch and outdoor recess and then the sub is going to continue with Thoughtful Thursday and read a few books: (Inch and Miles: the journey to success, Rosie Sprout's Time to Shine, So Few of Me and/or You Will Be My Friend!) for read aloud. After reading independently, they'll read the drama from StoryWorks, The Unstoppable Ruby Bridges and focus on understanding the vocabulary, which they should do well with since we have been immersed in the civil rights movement with brown girl dreaming. In Writer's Workshop, they'll be writing different types of poetry to add to our poeTREE and in Social Studies, continue working toward Ohio becoming a state.

Sorry...

First of all, I'm sorry that I haven't kept up with blogging this week. My husband and both girls tested positive for flu... yay.

Anyway, yesterday, we had a sub for the afternoon so we worked on reading and writing with her. In the morning, for Math Workshop, we practiced applying fractions and decimals using some real world problems with Exemplars. In our meeting, for Tell Me Tuesday, we shared things that people don't know about us. Did you know that we have lots of pet allergies in our class? Also, one dad is an artist, 2 dads are police officers and a lot of parents work for Nationwide! The sub left a good report so we got our potato head piece this morning. Only one more needed!

Today, we switched things up by holding our meeting at the END of the day. They did NOT like this. However, I don't like our kiddos at Focus on Wednesdays to miss our meetings so we tried it. I'm not sure if it will continue but we tried it. In Math Workshop, we practiced with some relevant math but reviewing big numbers using You Tube views, decimal comparison using Cedar Point roller coaster drop heights and some cool manipulative apps and calculator games. We had a school community meeting today~ask your kiddo about the message. We had music, lunch and indoor recess and then in brown girl dreaming, Jacqueline realized that she loves words and words are her brilliance! Yesterday and today, we looked at the books she's written and now that we know more about her life, can understand her motivation and inspiration for writing them. It allows us to look differently at her books and we realize that we love them even more now! We read independently (and continued to read some more of her books-I even put a link on our Canvas page to her website which shares more information too.) and in Reader's Workshop, they read poetry and tried to find the important words, figurative language and author's meaning. We are trying to go deeper into our literacy understanding. After sharing what we found, we had a chance to write our own poetry for our class poeTREE. LOL! :)

Magic

We began our day, as usual, with M4T and Ohio Dailies. For i-time today, most were working on completing their Math Assessments from Friday. This week will be a week of reviewing and applying previously learned skills as kind of a refresher. Mrs. Vidic came in for Guidance and we worked on what different zones "look like." For instance, how can you tell when someone is in the Red Zone...? We had a few minutes for meeting where some shared magic tricks they knew. We only had about 30 minutes for Math Workshop so we either continued with completing our decimal assessment or working on reviewing multiplication, division and fractions. This little review will help us to decide what we need to work most on this week. Today was gym, lunch and outdoor recess and in brown girl dreaming, Jacqueline decided and told her family that she wants to be a writer when she grows up. They just said, "Ok..." which didn't make her feel very secure. Her grandpa isn't doing very well either and he's like her daddy. Today prompted a few to say that this is a sad book... We read independently and then tried to decipher a poem but it was a little too challenging so we recycled it and will try something different tomorrow! :) In Writer's Workshop, we continued to work on using quotation marks in dialogue. I took pictures of them making expressions and then they had to buddy up and write down a conversation between them using the proper conventions for using quotation marks.

Fabulous day!

Today was wonderful! We began by completing our M4T assessment and then continued with showing our understanding of decimals by taking our assessment but also showing our flexible application by completing a real world task involving decimals. After a productive Math Workshop, we went to Music, lunch and a gorgeous recess. In brown girl dreaming, Jacqueline adapted her name to Jackie because her teacher asked her to write her name on the board in cursive and she didn't understand/know the q...so sad! She felt she would rather change her name than say she didn't know. It is hard to believe that this little girl that is having trouble reading and writing becomes such an amazing author! We read independently and then dove deeper into deciphering a poem and truly understanding the author's intent and message. "Victory" was about more than just a race. We then, completed building our penguin dwellings for our "Save the Penguin" science activity. Finally, we got a chance to preview the 5th grade musical, Jungle Book, as they practiced. So cool!

What do you WANT to learn?

School is a mix of what we NEED to learn and what we WANT to learn...or at least it should be! I sometimes get caught up in the plethora of what the state says they need to learn that what they want to learn gets ignored. So, today, for Math, I asked them what they wanted to learn and we did just that! How did your kiddo feel about this idea?

In our morning meeting, we shared one word for this weather and then played coseeki. We earned 2 potato head pieces for our day with the sub yesterday and since we picked what we wanted to learn in math, decided to switch things up and flip flop Math Workshop and Reading Workshop. We read independently and then tried to understand the poem, "Reward" (from StoryWorks) and all of the metaphors within it. We had a fire drill in the midst of our discussion but when we came back, we switched to a little Writer's Workshop where we decided that "said" is dead. We created a poster with words we can use instead of said. I signed planners today, after we wrote our assignments down and then we went to Art (Mrs. Bowers is back!), lunch and recess. After recess, we continued reading brown girl dreaming, where today, her little brother, Roman, went to the hospital because he had been eating paint chips off the wall, which contained lead. Jacqueline's siblings are starting to find things that identify them (brother-chemistry and science; sister-super smart...) and wondering her identity. Next, we moved on to Math where some practiced long division with decimals with me, some took the test and others practiced for the test. After we got the NEED to know completed, we moved on to the WANT. :) Next, we did a little more writing by using macaroni as quotation marks?! Yes. Ask your kiddo for more details. Finally, our day ended with building our penguin dwellings.

1/2 day sub

I was out this morning in a meeting with the other 4th grade teachers. Mr. Oliver said things went well-they were talkative but overall ok. In Math Workshop, they worked at different places: some reviewed for the decimal assessment, a few worked on multiplication of decimals and the rest completed some activities to better understand decimals. I was back for recess and it was nice outside! In brown girl dreaming, we learned a little more about how Jacqueline sees stories in her head, while her mom feels she is lying, she sees it as telling stories. This seems to be the beginning of her writing days! We also took some time to write some poetry about a time in our life. What did your kiddo write about? We read independently and then worked to understand plot using a story in StoryWorks. In Writer's Workshop, we compared our graphic narratives to our written narratives and found that we had to write more details without relying on the details in the legos. We talked also about how we used dialogue in our graphic narratives but not as much in our written narratives. Finally, we worked with partners in Science to create dwellings to Save the Penguins.

Thuriday

Thuriday is what I was calling today because it was like a Friday and felt like a Friday but was actually a Thursday! Anyway, I had planned for more to happen but all in all we had an ok day. We began by completing some questions on our M4T assessment and then got to work completing our conference presentations and LEGO stories. Then, those that didn't finish their box from MakerSpace yesterday continued working....1 1/2 hours later, we were finally finished. I know-it took so long but they did a great job and learned a lot while doing it and even went a step further and video taped segments sharing their creations and what they learned to be added to the ADE news next week. We only had about 10 minutes for math so we practiced some multi-digit multiplication and division before heading to Art. After lunch and outdoor recess, I tried to read brown girl dreaming but it took them waaayyy too long to get together and Mrs. Andrews needed some for a Reading assessment so we didn't end up reading. Instead, we read independently. We also completed either the STAR reading assessment or the work on author's craft in StoryWorks as well as made sure our narratives were completed. Finally, we ended our day working on Science. We took a plastic spoon and a metal spoon and put them to our cheeks and although we know they don't have energy, the metal spoon felt super cold! However, when we put an ice cube in each spoon and waited, the metal was the first to melt. Hmmm... Next, we began planning our project to Save the Penguins! We also brought home some weather stripping to put up at home to help with energy efficiency.

MakerSpace on Wednesday?

Yep! This was a Social Studies themed challenge of sorts and we have a short week so I got the challenge for today.

Our day began by completing our M4T and struggling with division... Ugh! Be prepared to see some multiplication and division practice as homework next week... Then, after working to get caught up on our conference presentations and LEGO graphic narratives, we grouped up to come up with as many ways to make a fraction/decimal that we could. Afterwards, we put these numbers on a number line and completed an exit slip. Today's special was gym followed by lunch and a very chilly outdoor recess. In brown girl dreaming, we found that Jacqueline has discovered her love of writing in first grade, however, she wishes that the letters on the page would quit moving. Hmmm. This reminded us of Fish in a Tree and made us wonder if she also has dyslexia? Her aunt also died which caused them to move again-this time to Brooklyn. We read silently and then either took the STAR Reading assessment or completed StoryWorks work about the author's craft, in Reader's Workshop. We read, Henry's Freedom Box about Henry Box Brown-that mailed himself to freedom from slavery and tried to re-create the actual size of the box.

No Talking challenge

So for today, our morning question was Talkative Tuesday: Would you be able to go all day without talking? Should we try? So, we failed the first few times we tried but at the end of the day, when things are typically most chaotic and loud, we were more successful. We could only ask adults questions or answer questions. Ask your kiddo how they felt they did.

We played catch up this morning with computers, on conference presentations and LEGO stories and after catching up and completing our M4T and i-time, we passed out and collected valentines. Then, in Math Workshop, together, we all played Trashcan Basketball and calculated our shots made in fractions and decimals. We had Music, lunch and a beautiful and sunny outdoor recess! Some went with Mrs. Andrews to take an assessment like the STAR assessment, for Math. This is merely another data point measuring your kiddo's learning~no worries! In brown girl dreaming, we learned that Mom, in New York, is having another baby and coming back to Greenville to get the kids and take them up North! While we waited for all of our friends to return, we read independently as well as read the poem and fiction stories in our StoryWorks. Next, we filled out our bracket for March Book Madness~we have A Night Divided going all the way!

Then, we finished writing our narratives based off our LEGO creations, finished our graphic narratives and finished up our conference presentations.

Productive Struggle

In Math Workshop today, a lot of kiddos reached their limit with productive struggle...some pushed through while others were content with not understanding. This led to our discussion about pushing ourselves. I used a sports analogy and asked if they would be content taking the football to the 1 yard line or if they'd rather have that touchdown?! I want them to start looking at school this way.

We spent some time this morning trying to get caught up and finished with our conference presentations after completing our M4T. We struggled with multi-digit multiplication!! (This would be a great skill to practice at home!) In Math Workshop, we split up into groups based on our needs and got to work. Some were working with Powers of 10 and decimals, others were representing their names as fraction and decimals and the rest of us were applying our understanding of decimal problem-solving. Today was Art, lunch and outdoor recess and then in Read Aloud, we were once again transported to the south during segregation in brown girl dreaming. In Reader's Workshop, we took a second look at problem/solution by looking at plot so we read, White Socks Only and completed our story map. Next, we looked at our Lego graphic narratives we made last week (and realized a lot still need to finish...) and wrote the narrative that goes along with it. *We'll be using these to compare and contrast the details included/not included in both. Finally, we concluded our day discussing conflict among the settlers for Social Studies.

Lunar eclipse, full "snow" moon and Comet 45p??!

Well, no wonder we've been chatty and crazy this week! Geesh! :)

We completed our M4T assessment today and I'm very hopeful that we remembered how to multiply because that was what was needed for quite a few of the problems...I gave them a quick reminder so my fingers are crossed! Then, in Math Workshop, we split up into 4ish groups to work with decimals and ended with an exit slip to see where we all are. We had gym, lunch and indoor recess. In brown girl dreaming, we continued to learn more about Jacqueline's life growing up in the south. To help us understand the times she is writing about, we've also been reading picture books about Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges and the Sit-in movements. After reading independently, we finished up our problem/solution work with StoryWorks and then struggled to complete our graphic narratives using our LEGO software. Technology wasn't on our side... :(

Privilege and Responsibility

The other day, I saw a kiddo chewing gum in class. My stance has always been that if you need/want gum to help you stay calm and focused, great. As long as it doesn't interfere with our learning, we'll be good to go. So, I quietly told the kiddo that he's fine as long as he spits it out when we are not in class and that a mess isn't made in the room. Fast forward to today, at our meeting, a little less than 1/2 the class is blatantly chewing gum, blowing bubbles, chomping and I found gum wrappers/packages on the floor. This prompted our discussion that when the privilege isn't being used responsibly or students aren't showing responsibility with a privilege, the privilege will be taken away. So, I told them that I am of the mentality that every student gets what they need in order to be successful and that this began with one student chewing gum to allow them to stay calm and focused and now this privilege might be taken away because some-that clearly do not need this-can't show responsibility. It is the same with our flexible seating and reading digitally. Some are clearly abusing their privileges! Anyway, I think they understand the message and will be looking at their needs vs. their wants a little clearer and if not, I will gladly help them to do so! :)

We completed our morning work and after our above discussion, shared one word/phrase that the "blizzard" outside made us feel. Then, we played some Coseeki to get our day going, said the Pledge and wrote down our SMART goal. In Science, we took the temperatures of different rooms around the school and found that most of the thermostats are pretty true to actual temperature but also, our building is overall wasting energy. Then, in Math Workshop, we had some controlled chaos with 4 different groups of kiddos learning at one time. Some just have a greater understanding of decimals. We had Music, lunch and indoor recess and then, in brown girl dreaming, we learned a little more about what is was like for Jacqueline's family in the south-which is harder than for her father's family in Ohio, during this time... We read independently and created our February Book-it goals and visited the library. Then, we tried something new by Jigsawing an activity. Everyone watched a video by the author of our non-fiction text we're working with yesterday, and answered one question. Today, we got into groups so that each group had someone that answered each question, and discussed. Next, we worked with problems/solution-a text feature we have previously identified. Once we finished with that, we moved into creating our graphic narrative using the LEGO StoryVisualizer software.

Prepping for conferences

On Wednesdays, we have 7 kiddos out for the majority of the day, so we started our day by spreading out. We completed our morning work, some answered the morning question and then had i-time. Then, we worked on our Google Slides conference presentation. We are working hard to identify our strengths and weaknesses as well as samples of our work and all we've been up to. Then, in Math Workshop, we worked on understanding the idea of decimals on a number line, as money, as fractions and using base-10 blocks. Today was Art, lunch and OUTDOOR recess! In Read Aloud, we looked at The Story of Ruby Bridges and Through My Eyes (both stories about Ruby Bridges), If a Bus Could Talk and I Am Rosa Parks (both stories about Rosa Parks) to get an idea of the differences of the times for brown girl dreaming. Jacqueline Woodson is now one year old in our book and moving from Ohio to the south, or South Carolina-where things are different when it comes to the color of skin... Next, in Independent Reading, students were able to read the books about Ruby Bridges and Rosa Parks and we also decided upon our February Book-it! goals when conferencing with me. We watched a video in Reader's Workshop, by the author, Lauren Tarshis, of "Disaster in Space" in StoryWorks and answered some questions about it. Afterwards, I introduced them to the StoryVisualizer software for our LEGOs we'll be using tomorrow and we completed building and taking pictures of our beginning, middle and end of our narratives.

Busy, busy

As usual, our day began by working on M4T and Ohio Dailies. After i-time, in our meeting, we read, Gaston, a book about a french poodle that's really a french bulldog. Ask your kids the theme, it was a good one! Then, we played category challenge with countries. After a few tries of identifying countries vs. states, Noah won with 11 countries! We said the Pledge of Allegiance and then after writing our SMART goal, we finished up our insulation experiment in Science. In Math Workshop, some of our kiddos took the STAR assessment to gather more data while the rest of us looked at what we know about decimals and fractions-with their similarities and differences. We had Gym today, lunch and indoor recess, where some of the kids ended up walking the halls to use up their energy! We began a new book for Read Aloud, brown girl dreaming, by Jaqueline Woodson. This book is a novel written in poetic free-verse about the author's life, during segregation, and we are already enjoying it! We read independently and conferenced with me about their February Book-it! challenge while some went to the library. We also discussed making sure to not only read digitally...some are really enjoying the EPIC! app however, they tend to be much more distracted when reading digitally by things moving and things to click on. So, they are going to read both digitally and non-digitally. In Reader's Workshop, we re-read Disaster in Space and then completed the vocabulary work. Some did really well while others didn't do so well...some of the new words are: ingenuity, cockpit, detached, agonizing. Finally, we completed building our beginning, middle and ends of our graphic narratives with our LEGO Story Starters.

Typical Monday

We started with M4T, Ohio Dailies and i-time, followed by our morning meeting where we shared a little about our weekend and played, "Just Like Me!" Then, in Math Workshop, we took our unit 6 pre-test over decimals and then had some work time to either read, play ST Math or work on our writing. We had Music, lunch and OUTDOOR recess! It was beautiful! Then, we finished A Night Divided. Ask your kiddo how it ended! We read independently and then got our February StoryWorks and began reading some of the stories in it. Then, we got out the Lego StoryStarters and began familiarizing ourselves with them so we can start the writing process!

Feel Good Friday

This morning, instead of completing our M4T assessment, we took a line plot assessment do-over. Hopefully, this time, there are more that are proficient with their understanding. Then, we switched for Math Workshop and when we returned, we read a little bit from A Night Divided. We are so close to finishing! We had Art, lunch and indoor recess and then had the MakerSpace cart for a challenge to build a marble maze. After our creative challenge, we read a little more from A Night Divided and ended with a knock at the door as Mama and Gerta were on their way to the tunnel to leave East Berlin for good! We spent the remainder of the afternoon working on figurative language, reading independently and working on our writing. **Students may need to complete their research and informational text writing at home!!

Thankful

We began our day with the usual stuff but then our morning question was for student's to pick a name and write something they are thankful for about a friend in class. In Math Workshop, in my room, we practiced making common denominators and also multiplied fractions by fractions. Students were working on ipads in Mrs. Bolyard's room. We had a few minutes before special so we prepared for our Science experiment by insulating our containers and then went down to gym, lunch and back to the room for indoor recess (too cold!). After cleaning up from recess, we heated up the water and performed our experiment, checking the water every minute and writing down the temperature as I was doing the same with our control-uninsulated. It took teamwork and precision and listening and some groups were better than others. :) We'll continue to become better scientists, the more we experiment! In A Night Divided, we came to a very, very exciting part!! Ask your kids why! They begged and pleaded and made me read "one more chapter!" so we only had a little time for reading independently and didn't complete any new work for Reader's Workshop. We finished up (or what I hoped to finish...) our research and informational text writing. Where's your kiddo in the process of researching, writing their informational report and then if time, creating a presentation? (We've been researching for 3+ weeks, by the way.)

1/2 Day

I hate being out. It's the same thing at home. I don't go out very much because I don't like being away from my kids! I miss them too much! However, you can't make dr appointments on the weekend... So, today, I was out for the afternoon.

This morning, we worked on our M4T and Ohio Dailies and in my i-time spelling group, we kicked it "old school" by writing with our fingers in sugar! There is something about the feel of the granules of sugar as you trace the letters that causes things to fire in your brain and helps you remember.

After i-time, we had only a few minutes for our morning meeting so just shared some things with each other and then we read one chapter from A Night Divided. Next, we switched for Math Workshop, again today but my group also teamed up with Miss Hanlin's Focus kiddos and we did fractions with legos. The kiddos in Mrs. Bolyard's room finished up their posters, I believe. We also had a community meeting this morning focused on Pressing Pause and Getting our Minds Right. Congrats to those that were able to stand up and get recognized for standing out this month as leaders in taking care of ourselves, others and our school. 

Math Switch/Collaboration

Something new we are trying with this math unit is to collaborate with Mrs. Bolyard and split the kiddos based on ability/pre-test. About 14-15 kiddos from our class and 10ish from her class showed proficiency of this math unit: fractions multiplied by whole numbers. So, I'm taking the group that doesn't need the instruction of this unit and Mrs. Bolyard will be teaching the unit to those that need the instruction. It's not a high/low separation~it's a "this group needs instruction on multiplication of fractions with whole numbers" and this group doesn't. If we continue to have high numbers of proficiency with pre-tests, we can look at doing this again but it will always depend on the pre-test.

We had 2 birthdays today and they were both of our newer students! After discussing this in our morning meeting and while waiting on Pryce to log in to share his kahoot! with us, we shared some funny faces or special tricks we can do. In Math Workshop, my group worked on an Exemplar (real world problem) and sharing our thinking on a poster for a gallery walk on Thursday and those in Mrs. Bolyard's class, completed problems and shared their thinking on posters too! After Art, lunch and OUTDOOR (finally!) recess, we continued to switch things up by doing Science. We have now solidified our understanding that objects don't produce heat by completing our experiment with wood, wool, metal and glass and discussed why we felt the way we did which led to insulators and conductors. We then, developed our experiment for which material we feel will be the best insulator. In A Night Divided, Gerta found mud on her friend's boots and thinks that she knows about the tunnel and will turn her in! Meanwhile, Mama found them at the tunnel and has decided to help them to complete it and get her family back together! We read independently and then continued our work with figurative language. They are having the most difficulty with similes, metaphors and idioms so if you can find a chance to insert these into your conversation, that would help them to better understand them! Our day ended with work on our research.

Talk too much!

Oh my goodness, we are back to being a chatty bunch! I tried to group them together again as they were all so spread around the classroom that it was getting hard to walk but now that they are sitting with people, they are chatterboxes! We need to find a happy medium. While I'm super excited they know how they work best, they still need to understand and use self-discipline to work with others.

We began our day as usual, however instead of a morning question, it was Mystery Monday and we tried to crack secret codes. In our meeting, we shared the highlight of our weekend and then warmed ourselves up with a reading/acting of the Fidget Family. After saying the Pledge of Allegiance and setting our behavioral SMART goal for the day, we reviewed our line plot assessment from Friday. Only 3 kiddos scored 5/5, so we are going to practice this week, in addition to moving on to multiplication with whole numbers and fractions, and then assess again on Friday. Then, we moved onto going over our pre-assessment for our next unit and found that a large portion of our class showed proficiency, as did a group of kiddos from Mrs. Bolyard's class. So, for this unit, we are going to switch things up a bit! Some students will be going to Mrs. Bolyard's class for instruction on multiplication with whole numbers and fractions. The rest of our class and some of Mrs. Bolyard's kids will be working with me to extend their thinking and go deeper with their math thinking. Then, we had an overview and practiced multiplication with fractions using equations, models and number lines. Today was gym, lunch and indoor recess. Our student council members shared about our upcoming Val-o-gram sale and then Mama returned home in A Night Divided. She is not happy with Gerta and Fritz and the tunnel they have been digging while she's been gone. We read independently and then made a figurative language resource. Next, we continued our research and began writing our informational essay. Finally, we finished up our day with discussing the Revolutionary War and-spoiler alert-the colonists won! :)

Assessment Morning?

This morning began with a lot of assessments. We took our M4T assessment and then our Line Plot Post-Assessment followed by our Unit 5 Pre-Assessment. Luckily, we also had time for some free math, watched the ADE News and enjoyed our "Find the beauty Friday" morning question where we turned a doodle into a masterpiece! We had Music, lunch and indoor recess and then went down to 2nd grade, Mrs. Kleman's room, to see their research presentations. Once we returned, we found out that Officer Muller found Gerta and Fritz while they were tunneling! Instead of killing them for treason, they coerced Officer Muller into using their tunnel to take his family to the West. That was a close call! After reading independently, we watched a rap about figurative language and tried to recognize the figurative language in a couple of poems. Then, we researched in Writer's Workshop and in Social Studies, we discussed the Declaration of Independence (and why we celebrate July 4th/Independence Day...one kiddo said, "I just thought it was a day for picnics, parties and fireworks!). We found a parody video to "Too Late to Apologize" too!

101st day of school!

Our day started with M4T, Ohio Dailies and i-time. It was Tell me a story Thursday and they each added 3 words to complete our story. Ally tried to kill the character in the second sentence but I made her change it-too soon! :) In our meeting, Saya added to our language greetings with an Indian greeting, Namaste and we discussed our favorite numbers and why they are our favorites. Did you know that some of your birthdays and sports numbers are your kiddos favorite numbers? We did Science this morning again and today we looked at the temperature of objects. If we put a thermometer on a wood block, wool hat, metal pan and glass plate, how many objects will be the same temperature? 0, 2, 3 or all? We're going to try it out tomorrow and hopefully, will better solidify our understanding of heat vs. temperature since the mitten problem still has some kiddos a little confused. In Math Workshop, we measured our pencils and used this data to create a line plot. Unfortunately, they are still struggling with scaling the data across the bottom of the line plot. I think they'd be able to do it with whole numbers and they understand fractions so I think it's just them having to do both at the same time. We're taking a little assessment tomorrow and I think they'll do fine. It was Art for special, lunch and guess what?? indoor recess. We were all eager to read A Night Divided and today, they had a very close call with both Anna and Officer Muller! We can't wait to read on tomorrow! We read independently and then in Reader's Workshop, read poetry to find a poem that gave us the feels and illustrated our feeling of the poem and shared them with the class. We are still researching and going to be writing informational text/essay/reports soon so we looked at some mentor texts of interesting ways to write information without just stating the facts or being too boring.

Willkommen!

Willkommen, we found out, means, "Welcome," in German, while reading A Night Divided. So, today was Willkommen Wednesday and in our morning question and in meeting, we discussed words we know from other languages. This led to our new poster of greetings!

We also played a game in meeting where we had numbers on our back and had to ask only yes or no questions to figure out the number. They loved this! In Math Workshop, we continued measuring from yesterday to gather data to then display on a line plot. The tough part of this for them was figuring out how to scale the line to represent their data. So, we measured the circumference of our heads and used this data to make a line plot together, which went much smoother. After interpreting our data and making some conclusions, we cleaned up and headed down to gym, lunch and back for another indoor recess. As Pryce said, "I think January and April are switched..." :) In A Night Divided, Gerta and Fritz are getting more creative with digging this tunnel and disposing of the dirt and have now tunneled about 10 meters! Anna is talking to Gerta again and wants to help with the garden. Great. After reading independently, we found poems that made us feel happy and sad and explained what from the poem makes them feel this way. In Writer's Workshop, we came back to researching and informational text writing. We ended our day working on finding cause and effect situations of the colonists that led to our independence as a country, in Social Studies. 

Great day!

Today was an overall great day. There wasn't anything big that stood out but we completed our work and did it mostly with a smile on our face!

We completed our M4T and Ohio Dailies for morning work to get our brain warmed up and then had i-time. After focusing on ourselves as individuals, we greeted our friends and came together for our morning meeting. In meeting, we shared how we know what others are feeling-examples of their facial expressions and/or body language. We know that Noah is happy when he smiles; Omar is not focused when he's reading a book; Conner is frustrated when he puts his hood up and head down. Then, we talked about social skills and some of the essential social skills needed to succeed.

We tried something new today with doing Science in the morning so next, we completed a scientific question about heat v. temperature. Ask your kiddos about the Mitten Problem. In Math Workshop, we completed the line plot with snail distance data and then did some review of measuring and looked at how inches are divided using fractions. Then, we measured objects in order to gather data for an individual line plot they will be completing tomorrow. Today was Music, lunch and indoor recess, once again. In A Night Divided, Gerta and Fritz continued on the tunnel but also had to work on the garden...however, she "found" a pulley to help them! We read independently-some on EPIC! and others not, conferenced with me about what they are reading and visited the library and then did some work on poetry together. I read poems from, "When Riddles Come Rumbling" and they had to use clues from the words in the poem to figure out what the poem was about. We also had about 10 minutes to check out other poetry. Finally, we concluded our day with our Checkpoint Writing Assessment. Students had 45 minutes to write their opinion essay. What was your kiddo's claim? 

Rain, rain, go away!

I'm tired of this rain... not good for my spirits or my joints! Does this weather make you glum? We had Guidance this morning and worked more with the Zones of Regulation. What color zone do you mostly fit in? Your kiddo? Ask them about some of the breathing strategies they learned about today with Mrs. Vidic. In Math Workshop, we interpreted and gathered data in the form of line plots. (Too many kiddos had to check their shoes to find out their shoes sizes, by the way!) Today was Art, lunch and indoor recess. In A Night Divided, Gerta and Fritz have made big progress on their tunnel and even have permission from the government to be on the land! After independently reading, conferencing with me and/or visiting the library, we met for Reader's Workshop to introduce poetry. We discussed the characteristics of a poem and then read, Hoops, together. We are only working on reading, understanding and interpreting poetry-not writing it just yet. They are using what they've learned about figurative language, inferencing and comprehension to understand the author's feelings. Next, in preparation for our checkpoint writing assessment tomorrow, we went over the rubric, prompt and checklist in order to brainstorm and plan for our essay tomorrow. *Some of them may continue to work on this at home tonight to better prepare for tomorrow. We ended our day with Social Studies and reading about the 13 colonies and their gaining frustration with Britain and identified some cause/effect situations.

Oops!

Sorry-forgot to post the blog on Friday!

We took extra time and consideration on our M4T assessment today~aiming for 10/10. Next, we completed the Flying High makerspace challenge! This was one of our BEST challenges! Everyone participated and we had an excellent time. Then, in Math Workshop, we reviewed, from 3rd grade, what a line plot is. Today was gym and then lunch and unfortunately, due to the morning rain, indoor recess. In A Night Divided, Gerta told Fritz about the building and the "tunnel" when he told her that he was planning an escape. At first, he wants nothing to do with it. He then, however, changes his mind and they decide on a plan. In Reader's Workshop, they cheered when I told them that they had the entire time to just read and blog. :) I love that they love to read and they are really in to this new EPIC! app where they can read digitally~our class has already read 200 books! **They can access at home too, using my educator login: Heather_Lambright@hboe.org with password: room110. I put the link on our Canvas home page but there's also an app for ipads and the url is getepic.com. In Writer's Workshop, we practiced writing sentences with detail by playing a game called, "Guess What" where we took a bit of time to write details about an object in the classroom. Then, we switched with a partner and they guessed what we were writing about. After writing, in Science, we calculated the amount of energy we use each day. We discussed how much of this energy is nonrenewable as well as some things we do that we don't have to that could conserve energy. Finally, we discussed efficiency vs. conservation.

Writing

Our day began as all others do... M4T and Ohio Dailies for morning work, followed by our morning question and i-time. In our morning meeting, we shared a characteristic about ourselves that make us weird and then played category challenge-professional athletes. We said the pledge and wrote our SMART goal and then in Math Workshop, we finished our math assessments (so far, a TON of perfects and near perfects!), worked on extension activities and had some free math. *I will not confirm nor deny that there was poker/blackjack happening...but they were adding and comparing numbers! We had Music, lunch and outdoor recess. In A Night Divided, Gerta decided that because she couldn't stop thinking about her dad and that building, she went back. This time, she took a flashlight and went down into the air raid shelter. Instead of it being a solid metal box, the walls were dirt...her dad wants her to make a tunnel to the west side! We read independently, visited the library and conferenced with me. In Reader's Workshop, we read the poem, "What is Science?" in StoryWorks and completed a comprehension worksheet about the Sciences. We learned a lot of -ologies! I tricked them into writing today for Writer's Workshop by asking them to come to the meeting area with their Writer's Notebooks and a pencil. Once some of them were there, I began writing to them that today, we were only going to write to each other and not speak. The message began to spread through the class and we started having conversation only on paper. A lot of them asked, "Why are we doing this?" Well, their sentence didn't have capitals and punctuation but still asked the question. My response was, "We need to practice writing so that we can become better writers." By the end of Writer's Workshop, they were writing more and using better conventions-capitals and punctuation. They even asked to do it again! We ended our day with the Ohio Energy Project and discussing renewable and nonrenewable resources.

Back in class

We didn't have school on Monday and I spent yesterday in the hallway reading with students all day so I enjoyed being back with all of my kiddos in the classroom today! Our morning began with M4T, Ohio Dailies and the start of our next round of i-Time. We tried to focus our thinking to write a goal for this round. I will be working with a handful of kiddos on spelling patterns so today we took an assessment so that I can better focus on their needs. In Math Workshop, some tested, some worked with extension activities and others practiced. The rest of the class will be testing tomorrow. We had art today, lunch and outdoor recess and then excitedly got back into reading A Night Divided. Today, Gerta found the building that was in the drawing and she took her shovel, however, she only found an air raid shelter in the basement and is completely deflated because she knew that this picture plus her father's "dancing/digging" meant to dig at this building... After Read Aloud, we took the STAR Reading test, finished reading the digital articles on Newsela about Martin Luther King, Jr. that we began yesterday, checked out another new digital literacy tool, EPIC!, where we can read unlimited books online, for FREE! We also finished up our opinion writing prompt from yesterday.

Outside recess!!

We finally had outside recess today!! (Unfortunately I was the one on duty and it was cold! Some kiddos didn't even wear a coat and I was dressed in my coveralls! :)
We completed our M4T assessment and Ohio Dailies followed by i-time. We began with a kahoot made by Matt and Conner but this time, I came in 3rd place! Then, in Math Workshop, we had some edible math (my favorite kind!) and made fraction (trail) mix! They had to find the total amount of ingredients and then compare it with a partner. We also worked on some other fraction work and signed up for taking our post-assessment. Is your kiddo signed up to assess on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday? What do they feel they need more practice with? Today was music, lunch and recess and in A Night Divided, Fritz is acting a little different and Gerta got a drawing from her dad, at least she thinks so, but what does it mean?? During independent reading, we enjoyed our potato head celebration of root beer (or Sprite or Orange) floats! We completed our text structure worksheet about "Black Sunday," in StoryWorks and worked to gather more research before moving on to Science and the Ohio Energy Project.

My high is that I don't have any lows! :)

We had a few minutes at the end of the day before walking out the door so we shared our highs and one kiddo summed it up as, "My high is that I don't have any lows!" That makes for a good day!

As usual, we completed our morning work of M4T and Ohio Dailies followed by i-time. Our morning question asked, What do you think this quote means?? "We must all face the choice between what is RIGHT and what is EASY." ~Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter) which led to our wonderful and full of feels morning meeting. I read, The Invisible Boy, which was A-MAZING!! and then I played a song, "Clay," by Grace Vanderwaal (the girl that won America's Got Talent). Ask your kiddo about the book and song not just because I can't put the feels into words but because I hope they got the powerful message of kindness. In Math, we continued working with improper fractions and mixed numbers by finishing our creatures and doubling recipes. We split our Math Workshop around watching the 1st grade musical-love those little ones! Today was Art, lunch and indoor recess and some of us had a pizza party lunch for completing the winter break challenge! In A Night Divided, Fritz returned (phew!) but with a black eye and realizing their apartment was bugged. Gerta's friend, Anna, told Gerta that she doesn't want to be her friend anymore because she's like a disease and everyone around her seems to get in trouble... We read independently and visited the library and in Reader's Workshop, we tried to apply our understanding of text structures to our StoryWorks story. We continued our research for Writer's Workshop and conferenced about improving our writing. Our day concluded with Science and more Ohio Energy Project with Kinetic and Potential energy.

Celebration!

Yay! We completed our potato head today! We earned a lot of pieces this week and today, after our community meeting behavior, we placed our final piece! We actually earned 2 pieces for our excellence in the Media Center with Mrs. Dornburgh. She did a lot of talking and we sat quietly and stayed focused for almost an hour! Wow! Tomorrow, we'll vote on our celebration and celebrate, probably, Friday.

Our day began with M4T and Ohio Dailies followed by i-time. In our morning meeting, we shared what we had for dinner last night (a lot had pizza!) and played coseeki. We also shouted, "Happy Birthday" to Conner through the wall since he was next door at Focus. :) After saying the pledge and checking in on our SMART goal, we practiced making/understanding/converting improper fractions and mixed numbers by making a "creature" of some sort using circles and fractional pieces. I can't wait to get these hung up in our "zoo!" Our Math Workshop was cut a little short today so we could go to our community meeting. In this meeting, we discussed our school climate and were reminded that "At ADE, we... take care of ourselves, each other and our school." We also were reminded how following these ideas will allow us to stay Above the Line. (I tried to attach the slides that Mr. H used along with his discussion but I'm having difficulty... I'll upload them to Canvas, under the Parent Information Module~have your kiddos log in and help you!) We had gym, lunch and unfortunately, indoor recess. In A Night Divided, Gerta found out that her best friend's brother was killed trying to escape and Gerta's brother has been held and interrogated as they believe he knows something or was involved. Meanwhile, Gerta saw her dad!! And he did a little dance that she thinks was giving her a message or a clue... We read independently and visited the library for independent reading. Next, we did an awesome job with our rapid evacuation!! Kudos, kiddos! Once we came back in and settled down, we read the informational article in StoryWorks, "Black Sunday." We continued with Mrs. Dornburgh's discussion about researching for Writer's Workshop by picking our topic and beginning to search for information. Finally, we completed our day finishing up with the Early People of Ohio!

Slippery!

Wow-it was slippery this morning! I almost hit Mrs. Bolyard's car in the parking lot and slipped a few times trying to get in to school! I hope your drive and trek this morning was safe!
We completed our M4T, Ohio Dailies and i-time and then had a pretty serious discussion during morning meeting. Tomorrow, we are going to practice a safety drill where instead of hiding in the classroom, we will practice a rapid evacuation. I stressed that this is a serious drill, just like fire and tornado, however, they shouldn't be scared. It's highly unlikely that we'll ever have a fire but we practice so we know what to do just in case. The same thing applies to this. We'll be evacuating and for tomorrow, meeting on school grounds, however, we discussed that for a true rapid evacuation, they'd continue toward Summit apartments or the woods, from our exit. I hope they shared our conversation with you and will tell you more after tomorrow's practice. We also played, "Just like me!" to help Declan and Alexis find others that may have similar interests as them. After saying the pledge and checking in our SMART goals for the day, we got started with Math Workshop. We began with a gallery walk looking at how we solved our fraction word problems from yesterday and the homework question from last night. (By the way, only 10 of our 27 students answered the one question they were given last night...) Then, we modeled adding fractions and then moved on to adding fractions with a sum of more than one whole, which transitioned our discussion into improper fractions and mixed numbers. We practiced converting from improper to mixed number and played a little game matching fractions with their compositions and ended math with a little "I have..., who has?" We had music (yay recorders!), lunch and indoor recess and then a few kiddos from Mrs. Kalb's class came over and performed a Reader's Theater of The Water Princess to raise awareness for the lack of clean water in Africa. In A Night Divided, we learned about record players and records because Gerta and Fritz were listening to the Beatles, a banned album in East Berlin, and very few new what these looked like. We do a lot of discussion with this book so we aren't getting very far. Then, we read independently and visited the library and in Reader's Workshop, we continued to find examples of text structures in informational text. Afterwards, we spent the rest of our afternoon in the media center learning about research with Mrs. Dornburgh. We had a few minutes while waiting for the bell, at the end of the day, and shared our highs and lows of the day.

Another new kiddo!

I love getting new students! The more, the merrier! Getting new students always gives us some fresh eyes to what is happening in our classroom and helps us to stay on top of things. So, welcome Alexis! We started back into our M4T and Ohio Dailies for morning work and after i-time, we shared about our weekend in our morning meeting. Then, after saying the pledge, we wrote our SMART goal for today and gathered back around for a little "game" of popple where we counted around the circle composing and decomposing fractions. In Math Workshop, we played a matching game to match up fractions with their decomposed parts (so, 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 matched with 3/4). We switched gears a little and looked at fractions within word problems. They practiced solving fraction word problems and showing how they solved them using models, equations and/or number lines. After Math Workshop, we went to Art and then had lunch and indoor recess. After cleaning up from recess, we read more from A Night Divided and then answered a question on padlet-which they said was a really hard question today. (You can see their response at https://padlet.com/heather_lambrig/ANDQ1.) I have a feeling this book is going to cause them to have to think a lot... We also looked at some actual images of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and 1965 to see what it was really like. A few of them said they thought it would be a lot bigger than it was. Next, we read independently or visited the library. In Reader's Workshop, we learned about text structures and read informational text trying to find examples. We'll be taking a mid-year writing assessment in the next couple of weeks on opinion writing, so in Writer's Workshop, we wrote an opinion piece about either having the ability to read people's minds or never being able to sleep. I noticed, at first glance, that their writing does not seem to be where I'd like it to be... I'll know more after reading them though. Finally, we ended our day reading about the Historic Indians.

Frigid Friday

We began our day sharing something about each other that we missed while gone on break. Then, we completed a 6 question review sheet of equivalent fractions and comparing fractions. Next, I placed a cut/folded piece of paper on each table and gave them the job of trying to replicate it. This was more of the power of YET. They worked and worked and most of them figured it out and replicated it. Hopefully, they brought it home and shared it with you. These kids are so much better at figuring this stuff out than us older folks! After our meeting and playing a few rounds of "Would you rather?" we continued our work with composing and decomposing fractions using pizza! Well, paper pizza that is! They rode scooters in gym, had a great lunch and another messy indoor recess. In A Night Divided, 4 years has passed and the fence has now become a cement and brick wall and Gerta still hasn't seen her brother or father...however, one day, when walking to school, she saw someone waving that she thinks might be Dominic! Unfortunately, a guard sees her and threatens her to keep her away from the people in West Berlin... We read independently and set January Book-it goals when conferencing with me and then worked further with our non-fiction text feature scavenger hunt to finish up Reader's Workshop. In Writer's Workshop, we did some free-writing and then in Science, worked more with our Ohio Energy Project with looking at transformation of energy using some cool toys.