Celebrations and good-bye 2011

December is a great time for reflection and celebration. Progress reports are finished and the Winter Concert is this week. Tuesday is our concert and it will be great to celebrate and hear the music that everyone has been working on. Our class should meet in the classroom at 6:20 to assemble before the performance.

This week our schedule will be totally rearranged for rehearsals. We will have art on Thurs., PSD on Mon. Thurs. and Fri.; Music will be on Mon. and Recorder Tues. (as usual). See you at the concert!

We are finishing our novel, Dear Mr. Henshaw. Students have been keeping a journal and thinking about how writing can be a good way to reflect and process experience. The protagonist in this story is getting used to his new family structure (his parents are recently divorced) and finding his way in a new school. He writes in a diary and learns how to get beyond his anger, solve problems, make friends, and pursue his dream of becoming a writer. We have been talking about how each person experiences things differently. Our discussions and writing assignments have had students relate and empathize to the feelings and conflicts that this character experiences. Reading this book gives a fourth grader a look at how older kids learn to find their way more independently. It shows a troubled boy transformed by his own accomplishments.

We finished our watershed experiments by creating a dam and seeing how toxic waste is spread in the watershed. In the spring we will go back to this theme of how human impact affects river ecology. This week we are putting energy into artistic and cooperative challenges. We are making a winter scene on a bulletin board and we will make some paper folded window stars. We will think of service projects we can get involved with. I am looking for ways to get fourth graders involved in a service project outside of school. Please let me know if you have any ideas.

Looking ahead, be ready for XC skiing and Tues. Winter Sports. I will be going to Okemo on Tuesdays. We will begin an intercurricular Mystery Theme in January. We will study some chemistry and do experiments that will get students ready to explore forensic science and conduct an investigation of an imaginary crime scene.

Have a terrific winter break and Happy New Year!

Emily

P.S. No HW until 2012!

Our spelling list this week is a review of all the classroom words. We will practice at school and have a test on Friday.

Fall Fun in Fourth Grade

It has been another fun-filled week in fourth grade. We are keeping a good pace and lots of hard work and cooperation is taking place.

Students are understanding decimal concepts in math. Our read aloud is a funny story called The Number Devil, which compliments our understanding of the base-10 number system.

Each fourth grader is finishing a three-paragraph description of a Maasai boy or girl living in East Africa. I have enjoyed seeing students let their imaginations drift off into the African savanna and see exotic animals and wonder what it might be like to grow up there. These stories are getting typed up and should be hanging in the hallway by T-G break.

Keyboarding is another new focus. We have gone through the alphabet and learned the correct fingering on the keys using the Alpha-Smart portable keyboards. Students are also using a keyboard tutorial called Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing on the classroom computers. When on the computer at home, please encourage your child to stay on the “home row” and practice the alphabet. With consistent practice I am hoping to see these keyboarding skills develop.

We are experimenting with our river models and noticing the landforms that water creates over thousands of years. Students work in small groups and conduct a test, take notes, clean up, write and draw diagrams of what happened, and process how their team worked together. Yesterday, I saw children working together and enjoying science.

Our social skills focus had been guided by the questions: How do we build friendships every day? What does it take to not only maintain our friendships but also strengthen them? Our class community has grown positively from these lessons.

I wish everybody a restful and joyful Thanksgiving. As we enter these days of reduced daylight know the moon is there in its highest orbit for us. Keep the light in your heart and give thanks! I am told that extra vitamin C helps too!

Many blessings and thanks for all the wonderful support. I am enjoying each day in fourth grade.

In Gratitude, Emily

Moving on…

It was wonderful to see everyone at conference time. It is always great to hear how everyone is doing and reflect on the progress and effort of our fourth graders.

We have completed our study of Beavers and have moved into a six-week focus on Watershed. This week we will do some tests to explore the cohesive properties of water and understand surface tension. Other objectives include understanding the paths that water takes in its cycle, topography and how water drains through different landforms, and we will make river models in sand and conduct experiments to observe, record data, and simulate geologic events. Next week we will go to the headwaters of Sacketts Brook and get a close look at the watershed features right here in our back yard.

In Math we have moved into Unit 3 and students are working hard to improve their mastery of the basic multiplication facts through 12. Each student has a goal to improve his/her skills this week and get fluent with knowing the multiples (skip counting) and factors of numbers. We will be doing activities, games, timed tests, using number triangles (flash cards) to meet this goal. It would be helpful to practice the 12 facts and any other facts your child is working on.

I am so sad to finish The Sign of the Beaver because it has been such a wonderful shared reading experience. Yesterday, we discussed the pros and cons of a very difficult decision our main character had to make. Literature discussions have been a favorite part of the day as this book has led us to think about history, native culture, conflict, character growth, survival and how to be resourceful.

Next week we will be writing fiction ourselves about a character that has to endure a difficult survival situation. I will teach a lesson about how to “slow down the moment” and write in a way that shows a character in a struggle of some sort.

PSD has changed to a focus on fitness and strength training. Students are pushing themselves to experience their personal best in cardio and strength challenges. As the weather is getting cooler it feels good to move and work hard.

Our Maasai study is underway and every Wednesday students are doing activities in multi-age groups.

Thank you for all your support and your commitment to TGS. Our school works in partnership with parents and I see this partnership occurring daily in so many ways.

Sincerely,

Emily

Ah, the fall season is upon us, complete with soccer games and cross-country races and beautiful crisp days (when it is not raining).

What a vibrant school we are all a part of.

Fourth graders enjoyed doing a skit on the stage at All School Meeting last week and are begging for their next chance to perform. I am proud of them and the way each student spoke slowly and clearly to our audience.

We are beginning a new math unit understanding how to represent and analyze data. Today we learned that there is a mean (average) of 85 raisins in a 1.5-ounce box. Some boxes only contain 69 raisins while others have up to 96; that’s a range of 27! It is hard to guess how many raisins will be in the next box you get with a range like that.

Students have started writing a report on a topic about beavers. I taught a lesson about how to begin the report with a good lead or hook to capture our reader’s attention. We are well into this draft and I am seeing students weave scientific facts and stylistic writing to convey their knowledge and enthusiasm for beavers. I am so impressed with everyone’s outline and draft.

Today we did the work of the beaver, by damming up a pipe with mud, leaves, sticks, and other available resources near the pond. No one got too muddy and it was a lot of fun. I think the kids can really appreciate how stopping the flow of water is harder than it sounds. Beavers are skilled at their work. We will try this experiment again next week and change some of the variables to compare our results.

We spent time learning about the geography of Tanzania and we started a new read aloud book called Listening for Lions that takes place in Kenya during the 1919 pandemic influenza outbreak. The images of East Africa are both beautiful and so exotic compared to our lives in New England. It is a fascinating study. We have also made some interesting connections between colonial Africa and the early settlers we are reading about in Sign of the Beaver.

So much to learn… So much to talk about…

Enjoy the weekend; it is supposed to be lovely and warm!

---Emily

Keep scrolling down the right column for new photos.

Dear Parents,

The rhythm of fourth grade is snapping along. It has been an exciting and busy week with lots of opportunities for creativity and exploration.

Our Geometry study has us designing complex patterns with straight edges and compasses. Fourth graders have all figured out how to make the seven sacred circle design and many are experimenting with making inscribed shapes in circles. It has been great to see students using persistence and accuracy when figuring out how to create these patterned designs. Students are also creating a piece of artwork with colored string in a circular design. I cannot wait to see how they turn out.

We are getting into the plot of Sign of the Beaver. It is a terrific read because it brings up historical references that we have been learning about. I have been reading a book about the early history of Vermont aloud at lunchtime. We are mostly doing a shared reading this class novel responding to the events of the story both orally and in writing.

We had a lot of time to get into more research on beavers. What fascinating rodents we get to study! Beavers are known as a keystone species because they alter their environment for their needs. By creating wetlands, beaver habitat is shared by many species needing water and protection. We have also learned about forest succession and zones of the pond. Our trip to the beaver site in Putney was a great outing but the beavers did not make a showing for us. Being nocturnal it is rare to get to see them in the light. It was a fun hike and good experience seeing the wetland. Friday is our first Tech class and students will explore a beaver related website and respond to some guiding questions.

The kids are enthusiastic about being together and learning how to work as members of a group. We have been doing challenges that focus on group dynamics and processing how to be an effective part of the whole. Being mindful of group success goes a long way in building a caring class community. I have enjoyed seeing kids problem solve and work as a team. These skills will be put to the test as we prepare a fun “beaver skit” for All School Meeting next Wednesday (9-28). Try to come see it if you can.

I am really enjoying getting to know these fourth graders. They are hard workers and creative individuals.

Sincerely,

Emily