Working Together to Make 4th Grade a Better Place

Fourth grade is a really fun place to be, but as the year as gone on, we have started to get on each others nerves. We have forgotten how to be respectful of each other and the correct words to us to be a good friend.

I'm not going to sugar coat it, it has been rough in 4th grade for the past few weeks. There have been lots of tears, tattling and torment. We have talked a lot about being more respectful, etc. but it just didn't seem to be working.  Today we took a HUGE step as a class.

We started by reading My Secret Bully by Trudy Ludwig. The book is about the "all-too-familiar story of two girls that have been friends since kindergarten. Monica loves being around her friend when she's nice. But there are times when Katie can be just plain mean. And Monica doesn't understand why. Monica is a target of relational aggression, emotionaly bullying among friends who will use name-calling and manipulation to humiliate and exclude. But with a little help from a supportive adult—her mother—Monica learns to cope and thrive by facing her fears and reclaiming power from her bully."

After reading the book we had a class discussion. The two main questions were, "Who has ever felt like Monica?" and "Who has ever acted like Katie?" The discussion was AMAZING! Students admitted that sometimes while they think they are joking sometimes, others might not see it that way. Some students were brave enough to talk about how they have felt to be bullied. Finally, quite a few realized that their behavior IS bullying when they really thought it was all in good fun.

I feel like we have turned a corner!

Afterwards, we read a pledge out loud and everyone signed the poster which now hangs in our window. Students also each took a copy of the pledge home. Everyone has made a commitment to treat each other better and they know that I have a ZERO TOLERANCE stance on it.

Please help me keep this going by talking with your child this weekend about our pledge and our discussion.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Double digit multiplication is the name of the game. The only way to win this game is practice, practice, practice!!! We are working really hard but everyone needs to be practicing at home too! This week we moved into multiplying money. We are practicing remembering how to move the decimal point over and to include the dollar sign!

Our journal writing is in full swing and I am enjoying hearing what they have to say. Some days the topics are really hard for some, but then the next day they can't stop writing. I LOVE it! My favorite topic this week was, "What is your favorite dinner to eat and why?" The range of answers was amazing. I really hope to foster a love of writing.

We spent a lot of time this week talking about Martin Luther King, Jr and his legacy. We talked extensively about his dream and how much of it has come to fruition and what we can still work on. We did a project but I will wait to let you see them at Open House next weekend.

Today we spent most of the day in downtown San Jose seeing the Symphony Silicon Valley and San Jose Taiko. Students were most excited to ride the bus which was really fun. The symphony was really great and such a good learning experience for the kids. The conductor spent a lot of time talking about time in music and how fractions come into play. The one small problem was it was really warm in there and so we were all struggling to stay awake! It is really hard to tell the children to, "Sit up!" when you are falling asleep yourself.

After the symphony we walked over to the Center for the Performing Arts to see San Jose Taiko. This group is really cool. If you have never gotten to see them before I suggest you look them up and see them! Everyone seemed to enjoy this part much more. I am hoping we can have them come play to our whole school at some point.

We have a field trip coming up next month to the Oakland Museum. Permission slips will come out next week and we will need drivers/chaperones for this trip. YOU MUST BE FINGERPRINTED IN ORDER TO CHAPERONE!!! It is a simple process and the school will pay for you to have it done. Please stop in the office and find out how to get it done. If you are going to plan to volunteer in the classroom at all the rest of the year, you will need to be fingerprinted.  Thanks!

Welcome Back!

It's a new year and with that comes a reNEWed commitment to our blog!

We jumped right in on Monday morning. There is so much that I want to do in the last half of this year so I figured there is no better time to start.

In math this week, we started to tackle double digit multiplication. To say it was tough was a bit of an understatement.  I really enjoyed watching as light bulbs went off and, "I get it now!" rang out through the room. Of course, 2 problems later we were back struggling :-) It's going to take a lot of practice but everyone is ready for the challenge. We made "cheat sheets" to take home so I hope you have seen them.

 We started our science experiment this week. We spent a lot of time talking about procedures, choosing materials and writing our hypothesis. I don't want to give everything away here, but I am sure your student would love to give you some information.

The newest procedure to our classroom is morning journal writing. Each morning when students come there is a topic on the board and we spend 20-30 minutes writing. I also write so that they get a good feel of what good writing looks like. We have a sharing time each day and from that I am pulling topics we need to cover. This week we talked about transitions in writing.  I think everyone is really enjoying it and we have heard a lot of great journal entries this week. Student will bring home their journals next week for you to look at.

It was a really great week, but I know everyone was tired Friday afternoon. Have a restful weekend!

Recycling Acrostic Poems

Today we read the story Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg. In the story Walter is not very nice to the environment and he dreams about what may happen to the world if we don't take care of it.

Your assignment is to type your acrostic poem that we wrote in class, in the comments section of this blog post. You MUST include your name in your post but only your first name and last initial is needed.

This homework assignment is due on January 9th. I have included my example below to show you how it should be typed.

Recycling helps save the earth
Every piece of paper can be recycled
Composting food scraps makes less garbage
You should do your part to help the enviroment
Cans of soda DON'T go in the trash
Let's help save the world!
Everyone should recycle!!

Field Trip to Intel Museum

We had a great time on our field trip to the Intel Museum! Here are a few memories....

Time Flies!

Wow, I know that I had missed a week of posting but I realized I missed 2 weeks! That's what conferences will do to a teacher. It was so great to get to sit down and talk one-on-one about your children. I really do adore all of them and learning with them.

We have been slowly getting through Dear Mr. Henshaw. I was actually glad to hear that some of you felt this book was too low for your children....you are right! For many of them it is, but our first two books were really about getting procedures down and learning how reading activities will work. We should be starting our new book in the next week so stay tuned!

Last week, math threw nearly everyone for a loop. Basic algebra when you are writing expressions that can't be solved was a really tough concept to grasp. As we moved on and learned to read word problems to find the value of a variable it started to become a bit more clear but I see us working on this more in the future. We will be moving into our next chapter which will dive into multiplication and division so I look forward to math becoming a little bit more challenging.

Science and Social Studies have taken a back seat for the past week or so. We normally cover these subjects in the afternoon so our half days didn't allow us to get to them. I am sure the kids will be happy to welcome them back this week!

This up coming week is our first field trip also and we are all excited!  Hope you have had a great few weeks and are ready to get back to a normal schedule on Monday.

Crazy Like Monkey's

We learned about similes this week. To prep the kids and give them a clear understanding we did a little experiment. Each student got a bag of Pop Rocks. The got to try them out and then we made a poster..."The Pop Rocks exploded in my mouth like....." They had a blast and I think it really helped make the connection.

We continued our study of Dear Mr. Henshaw this week. The students made diagrams of a section of the book where the main character describes the area where he lives. They turned out really well! Everyone has done such a good job of embracing what "Score 4" work means. They now know that they have to do their very best and when I ask them, "Is this a score 4?" They consistently take their paper and head back to make it better. Makes me happy!

In Social Studies we have moved onto discussing the Indian tribes of California. We started learning about how to take notes. Social Studies lends itself really well to learning how to take good notes. First we are learning 2 column notes. We will be practicing a lot in class.

Diorama's are due Monday! Everyone seems to be excited to share but are nervous for their oral presentations. I am really looking forward to seeing what students came up with and hearing what they learned.