Viewing: December, 2011
December 23, 2011
Vacation Challenge: How much time off?
In class yesterday, we discussed how much time off the kids were having for winter break. We agreed that the amount of time off can be expressed as a fraction (mixed number, actually): 1 whole week off (where one week equals five days) and a full day off on January 2nd, and a half day off on December 23rd.
The kids’ OPTIONAL challenge: Write a mixed number that accurately shows how many WEEKS off students will have for winter break. Here’s a hint:
Remember, you cannot put a decimal or fraction in the numerator’s place, so how will you account for the half day?! (Interrobang, anyone?)
Anyone who returns a response when we come back to school – right or wrong – will get a chance. Anyone who returns a correct response will earn the admiration of their teacher! 🙂
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
December 20, 2011
Help with Study Link 5.1
Struggling with tonight’s math homework? I understand! Don’t worry! Here are two videos that might help! (Spoiler alert: The second video gives you an answer to one of tonight’s math problems!)
Video 1: Base Facts and Extended Facts
Video 2: Multiplication and Division Puzzles
As of 4:45pm, this video was still rendering on the website. If it’s not working for you, try back soon. They normally take about 30 minutes to process before being available for use, so hopefully it will be ready shortly.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
December 16, 2011
Extra Credit – Simile Search
Today, the kids learned about similes. We discussed how similes can be far more effective than traditional descriptions in helping the reader to genuinely imagine part of a text in their mind. Grown-ups, here is a quick review of what rules we agreed upon in class:
- Similes compare two UNLIKE things using the word LIKE or the word AS.
- Similes take an item or feeling or trait that you’re seeking to describe and compare it to someone or something KNOWN for having this characteristic. For example, we could say “As Alice waited to be called upon, her eager hand reached high into the air like a SKYSCRAPER” (known for its height) or a ROCKET (again, known for it’s height) or an AIRPLANE or HOT AIR BALLOON or OAK TREE (all known for their height). It would not be appropriate to compare Alice’s raised hand to an apartment building, because while an apartment building CAN be very tall, they aren’t instinctively KNOWN for their height.
- Similes should not have to overly explain a situation in which the comparison works. For example: “The camp site was as dark as Avon during the power outage when everyone’s generators ran out of gasoline.” (Too complicated!) Some explanation can help, however, such as: “The supermarket was as busy as Times Square on New Year’s Eve!” or “The mall was as crowded as Grand Central Station during rush hour!”
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
December 16, 2011
Kids Online
Technology is becoming increasingly accessible to kids at a younger and younger age. While the Facebook policy specifies that students need to be 13 years old to have an account, it is not uncommon for elementary-aged students to have their own presence on Facebook. Sometimes students develop their own websites where they can chat with each other, share photos, and exchange information. These kinds of informal social networking sites are almost like a small-scale version of Facebook. Often, they are publicly accessible, and unregisted users may be able to see kids’ photos, names, information, and more. Internet safety is a key piece of fourth grade computer lab instruction, but in advance of this, the fourth grade teachers wanted to take a moment to remind families about the importance of internet safety. Please know that we, as a school, have no authority or control over the content that students put on Facebook or other social media sites, nor will we monitor them. However, Cyber Bullying laws would require us to become involved if we ever learned of communication taking a negative turn. For more information about internet safety for children, please visit http://www.netsmartz.org/Parents
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
December 15, 2011
Book Fair and Book Report
- Lots of great options at the PGS fall book fair!
The fall book fair is in full swing today! Having opened yesterday, the book fair is accessible to parents today (Thursday) until 7:00pm and tomorrow (Friday) from 8:00am to 4:00pm. There are some outstanding books there including “The Ultimate Writing Guide for Students” by Mignon Fogarty, who makes the Grammar Girl podcast online. (She gave a terrific “shout-out” to our class a few months ago when she learned that I use some of her work in my lessons.) There are, of course, other terrific books for sale, and your purchases help our school! Please consider stopping by!
At the book fair, you and/or your student might find a perfect book for the new book report project. Kids received the assignment yesterday afternoon and had the homework assignment of sharing the project with you last night. As you may have seen, the kids have been asked to make a book jacket that shares information about a fictional book they will read. They will need to summarize the text, make connections to the text, and describe the story’s main characters. You may have noticed that the assignment also comes across as particularly detailed (read: picky) in terms of measurements, placement of information, elements to include, etc. There’s a reason for this! This book report serves three main purposes. First and foremost, of course, is helping kids to practice reading comprehension skills and sharing information about what they have read. Second, this assignment will help kids learn to manage their time as they work on a long term project. A calendar has been provided to the kids so they can track their progress as they work on the project. This is a difficult skill and a key life skill. Third, this assignment will give the students an opportunity to practice following detailed directions. It’s important that they learn to follow multiple directions at once, which this assignment certainly includes when specifying measurements, positioning, etc. It may seem picky, but kids do need to master this skill. Hopefully this will be a fun project for kids! Please feel free to email me with any questions. Remember, books must be approved by me, and kids’ selections are due no later than next Friday morning.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
December 7, 2011
There’s more than just parent conferences happening this week in Room 209!
I hope you all had a splendid Thanksgiving! I want to apologize for the lack of website updates for the past few weeks. Between report cards, a few upcoming technology integration workshops I’ve been preparing for, and day-to-day teaching, the class website updates ended up being put on the back burner. Thank you for your understanding and patience.
- Take a moment to admire the kids’ fine work on the apple classification project as you wait for your parent-teacher conference!
We are ready for parent conferences here in Room 209! In the hallway, you’ll find the kids’ recent graphing projects. Several weeks ago (months, at this point, actually), I brought in some hand-picked apples from my favorite orchard in Glastonbury. We noticed that there was quite a bit of variation between the different apples, and it brought about a wonderful conversation about how we can classify (sort) the apples. We brainstormed different ways to categorize the apples, such as by size, color, taste, number of leaves, etc. The skill of being able to recognize potential classification rules and to then apply them to sort a group of objects is a key fourth grade skill (and was a problem-solving item on the first unit’s math assessment). From there, we collected the data about the apples, and the kids partnered up to develop bar graphs to communicate the data. This allowed us to address another key skill: graphing. We worked a lot on learning the parts of bar graphs and how a clear graph should look. (The concept of graph scale was a difficult one for most kids.) The final step – entering data into an Excel spreadsheet and making a great graph – was the time consuming piece and was only completed just last week. Working in the computer lab on the graphs allowed us to have a great discussion about the do’s and don’t’s (Is there a rule for writing “don’t’s”?) of making graphs on the computer. We talked about avoiding flashy color schemes that distract more than they enhance, choosing clear but appealing fonts, etc. Clear communication of ideas and data is a key 21st century literacy skill. The kids are proud of their work and are eager to share!
In other news, we are learning about different kids of sentences in language arts. You may remember the series of homework assignments pertaining to simple and complete subjects and predicates. Building on that, we’re looking at direct and indirect clauses (later this week or next week) and have just started talking about compound sentences. In reading, we’re using the VIP strategy (Very Important Points) to identify key pieces of information in a text that can be used to develop a concise but thorough summary. The children have learned about using schema (our individual collection of personal knowledge we have about a given topic) to help improve understanding and connections while reading.
In math, we are working SLOWLY on decimals. I warned the kids that this unit would probably be the most difficult unit of the year for them, and I promised that I’d go as slowly as needed to make sure that the class (as a whole) was comfortable with the material. (Nobody benefits when instructional pace is put above understanding and when we move on with half of the class still confused.) That said, we are now behind and will need to make up some of that time in order to catch up. As a result, you can expect some of our flexible activities (silent reading, morning meeting, Mark Twain Mondays, etc.) to be compacted for the next few weeks so I can have more teaching time.
Finally, we have started our first science unit of the year! Our class has teamed up with Mrs. Gibb’s class to learn about electricity and circuits, and they’re having a great time! Mrs. Gibb and I are revising our approach to how we teach this unit, and I think the changes are giving the kids a great understanding of how electricity works.
I look forward to meeting with families over the next few days and hope that we’ll have great conversations about your son or daughter’s progress in school. As always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions!
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss