Viewing: October, 2013
October 30, 2013
Homework: Practicing Long Division
Tonight’s homework is to practice long-division skills that we began to work on in class today. I have posted a video (just below this paragraph) that has three division problems. Use graph paper to solve the division problems with me. Depending on your confidence, you could complete the problems in three different ways:
- REALLY confident! – As soon as you see the division problem, pause the video, complete the problem (with your estimate!) and then watch the video to check your work.
- Somewhat confident – Watch the video, and pause it before each step. Then, after you do that step, press play to see if you did it correctly.
- Not very confident yet! – That’s ok! Long division is still new to you! You should just watch the video and complete the problem along with me.
If you are struggling with long division, you can watch the review video (BELOW the homework video) to practice your skills. (In the review video, I even made a mistake! Can you catch it before you see me fix it in the video!)
HOMEWORK Video
REVIEW Video
Posted in Homework Assignments, Learning Resources|By Jon Moss
October 29, 2013
October 24, 2013
Seeking Legos
Hello families! On Monday, we are building our class pumpkin, which (if all goes well) will be a spitting image of everyone’s favorite 6-story elephant! The kids are really excited to build the inside of Lucy, complete with people browsing the elephant’s interior gallery. We are seeking extra Lego figurines and blocks that families may be willing to part with. They don’t need to follow a specific theme – “EVERYONE can enjoy Lucy, including pirates, mariachi singers, and Egyptian guards! 🙂 We could also use chairs, or any bricks that could be used to make a small chair, table, display, etc. (Click for a picture of Lucy’s interior space.) Because we are gluing them inside Lucy, we won’t be able to return what we use, but we’re not picky. (Missing arms? Hands? Fine by us!) Kids are welcome to bring in their items tomorrow or Monday. (But please keep them in a separate bag so we can return what we do not use.)
Thank you!
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
October 23, 2013
Help with Lesson 37 GL Page
Here are two videos that guide students through TWO of the problems on tonight’s homework. We started together, and I was so glad to hear how confident many of them felt. Good luck!
Posted in Class Updates, Homework Assignments|By Jon Moss
October 22, 2013
Estimating Quotients
Here’s a video to review today’s math lesson to help prepare kids for their homework tonight. I have asked all students to review it tonight BEFORE completing their homework. Below it are four videos to explain the first four questions on tonight’s homework page, just in case kids get stuck.
Homework #1
Homework #2
Homework #3
Homework #4
Posted in Homework Assignments, Learning Resources|By Jon Moss
October 16, 2013
Seeking AAA Materials
Are you a member of AAA? If so, can you help our grade? I am trying to collect multiple copies of the AAA tour book guides (see photo) for northeast states. Currently, AAA offers tour books in the following combinations:
- Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont
- Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island
- New York
- Delaware and New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- District of Columbia and Maryland
If you are an AAA member, I would appreciate it if you could stop at the local AAA store to pick up your free (to members) copies of these six books for our fourth grade team. Thank you so much!
If these are as valuable for students as I expect them to be, I might make similar requests of you in the coming months as we study other regions. Thank you!
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
October 15, 2013
Lucy the Elephant Information
My family sitting outside Lucy this past August.
Eager to learn more about Lucy? Here are some websites or resources that you might find interesting! “…But you don’t have to take my word for it…” -LeVar Burton, Reading Rainbow
- Lucy’s official website
- Lucy on Wikipedia
- Read about how Lucy survived Hurricane Sandy
- Weird NJ visits Lucy (There is a terrific video tour of Lucy, but there’s a little comical fighting, so get your parents’ permission first!)
- Lucy turned 132 years old this year!
- Scroll down on this website to zoom in on a satellite photo of Lucy, taken from space!
- An article about some money Lucy received for improvements. (Do you spot a familiar name in this article?!)
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
October 9, 2013
Partial Products with Bow Tie Multiplication
Need some support on tonight’s homework? Here you go! (We recorded a video as a class today, but there was a glitch and the video with the kids’ involvement was lost. 🙁 So here’s my “solo” version. 🙂 ) I have two versions for you. The first is a full explanation of the strategy and why it is helpful. The second version is a “rapid review” for kids (or families!) who want a quick review of the steps, without the lengthy explanation. I hope this helps! (Please let me know if these videos are helpful so that I know how often I should continue to make them.)
FULL EXPLANATION
RAPID REVIEW (Pardon the spelling glitch! I just checked, and it’s spelled CORRECTLY on my iPad’s recording and on the Educreations site – see photo – but it’s “multiplicatik” on this video! HOW STRANGE! Is it spelled correctly on your screen?)
Posted in Learning Resources|By Jon Moss
October 7, 2013
Destination Research
I was tremendously pleased with the kids’ mini-projects last week! When the kids brought in their magazine advertisements for the Connecticut destinations they chose, I was immediately impressed with the time and detail that clearly went into their projects! I loved seeing how each and every student took a unique approach to creating their advertisement. The kids enjoyed having the chance to share their work in a “museum walk” (where one desk group at a time spread out around the classroom, and the rest of the class meandered around to listen to each student speak a bit about their work.) This was a fun way of giving each student an opportunity to showcase his or her creativity, and it was clear to me that their understanding of their topics exceeded what they included in their advertisements.
This week, students have an assignment to conduct some very cursory research about three other destinations in the northeast. You should have received a copy of the assignment today, but please let me reiterate the directions: This is not the same task as last week, multiplied by three. Rather, the kids need to find three locations that seem interesting to them (that they may or may not have personal experience with) and write a very brief response about each one. This will help to create a “jumping off point” for our next in-class project (which I hope to begin later this week or early next week.)
To help with brainstorming ideas for different destinations in less familiar states, here are a few websites that might help you and your fourth graders:
- Northeast Family Vacations (about.com)
- MommyPoppins (mommypoppins.com) – NY, NJ, CT, MA only
- Travel With Kids (about.com) – Not all northeast states included.
- 5 Fun Northeast Travel Ideas (TLC.com)
- 25 Northeast Getaways (nytimes.com)
As ALWAYS, I strongly encourage parents to supervise their kids when they use the internet. Websites are never permanent, and it’s always possible that a site could be entirely kid-friendly one day and less-so another day. (The best example tends to be legitimate news sites – I could link to a kid-friendly article at 5:00pm, and come 7:00pm, a breaking news banner might suddenly appear on the screen and share content that you’d rather not have your kids seeing.) Plus, we all know easy it is to click on an advertisement that takes kids to another website, or to improperly type in a URL that takes the user to an unintended website. I am providing these links to you as a possible resource, but since I am not the author of these sites, I cannot vouch for their ongoing accuracy or suitability. Disclaimer over. 🙂
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss