Adding Up Our Math Work!

The boys and girls in room 209 have been working so hard on a variety of math skills.  We recently finished up the first math unit of the year, which started with place value and rounding skills and transitioned into multi-digit multiplication and long division with one-digit divisors.  To review for the assessment, we played a terrific Jeopardy game that Laura McDonnell (Gr. 4 at RBS) developed and shared with the district-wide gr. 4 team.  The kids had a fun time competing in a friendly game that prepared them for the lengthy assessment.

In class today, we reviewed the completed and graded assessments.  Students corrected their mistakes.  One common area in which students seemed to struggle was rounding numbers to a given place value.  (On the test, that’s items 15-18.) This is a common area in which students may have difficulty, and we will continue to work on these skills in class. Interpreting diagrams (item 22) was also a challenge for many students.

You will find that there is no percentage grade on the assessment.  I do this intentionally because I find that, on this particular kind of assessment, percentages give less information than section scores.  Consider the following example:

Imagine a class takes a 16 item assessment that is divided into four sections, each with four items.  If “Mary” gave one incorrect answer in each section, she would have a score of 12/16, or 75%.  Because Mary correctly solved most of the problems in each section, I would consider her to be making “good progress,” despite 75% being a traditionally lack-luster score.  If another student, “Bobby”  also scored 12/16 (75%), but had all four of his incorrect answers in a single section, it would indicate that there was one area in which he needed more intensive review and support.  Both kids received the same score of 75%, but their assessments yielded very different results.

Instead, I score each section (rows of problems) individually.  Your child can tell you how many points were possible for each item.  I will send home review packets for students who struggled in a variety of sections.

Please take a moment this evening to review your child’s math assessment before signing and returning it to me.  It is important that you return the math assessments to me so that I can keep them on-hand to review with you at the upcoming parent conferences and so I can use them as teaching tools down the road.

Starting last week, we began our second unit, which is a study of factors and multiples.  It’s hard to believe that we’re almost done with this unit!  We will finish the lessons next week and will review and test the week following Thanksgiving!

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

Leave a Comment

Lighting Up the Classroom!

Last week, we wrapped up our first science unit of fourth grade.  Students in our class and Mrs. Castle’s class teammed up to learn about electricity.  Because we focus so much on the steps in the inquiry process (Ask your fourth grader about this!), we begin by reviewing a science topic from third grade – magnets.  This helped us to learn the four parts of scientific inquiry, and it gave us a valuable starting point, since there are a lot of similarities between magnets and electricity. (Again, ask your kid!)  In our core electricity unit, we focused on components of electrical circuits (sources, loads, and paths) and different kinds of circuits (simple, series, parallel, and combination circuits).  We learned about conductors and insulators.

We also talked a lot about how these concepts have a tremendous real-word application.  Besides creating circuits to actually see light bulbs illuminate, we discussed how the past two years’ October storms caused the widespread power outages, how electricity is transmitted to homes, and how lightning “works” in nature, and much more.

We ended the unit by creating flashlights (that you’ve hopefully seen) that were made with batteries, bulbs, soda cans, and a short piece of wire.  These series circuits integrated all components of the science unit, and the kids seemed really excited to end the unit with this project.

Ask your kids what they learned during this unit and what they enjoyed most!  I always have a fun time teaching this unit, and I hope the kids had a fun time learning in science!

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

Leave a Comment

Links for today’s computer lab activity

Padlet Link 1

Padlet Link 2

Padlet Link 3

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

Leave a Comment

Respect in Class

Building a positive classroom climate is very important to me. Starting on Day 1, our class works hard to develop a community in which everyone is respected and valued. I’m pleased to report that we’re back on the right track after a disappointing week, last week. We had a lot of problems with kids talking at inappropriate times and distracting one another, students speaking unkindly about one another, and a lack of respect for our classroom space and the materials within it.  Transitions in class (moving from one activity to another or one location to another) were difficult, as was collaborative group work (since it’s really easy for a purposeful conversation to devolve into something less productive).  The kids lost the privilege of sitting in their desk clusters and instead spent a week in “old school” rows (which I dislike a great deal, but are less likely to promote side conversations).  Through a great deal of effort, and after several discussions, the class (as a whole) has turned things around, and I’m really pleased with our new path.  We’re back in the cherished desk clusters, and collaboration is here again!  I hope you’ll take the opportunity to reinforce with your fourth grader the rights we all agreed to as part of our class constitution.  (Click on the image for a larger size.)

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

Leave a Comment