Interestingly, we don't have a field trip this week! For our final field trip to Bonneville Dam, fourth grade got an incredible deal on a bus that just happened to be the Winterhawks hockey team's bus. When reflecting on the field trip, we got many, "The electricity part and the salmon information was really interesting... But the bus was awesome!" Hmmm... We'll take our successes where we can get them. It was nice going out in style. This week we begin our fable unit of study. Students will begin their own fable written with a partner and ultimately create a shadow puppet theatrical performance the last full week of school. This week in math we continue analyzing our final week of Walk and Bike data by creating by hand graphs and creating chart wizard graphs, which we previewed last week. PLease check out our work in teh "Dip." We also continue talking probability- "What are the chances you would roll a 2 with a dice? What about an even number?" The way we discuss probability is 1 out of 6, or 1/6. In reading, we use the reading strategy of wondering and questioning this week. We will continue with "Journey West," and also read an article from the Oregonian about how Native American school mascots are now banned in Oregon. We will create a pro and con of the situation based on why it has become a controversy for some community members throughout Oregon. The primary challenge has been tradition vs. racism. Heavy issues. I want the kids to know that Native American culture is not something to read only about in history books. This culture is continuing to fight for what they believe is right along with other Oregon citizens. Yet, in a time where school budgets are maxed, can schools afford to make the changes to uniforms and other facilities that carry their logo? This week, we also write to our first grade buddies about what we have been learning about the water cycle. I will also put up a challenge for anyone interested in creating a Water Cycle song or poem. They will have many rhymable words, since there are so many -tion words (evaporation, precipitation, condensation, transpiration, infiltration). Homework: spelling packets and math. Khan Academy for students wanting a boost. Also, I want students to take home and memorize the basic parts of the human skeleton. Take five minutes per night. We will be talking skeletons and bones and what they do/how they function as we finish the year. Please quiz your child on Thursday night! Yes, we will be busy until the final buzzer!
As we move toward our fable unit, i did a little research... I never knew Aesop was such an interesting figure. Check out when he lived! What made his stories so compelling that they survived over such a long time?
Please note the annoying video- please mute. :)
Please make sure you notice the story structure, so when you start developing your fable, it will have a similar oganizational structure.
1. Introduce characters and setting
2. Next enters a problem
3. A plan is created to solve the problem
4. The solution is implemented (carried out)
A moral lesson is learned.
http://www.spellingcity.com/taking-a-spelling-test.html?listId=3073354
Click on link to do practice test. Don't peek at your list!
I firstly wanted to sincerely thank the Lewis community for making the square dance and singalong a true success! I had such fun dancing, playing, and calling! I wanted to personally thank the families from room 20 who came, contributed a desert, volunteered time, and/or got the word out! I know even if you had other plans, you talked us up. It certainly showed! We had fourth grade families but also families from all grades. I was so impressed! Thanks also to Ms. Bamber for coming and lending a hand. Speaking of Ms. Bamber, she will be soloing (going it alone) this week for three days (with a little Mr. Marchyok sprinkled in). Sadly, this will also be her last week with us. She will move on to graduation and her new incarnation as a teacher-to-be. We wish her well and thank her for sharing a part of herself with us. We finish up our bus field trips this week with a journey to Bonneville Dam. This will be a wonderful opportunity to learn about hydopower and salmon migration. The idea of how water effects the land and people is a central focus of this experience. We will also discover how the dam changed the way of life on the Columbia for cities, animals and Native Americans. This week, we finish our persuasive writing essays. We also continue with "Journey West," our book about Oregon Trail life. This book will prepare us for when we do our Oregon Trail simulation- a role playing study where students "become" a pioneer and make decisions based on what would be appropriate for that historical context. Starting the week of May 21st, we will begin a unit on fables and will also write and perform our own fables using shadow theater. If you (parents) would like to help out during this time with cutting out characters using an exacto-knife, please let me know. Cutting will probably take place Friday, May 25th, or early the next week. This should be a very fun study! If you have a favorite fable, please read it with your child! If you don't, maybe you could find one together. That week (21-25), we will also have a special guest with us for an hour a day working on a marvelous pioneer craft project that will be out of this world! Walk and Bike survey, graph creation and analysis is going strongly! If you are in the building, please go to the dip and check out our statistical findings. What do you notice? Homework: Math and Spelling practice packets. Read 30 minutes per night.
This week we begin a unit of study with Julia, based on plant identification, scientific names of plants, observing and recording information about native plants in our learning garden, and eventually, each doing a study on an individual native plant and creating a book of Lewis native garden plants. This project will occur once a week for the next four weeks. We also will finish up any state testing. Ms. Bamber will be teaching two full days this week. Reading this week: we continue our journey on the Oregon Trail via "Journey West." Thursday is our Lelooska trip. Please see past posts for details or go to http://www.lelooska.org/. Our data collection project has been awesome! Every day, two room 20 students survey every classroom in the school. On Friday, we gathered the raw data supplied by our friend Dennis Wiswell via the poll I created that was automatically sent to a spreadsheet. Lennie also helped us organize and present our data. Julia is helping us display the graphs in the dip. Please take a look! Every Friday, we will be changing up our graphs to correspond with the previous week's data. There were many factors to consider, when analyzing the information. The main purpose of this data project is to support Walk and Bike Month and show the importance of data. In math, we continue with probability and data analysis. For writing, we are finishing up our rough drafts of our five-paragraph persuasive essays. This week we talk editing and revising. The week of the 18th, we will be pouring our pieces into a digital publishing format such as Pages to create our "editorials." Our last long field trip is Bonneville Dam, on May 17th. Please let me know if you can chaperone. Homework: Math and Spelling. Read 30 minutes every night! May 11th from 6:30-8:00 is our Lewis Square Dance and Singalong! We need everybody! If you can, make sure you sign up for volunteering at http://bit.ly/IfnFRM.
Congratulations to all of those involved in the theater production! What a success! Last week was really fun! We had a wonderful field trip to Philip Foster Farm to learn about life in the mid-1800's. We were also visited by Lennie, our Walk and Bike to School guru. We had a tremendous conversation and lesson on data and presenting our findings. Our classrooom is the keeper and presenter of Walk and Bike Month data. A pair of Room 20 students will poll the school in the morning based on which mode of transportation they took to school. Every week, we will present the data in the form of graphs for the school to see. Family Art Night is upon us! We are getting ready to show our pieces: photography study, impressionism, botony pastel study, and in the glass case our Michael Knutson study on geometrical shapes as art. I hope you can all come to support art at Lewis! On Wednsday ,we go downtown to the theater to see "The Storm in the Barn," a story of life during one of the most difficult times in US history- The Dust Bowl. In math, we transition from decimals to probability and data. First, we finish up our state work samples, which are story problems stdudents are asked to answer using a most complete explanation. This means showing understanding using words, pictures and numbers. We are also preparing for our field trip to Lelooska (May10th) and Bonneville Dam (May 17th). Our persuasive essays are going strong. Students are formulating how to create a convincing argument. So next time your child second guesses you, what they are really doing is honing their persuasive argumentation skills based on evidence given or lacking (wink, wink)! Our book "Journey West" has been a study in vocabulary and context clues. We will further that study along with content about the Oregon Trail as we continue our reading and discuss chapters 3-6 this week. Be sure to come support our grade during our Family Dance and Singalong on May 11th! Homework this week: Spelling and math packet. For reading, please bring in 5 words, their definitions, and the words used in a sentence from your nightly reading that are unique (Example: portent: A sign or warning that something, esp. something momentous or calamitous, is likely to happen. Sentence: a red sky in the morning can be a portent of a coming storm.). Extra credit if you display word origin (Latin) and part of speech (noun).
