The B Hive 1.15

Hello all!  I hope you had a chance to not only rest and rejuvenate this weekend, but celebrate MLK in some spectacular day.  Even with the four day week, we were busy.  Check out what we were up to:

Ms. Pelton is now with us full time and we are very grateful to have her.  This was her first week and her first snow day.  :)

Reading - This week we got back into the flow of extended self selected reading.  We finished up Rules and will begin reading The City of Ember.  This is a great dystopian novel that is just right for 4th graders.  If you need a fun book to read and like young adult, you should check it out.  I am in the process of doing reading records on all students and it has been lovely to sit down and read with each students.  This week we will be taking the NWEA Reading and Math assessment so look for more information on benchmarks and NWEA in the coming weeks.

Math - We spent two days this week completing a large mid year math assessment.  It was nice to see the growth that students have made this year and there are some obvious places for students to practice particular skills.  We also began the new math unit, which is Unit 5 on fractions.  We are heading back into fractions and will spend time adding and subtracting with like denominators.  Several students will move into adding and subtracting fraction with unlike denominators as well.  Please make sure that you are helping your student practice their math skills with either study links, IXL, or Front Row at home.  We spend some time on it at school, but they should be working on it at home as well.

Spelling - Because of the short week last week and the short week this week, students will not have new spelling words tomorrow.  They will take their spelling test on Wednesday and get their words for next week on Friday.  Look for the tests on Friday or Monday.

PBL - We are in our second week of a great Project Lead the Way unit called Energy Conversions.  In this unit students need to learn about energy conversions so that they can create a system that uses energy conversion to help move boxes in a Food Pantry.  This is very small scale, but a very fun and engaging unit.

Dates to Remember:
Penny Wars begins - Tuesday, January 16th (see flyer on Tuesday and on blog)
NWEA Reading Test - Tuesday, January 16th from 1 - 2
NWEA Math Test - Wednesday, January 17th from 1 - 2
NWEA Make Ups - Thursday, January 18th from 1 - 2
MLK Assembly is rescheduled for this Friday from 2:00 to 2:30
Early Release Day - Wednesday, January 31st at 12:52

Penny Wars Start Tuesday!

The B Hive 12.15

Happy Friday!  I hope I am finding everyone healthy and well.  We had several students out today with colds so I hope that the weekend rest helped.  We had a shorter week than normal, but we were still pretty busy.  Check out what we've been up to:

Reading - We spend the week continuing to read Rules and learn more about the major and minor characters.  We also spent more time talking about the author's message and how we could apply that to our own life. Next week, we are going to spend the week learning about plot and how authors use plot to develop the story.

Writing - We are continuing on our personal narratives.  This week we focused on using paragraphs to organize our story,  using dialogue to tell how the characters feel, and using conventions to make our stories easy to read.  Next week we will focus on a few more things and then when we return after break, we will begin to publish one that we will share with you at our Author Celebration. 

Math - We spent the majority of the week on 2 digit times 2 digit multiplication.  Students are using three different strategies to multiply those numbers.  You can see examples of all three below:

Partitioning is the most popular method for our class.

Partial Products is the next step.  This is challenging for many of us, but students will typically leave 4th grade able to use this strategy well.  

Standard Algorithm for Multiplication

PBL - We began a super fun Energy Unit about force and collisions.  Students are asked to find a way to help Mr. Egghead travel down a ramp safely.  They had to learn about seatbelts, bumpers, and potential and kinetic energy.  This week, they will build their cars and use what they know to design a restraint system to keep him. safe.  Look for pictures on twitter!

Spirit Week Next Week!

STEAM Fun Night

The B Hive 12.8

Wow!  Expo was amazing last night.  Your kiddos did an fantastic job.  Thank you for helping get them here on time and ready to present.  We really tried to limit the amount of people in the room so that was the rationale with the presentation times.  I loved that this morning all of the students wanted more time to present.  :)

We were so busy on Expo related things this week, but we did get some other things done too! 

Reading  - We started a new read aloud called Rules.  In this story, Catherine has a brother with autism and is working to navigate what this looks like for herself and her family.  They are really liking this book and I like it for so many reasons as well.  First, because it is just a nicely written story.  But the biggest reason is because we get to see a disability from the other point of view.  When we read Joey, we saw it from his eyes.  Now we see it from the sister's.  We are using this book and our other read alouds to think about the author's message this week.  The goal is for the students to be able to think about how they know what the author's message is.  Where is the evidence?

Writing - We began working on personal narratives.  The students were expected to think about important events, people, and places in their lives and pick a small moment to tell us.  We will write three personal narratives and then invite parents to an author share where they can read their stories out loud.  We will continue this for the next few weeks.

Word Study - We took a break from Word Study this week, but students have their words in their homework folders today for next week. 

Math - We left fractions and began multiplication!  Students this week were expected to master the idea of multiplying by zeros and partitioning numbers when multiplying 1 digit by 2 digit numbers.  They did well with this and almost everyone is level 4 in this skill.  We will be moving to two digit times 2 digit and it gets a little trickier.  Students will need support with this. 

PBL - We finished up concussions with Expo and next week are heading into Energy Collisions where students will get to learn about the forms of energy and what happens when two things collide.  This is a Project Lead the Way Unit that is super fun and engaging. 

Homework  - For Reading, students have a goal of within the text, beyond the text, or about the text.  For math, students decided (with my input) whether they wanted to work on IXL, Study Links, or Front Row.  Please see the homework for  your student and ask them about their decision. 

Variety Show Information