Scientific Method

According to our graph the first week of school, science is my students' favorite subject.  I've never taught science, but I will try my hardest not to disappoint.  We started with a review of the Scientific Method and practiced by doing an experiment with raisins and Sprite.  Here are the students putting the steps of the Scientific Method in order...sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the experiment.

Caron, JoJo, Lizbeth and Marisol

 Edna, Timothy, Joslyn and Khaydi

 Maya, Jasmine, Chandler, Quinton, Chase and Nixcia

Emily, Grace, Bruce, Gavino and Connor

:) :) :) :) :)

Group 5 (I have no idea what happened to the picture)

Solomon, Turin, Ally, Rachel and Brenda

Coming soon...Solids, Liquids and Gases, Oh My!

Student of the Week

With an AMAZING class like mine, it's hard to choose a Student of the Week.  I thought about choosing the student with the most stars on his/her clip, but if I did that, I'd have 8 students of the week.  After brainstorming ideas for an entire lunch period, I finally decided to pull a stick out of a cup.  Rachel was chosen, and I don't think there could have been a better choice.

 Here she is with her board.  She decorated the right side and wrote a few facts about herself on the left side.  Then while she was presenting her board to the class, we wrote compliments to her to take up the remaining space. THIS WAS MY FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE YEAR SO FAR!  The kids were so sweet and adorable, and I loved hearing their compliments to a student who truly deserves them.

 Rachel's ribbons, zoo book, baby picture and special note.

 Click on this picture for a close up of their compliments :)

Rachel's bear she used to help herself fly alone.

I loved watching Rachel share a little about herself with the class and can't wait 'til next Friday when the next student will share! :)

A Perfect Fit

Finding a book perfect for you is not an easy task, even as an adult.  Some are too hard, some are too easy, some are boring, some are about topics we don't care to read about.  But, when you're armed with knowledge on how to pick a good-fit book, it becomes very clear. 

The first two steps in the process are choosing a book that fit your purpose (are you reading for fun, a school project, or a report?) and interest (is it something that interests you?).  Interest is most important to me because NOTHING is worse than reading a boring book!  

Once you find a book that fits your purpose and interest, it's time to open the book and do a little reading.  I tell the students to read the first page or two.  While they're reading, they're counting how many words they can't read.  If it's more than five on the first page, the book is too hard.  If they can read it with their eyes closed, it's too easy.  They're also retelling what they read to see if they understand what they're reading.  This step is just as important as picking an interesting book.  When we make our first trip to the library September 7th, students will be armed with "I PICK" bookmarks to help them find a perfect book.  You can use this acronym at home when you're choosing a bedtime story or visiting the public library too. :)

To drive home the importance of good-fit books, we connected it to good-fit shoes.  We played with my box of shoes, discussing purposes for different types and the importance of finding the perfect pair, especially if you're rock climbing or running or attending a fancy ball.  Then we switched shoes to see whose shoes were good-fits and whose were not...

 Rachel and Brenda (definitely NOT a good fit...one's too hard and one's too easy)

 Tatiana and Grace (almost a perfect fit!)

 Turin and Connor (perfect, minus the socks with sandals :)

 Solomon and Chase (perfect!)

 Timothy and Kevin (perfect again!)

 Joslyn and Gavino (umm, definitely not perfect...different purpose, interest and comprehension level.  Everything about this one is just wrong.)

 Lizbeth and Brenda (definitely same interest, but one's too hard and one's too easy)

Quinton and Bruce (perfect!)

 Maya and Emily (perfect)

 Lizbeth and Jasmine (perfect size, different interest)

 Gavino and Chandler (perfect!)

 JoJo and Nixcia (too hard, too easy)

Poor Marisol had to shove her foot in a classmate's tiny shoe...if this shoe was a book, it would definitely be too easy.

Now Introducing...

Queen JoJo, King Solomon and Queen Joslyn, ruling over the Kingdom of DLR :)

DLR is our daily grammar review, and these three students blew it out of the water the first week of school!  It's filled with tricky editing mistakes, and students not only have to find those mistakes, but they also have to rewrite the corrected sentence mistake-free.  Definitely not an easy task, but these students did it perfectly the first try.  

We will have new kings and queens next week, but the class won't find out who until Monday :)

Building Our Stamina!

One of my missions as a teacher is to create little reading machines out of my students, and over the past five days, I have been happily surprised by their beginning-of-the-year skills.  To begin our reading machine transformation, we created a poster to define independent reading and describe what it looks like and sounds like while students are reading independently.  From there we practiced modeling perfect reading behavior.  Sounds easy, you say?  Not so for the average fourth grader, but my students have it figured out.  They started at 3 minutes of perfect, PERFECT reading (a quiet, staying-in-one-spot, creating-pictures-in-your-mind, not-bothering-others, totally-engrossed-in-your-book kind of reading), and have bumped up their stamina to 8 minutes...8 minutes of perfection!  Picture it in your mind, a class of 28 fourth graders, all cozy in their selected spots, READING!  PERFECTLY!  It was a sight to behold....

Our goal is to increase our stamina up to 30 minutes of engaged independent reading.  When we reach that mark, and when they're more comfortable with me taking their pictures, I'll take a video of their reading amazingness so you can share in the celebration :)

Happy First Week of School!

Phew!  We made it!  The first week of school is always exciting, but for me this week was a whirlwind.  Starting in a new school, in a new state, with a new curriculum and completely different policies was a little overwhelming.  We had a couple mishaps like Thursday folders being sent home on Friday and forgetting to go to Spanish Friday afternoon because we were in the middle of our writing assessment, but I had a blast getting to know my new students.  I can already tell this is a very special class, and I can't wait to learn more about the little people who will warm my heart over the next year! :)

Coming soon...
Math - telling time/elapsed time
Reading - checking for understanding/independent reading stamina
Writing - parts of speech
Science - solids, liquids and gases/scientific method
Social Studies - Colorado history