Sept. 22-29th Weekly Update

Here is the news from the week:

Science:
We wrapped up our Sprout Kid observation with thoughtful discussion about the causes for our results.  How in the world was the grass able to grow with no sunlight?  Why was the grass different shades of green?  After a fantastic whole-group discussion, we used what we had learned about photosynthesis and chlorophyll to answer those questions.  We continued to learn more about plants this week, including the topics of seedless and seed plants and plant life cycles.  Next week we will review what we have discovered about plants and take our first science assessment!  The assessment will be a written assessment, with two versions based upon student need and expectations. 

Writing:
Our Writer's Workshop has taken flight!  Wahoo!  We began our first unit, personal narratives.  Most of our focus lessons revolved around picking a topic, making sure we knew enough to write about a topic and figuring our what details we could add to make our writing POP!  Next week we will continue to work on our narratives with focus lessons based upon revising our pieces.  Writer's Workshop takes place mostly on the computers or Chromebooks.  Using their Google Drive, they are able to "share" their writing piece with Mrs. Ebert and Mrs. Petersen with the click of a button!

Reading:
Book Club reports were a huge part of our Reader's Workshop this week.  Most of the groups completed and presented their report on Friday.  In addition to the students who presented their book club book, there were several students who used a graphic organizer to map out the character, plot and setting of a shorter text.  
Next week we will begin our full fledged Reading Workshop.  In this setting, we will have a whole-group focus lesson followed by students working in two 25 minute stations with a snack break & mini lesson between the stations. The stations will include: Teacher/Book Club and Independent Reading.  When students are in the independent station they are reading a book of their choice, quietly.  When they have finished they document their reading in a reading log.  If a student is meeting in a book club they are reading a book with other students at a similar reading level.  The students will set their own pacing and will use their time to read and discuss the literature using a teacher selected prompt.  If a student is not meeting with a book club they will be meeting with Mrs. Ebert or Mrs. Petersen for small groups lesson.

Math:
Third grade focused on multiplying and division this week, fourth grade continued to focus on subtracting greater numbers and fifth grade continued to practice adding and subtracting mixed numbers with unlike denominators.  Students spent their independent station working on either their interactive notebooks (used for reference in the future) or on task cards.  During their technology station students created accounts for Khanacademy.org  and spent time in Dreambox.  
If your child wants to use Khan Academy at home they are more than welcome to do so!  Please remind them that their username is their entire email address  _______@student.kewaskumschools.org and their password is whatever they use to log into the Chromebooks.  

That is the news of the week!  

Thank you for taking the time to visit our blog and learn more about our learning environment! 

September 15-19 Weekly Update

What a wonderful and exciting week we had!

Math:
Math stations are rocking and rolling! Third graders continued to work on multiplication facts including the 9's.  Fourth graders have been focusing on subtracting multi-digit numbers.  The fifth graders began working on adding and subtracting mixed numbers with like and unlike denominators.  There is a great hum of activity during our math time.  It's exciting to see students active with math for such a good chunk of time.  We sent out an email asking for volunteers to help with our independent station during math.  Ideally, it would be great to get one volunteer for each day of the week-one person does Mondays, one does Tuesdays, etc. We currently have had one parent offer to come in on Fridays and another volunteer to come in on Tuesdays.  If you are interested in helping out, please email, call or stop in!

Reading:
All of the book clubs have completed their books this week!  The students have been excited to share their books with their classmates, so next week we will give the groups time to create a book report to share with the entire group!  All students received a rubric for the book report on Monday, the 15th.  The third graders have a rubric that is slightly different than the fourth and fifth graders.  We talked about what a rubric is and why it is helpful to have.  We also showed an example of what a book report might look like using Google Presentation, and gave the students the opportunity to "grade" the presentation using the rubric.  They are hard graders!  Students will be using the Chromebooks and the computers in the lab to complete the project.  We are hoping to have all presentations complete by Wednesday.  In other great news, Mrs. Petersen and Mrs. Ebert have completed assessing student reading levels using the Fountas and Pinnell tests!  The students were great at being flexible about leaving their station during workshop to meet with the teachers.

Writing:
Next week we are going to get our writing workshop in full swing!  We will begin the year writing personal narratives.  Trying something a little different, we have created our planning sheets in Google Docs and will be sharing them with the students to complete during our Guided Writing time.  It will be wonderful to see the students evolve in their writing skills in our new writing workshop setting.

Science:
Our Sprout Kids have left the nest!  It was so cool to see the students' excitement each time we brought out the Sprout Kids from their homes.  As scientists, we have completed our data collection.  In the coming week, we will be working hard on figuring out what that data means and what might have been the cause of our results (the grass grew in the dark?!).  Here are some more great pictures of your scientists hard at work:

Math Stations

We are constantly assessing how our classroom functions and how to improve learning and our environment.  This week we moved from a four station to a three station math.  Reducing the number of stations allows more time in each station, which was greatly needed.  The three stations include: Teacher, Independent and Technology.

The Teacher Station, is just what it sounds like-students work in small groups ranging from 3-12 students and one teacher.  When students are at the Teacher Station they are receiving the direct instruction they would be receiving in a typical grade-level classroom, but with the ability to focus the teachers' attention on a much smaller group.  Students and teachers alike in our room are enjoying the smaller setting!  There are currently two student groups for each grade level.  These groups are fluid, meaning that they may not stay the same for a long period of time.  Students are assessed every one to two weeks to determine their current needs. 

In addition to the Teacher Station, the Independent Station is a continuation of the lesson from the Teacher Station.  During the Independent Station, students work on practicing the skill they were taught in the Teacher Station.  If they are stuck on a problem they can ask a friend, log onto edmodo.com, learnzillion.com or khanacademy.com to watch videos on the topic, or they can ask Mrs. Scannell who is in our classroom for math Mondays-Thursdays.  

Dreambox is the main focus for students when they are at the Technology Station.  Beginning this week, students will alternate their time at the Technology Station, working on Dreambox or creating their Interactive Math Notebooks(IMN). These IMN have a dual purpose, reviewing what was just learned in the Teacher Stations and serving as a resource book as students add to them. 

Sept. 8-12 Weekly Update

We spent most of our week focusing on our literacy time, math time and a great science activity!  Here's some information on what was accomplished this week and what we plan to do in the coming week.

Literacy

This week, our stations consisted of independent reading, reader's response with book clubs and technology.  During this time we also continued to work on assessing reading and comprehension levels.  The learning targets for all three grade levels included reviewing/introducing the setting, characters and plot of a fiction text.

While students are in their independent station, they are called one-by-one to confer or conference with a teacher.  This individual time gives the teachers a great insight into what reading and comprehension strategies students are putting into their daily practice and what still needs to be worked on.  Our literacy time will look quite similar in the coming week.

Science

The whole room was buzzing with activity this week Tuesday as we put our Sprout Kids together! Thank you to all of the families who donated items to the room and the parents and grandparent that came in to help that day-we certainly needed it!  After the students created their Kids they wrote their hypothesis to answer the question: How will the different levels of light affect the growth of the Sprout Kids?  

We will be checking on the Sprout Kids every other day to document sprout growth and color.  Students will gather in groups and as a class to compare data. 

In the coming weeks, our learning targets for science will included photosynthesis, the oxygen and carbon cycle and the life cycle of a plant.

Math

Math is a very busy and productive time in our learning environment!  The third graders continued to work on multiplying factors to find a product, the fourth graders focused on place value and comparing larger whole numbers and the fifth graders spent a lot of time concentrating on comparing fractions using equivalent fractions.

Another exciting event this week: we started using our Chromebooks!  The students were thrilled to finally get to use the Chromebooks in the classroom.  They will be used throughout the day, but primarily during math, for typing practice and during our writing time.

Sprout Kids

We completed our first science investigation this week.  Students used old nylons, grass seed, saw dust, and rubber bands to create Sprout kids.

These Sprout kids will be put into one of three place; Bright Light (natural sunlight), Pale Palace (classroom/fluorescent light), or Black Out (closet).  Students had to predict how their Sprout kid would grow in each environment.  After they finished their hypothesis, they named their Spout kid and drew a picture.  Over the next few weeks, students will water their Sprout kid and check to see how they are growing.  

Thank you to everyone that brought in materials for this project.  We would also like to thank Brady, Alyce, and Tierney's Papa, Mrs. Maas, and Mrs. Heinonen for volunteering their time.

September 2-5 Weekly Update

Our first week has come and gone, and what a fabulous week it was!  Now that we are up and running we thought we would give you a picture of what each subject area looks like in our learning space:

Math-
Students were given a pre-assessment at their grade level.  Based on their pre-assessment  and classroom observations, students were placed in groups based upon their needs.  Groups vary in size of 4-7 students.  In these groups, students are instructed directly by a teacher.  When their group is not meeting with a teacher, students are in a math fact practice station, a technology station or an independent station (where they work on workbook pages/remembering sheets).  As teachers, we are loving the small groups and the ability to focus on a select number of students at a given time.  The students are loving the movement of the math time and the ability to work with so few kids and one teacher.

Science/Social Studies-
We are starting the year in science with a focus on plants.  More specifically, their life cycle, how they make food, and what role they play in the oxygen cycle.  We did a short video preview of plants and are going to start off running with a fun activity that will last about two weeks, beginning on Tuesday.  Please visit our signup for materials needed for the activity: Science Sign Up.  Also, during this time, students will be brushing up on their typing skills. 

Literacy Workshops-
For our reading workshop, students were placed in book clubs of about 4 students/book.  The students set up their reading calendars to make sure they would be able to finish their book and complete a short report by September 24th.  When in our workshop model, students are using what they are reading to complete a book log and a reader's response.  Students are asked to write a short paragraph to answer one of the prompts we have given them-there are about 10 to choose from.  Also, during this workshop, students have visited two fun reading websites: abcya.com and Tumblebooks.  Next week, students will continue these stations and Mrs. Petersen and Ebert will being assessing the students using our Fountas and Pinell books.  
This week, students also took their first spelling assessment which helps us locate what their needs are as far as word work is concerned. We are calling spelling "Words" this school year and although it has a different title, is still the "Words Their Way" that we used last year.  There will be no weekly spelling assessments this year, instead we will check for understanding roughly every 5 or 6 weeks to ensure students are utilizing the new patterns-not just memorizing a list of words each week

We have heard from a few parents with questions on homework expectations.  Each week, students are asked to read at least 100 minutes.  The reading that is done at home should be documented in the assignment notebook with the title of the book and the minutes read.  Why is it so important to read at home?  Take a peek at this graphic:

We also check each morning to see that the assignment notebook has been signed by a parent.  This signifies to us that at home, the parent has checked the assignment notebook for notes from the teachers and has checked to make sure any homework for the night has been completed.  The assignment notebook is a fantastic tool for communication between home and school!

Some more exciting news-most kids have already handed their Google Permission forms back in with a parent signature so the Chromebooks should be making their appearance next week!

If you need to get a hold of us for any reason. please feel free to write a note, send an email apetersen@kewaskumchools.org & nebert@kewaskumschools.org or call 262-626-8427 ext. 5107.

First Day-In the Books!

Walking into the room this morning was such an amazing experience for us!  The morning started with the staff running around putting the finishing touches on the day's agenda and activities.  And then the kids came through the doors!

Some people may expect sad faces and slow feet as the end of summer and the beginning of school arrived, but not at WES!  Kids were rushing to their rooms looking for familiar faces and teachers to hug.  Parents were handing out well wishes to teachers and kids alike as they left the building.

Our learning space looked fabulous, but the big question was-would it work as an actual classroom?  The answer we found today?  Yup!  It sure will.

We spent most of the morning talking about expectations that the students had for themselves and their teachers.  We brainstormed, shared, discussed and created a short list of qualities anyone can see when they step into our learning space.  We ended our morning with a wonderful short video that gave a great start to a discussion about treating others with respect and kindness, no matter the situation.

The afternoon was full of some time getting reacquainted with Dreambox, completing a review of summer activity and ending the day with a great read-aloud.  Oh, and of course, recess was squashed in there too.

It was awesome to see the students hop right into the activities ready to grow and learn again. We are so excited to see what this year brings.  After such a fabulous day, there is no doubt we are headed for success!

Kids working on Dreambox!  After a little chaos getting everyone logged in, the kids got right to work. 

The beanbag chairs and couch quickly became the quiet, comfy place we were hoping it would be.