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Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Saturday, October 4, 2014
September 29 - October 3 Weekly Update
The highlight of our week was going to FES to participate in the mini-KEYS event. The music was pumping while the students ran laps. When they were done, they were each given a snack. Mr. Thull put a lot of work into making this event fun for the WES and FES students.
Our students reached our class goal of 100 bee points. On Monday, we will vote on our reward!
Math
Our fourth and fifth grade students had their first assessment and will begin unit two next week. We had all students take a pretest to determine new groups.
The third grade students will continue to work on multiplication facts. We have learned how to multiply and divide by 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, and 10. Next week, we will work on 6, 7, 8. Please continue to review facts at home. There are many great apps and online programs you can use. In class, we use aaamath.com. You can search for many different math skills to work on at this site.
Fourth grade will begin a unit on multiplication. They will learn to multiply one digit numbers by up to four digit numbers. Eventually, we will get into two digit by two digit multiplication. If students aren't secure in their basic facts, they need to be reviewing them at home. All facts are expected to be secure by the end of third grade.
Fifth grade will begin a unit on decimals. They will be expected to read, write, and compare decimals to the thousandths place. In addition to this, they will round, add and subtract decimal numbers.
Reading
We are full swing in our workshop model. Students are divided up into eight different groups based on their Fountas and Pinnell reading test. During our small group reading time, students are reading a short book at their level. As we read, we are focusing on story elements and character traits. Next week, we will move on to summarizing.
When students aren't reading with a teacher, they are either in a book club or independent reading. They are assigned a book club at their reading level and continue to work on the same skills they are learning in the teacher group. The students are loving the workshop model!
Writing
Last week, we introduced personal narratives to the students. We have gone through pre-writing and drafting. This week we started revising and editing. Students are meeting individually with a teacher for assistance on this. We have enjoyed reading their stories. It helps us to get to know each of them a little better. We will continue to work on this next week. Students will have an opportunity to share their writing with their peers as well.
Science
We wrapped up our plant unit this week and had our first assessment. Students will receive their test back on Monday. We will move to social studies next week.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
West Bend Daily News
The West Bend Daily News visited our school on Tuesday, September 30. Click HERE to read the article.
Friday, September 26, 2014
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.
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!
Friday, September 19, 2014
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:
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:
Sunday, September 14, 2014
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.
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.
Friday, September 12, 2014
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.
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.
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