“How full is your bucket?” This is the title of a book and a question I asked the 4M Smarties this week. Our class is working on supporting each other with positive comments and respectful listening. Every time someone makes another person feel good, they fill that person’s bucket as well as filling their own!
We spent an amazing day with author Gregory Mone this week! Mr. Mone is author of many science and fiction books, including Fish. He emphasized the importance of planning and revising by showing students his own drafts and talking about all the research he does before he starts to write. After presenting to the entire grade level, he came into our classroom and led a lesson on revising. It is so powerful for students to learn how a published author goes through the same steps that we do in the 4M Smarties Writing Workshop! Thank you to the PTO for supporting this valuable program.
We also had a visit from Holly Hill Farm on Thursday. Students planted garlic in the Foster School garden beds that will sprout in the early spring.
The Unit 2 tests went home this week and we started Unit 3, which is about fractions. I would like to have everyone in class reach mastery (95%) on their multiplication facts by the end of December. Keep practicing for 5 minutes/ day if your child hasn’t reached their goal yet. Thank you to Mrs. Golden and Mrs. Ryan for helping with math games today.
I used the Chromebooks throughout our literacy lessons this week to begin to familiarize students with using technology to show their knowledge. The 4th grade MCAS this year will be entirely online, so I hope that by this spring students will feel comfortable reading and annotating text on a screen and also writing responses to text on a computer.
The geography project is due on Wednesday, Nov. 23rd. Students have been sharing what they accomplished each night and their plans for the rest of the week. Everyone has been very enthusiastic and they all seem confident about their plans.
Ask a Fourth Grader…
* What does it mean to “fill your bucket?” How can you fill someone else's bucket?
* How do you know that ½ is equivalent to 5/10?
* What did you learn about being a writer from Gregory Mone?
* How did we use “Peardeck” to respond to comprehension questions?