Coming Up:

Nov. 21	-  Grandparents Day
Nov. 22-26	-  Thanksgiving Break
Nov. 28-1 Dec	-  ERB Testing
Dec. 5-7	-  Fourth Grade Overnight

We have had a busy week, and one of the highlights was getting together with our Kindergarten buddies to follow up on the storyboards created during our last visit; the children were very excited to use ideas from the storyboard to help their buddies write their stories. We had been trying get together with our buddies for a while, but unable to do so because of schedule conflicts. Then on Monday, we finally did; the excitement, smiles and gentle interactions with the younger children made for a lovely time together and a great start to our week.

Writing:

Students have been gathering ideas for their fiction narratives. In addition to small moment/seed ideas, students have been thinking about stories they wished existed, such as books they would like to read, for example, books about kids like themselves. They wrote down the ideas floating in their imaginations but realized that to make their wish into a story idea, they needed to invent details. So they began by asking questions and doing the exciting work of looking through their writer’s notebooks at all the ideas they collected to decide on the one idea to develop into a fictional narrative.  

Reading:

We finished our shared reading of Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. This story embraces ideas that fourth graders can readily identify with around the themes of friendship and relationships. One of the main characters, Sistine Bailey, is a girl who shows her feelings and emotions as readily as Rob, the other main character, hides his. Even though Rob does not like Sistine at first, they begin to share their life stories, learn to trust each other, and become friends. After Rob loses his mother he puts all his sorrow and emotions in a “suitcase,” keeping this imaginary suitcase closed tight because he does not like to show his emotions, but Sistine helps him open this suitcase of emotions. To bring closure to our reading we shared personal reflections. Students found it easy to relate to the characters dealing with their emotions, and understood well that some emotions are easy to share and others cannot be shared as readily. We are following up our discussions with students writing about ways in which they deal with their emotions.  

Math:

This week in math students have been thinking about how their ongoing work with base ten pieces (math manipulatives) to build arrays could support them in moving to a more efficient method for multiplying multi-digit numbers. They considered what happens when multiplying or dividing numbers by 10,100, and 1000.

Challenge Homework:

The new challenge homework was sent home last week. The children have a lot of exciting opportunities for individual learning and expression this month.

Reminder:

Wet and cold weather has arrived; please remember to send a rainproof layer to school each day. Students are expected to be outside multiple times during the day, rain or shine. With limited covered area at recess and none for 3rd-5th dismissal, they need to bring proper outerwear to school.