Spring Concert Practice Links

Hello!

The following links will bring you to the videos that students need to be practicing for the spring concert coming up on May 23rd.

"Hey Brother" by Avicii 


Cups by Kidz Bop


How to do the cup moves 

Simile and Metaphor Link!

Check out this book that was read by someone and posted on YouTube!

Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk by Brian Cleary 

Natural Disasters

The students have spoken, and we are on our final ELA unit of the year.  They had the choice between learning about the rainforest or natural disasters, and well, they chose to learn about natural disasters! 

This entails the following: 

Students are learning about hurricanes and earthquakes more in-depth, as well as learning critical reading skills along the way.  They are learning how to paraphrase informational texts, learning the academic and scientific vocabulary along the way, learning how to understand the structure within informational texts (like cause/effect), they are writing a research report on a natural disaster, and we are tying science into this as well!  Part of science is that students need to understand the different systems in the Earth and how they work together, what a more perfect way to learn these systems!

Author Celebration!!

On Friday, April 21st, 2017, our class held our first Author Celebration!  Students were able to choose which writing piece that they wanted to read to an audience.  Students have actually written three different narratives over the past several weeks, and we felt that it was necessary to close our chapter on narrative writing by celebrating! The look on every child's face was priceless when their writing was applauded by their classmates, a local Veteran, the Principal, another teacher, some family members, and myself.  Students and guests were able to enjoy some healthy treats during this celebration.

If you would like a picture of your child reading their writing, please email me! I have pictures of every child there.

Play-Dough Recipe

Homemade Play-Dough Recipe

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/4 cup of salt
• 3 tsp. of white vinegar
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• Food Coloring - use if you want too. 

1. Combine the oil, salt, flour, vinegar, and food coloring in a pan on the stove.  
2. Heat and stir constantly until it reaches play-dough consistency and is all clumped together. 
3. I found that I had to add some more olive oil to make it not sticky. 
4. Put it on parchment paper to cool down, and squish together to make sure that it is malleable. 

Performance Tasks

I can remember when I asked students at the beginning of the year what they were interested in, and they told me that they were interested in the mill and logging.  With that knowledge in my brain, I found the perfect opportunity to tie together their interest with a Performance Task and Unit!  For the past few weeks, we have been learning about writing stories.  We have been learning about point of view, characters, theme, plot, etc.  We have written our first narrative, learned how to implement dialogue, flash drafted a second narrative, and have actually written a third.  The third and final narrative was part of a Performance Task.  This task was simple.  Pretend that you are a person from back in time relating to Berlin History, logging, etc, and write your story.  Students could blog, write a narrative, write an interview, create props, video tape, tape record, etc.

For the past few days, students have been working on these stories.  They have revised, edited, and created a performance to be carried out on Thursday and Monday.  They were told to use historically correct information and to be creative.  The have done just that.  Their excitement is unbelievable and the hard work they have put in is amazing.  Tomorrow we start the performances, and I cannot wait to see their hard work!

Math Rockstars!

Ready for 5th Grade Math!!!

The final fourth grade unit that students needed to complete before being introduced to 5th grade math was Decimal Fractions.  This unit introduced students to the concept of hundredths, tenths, decimals, adding decimals, changing decimal and fractions back and forth, expanded form for fractions and decimals, place value, etc.  The students totally rocked this unit!  We started it on February 9th and we ended it on February 24th.  The students feel comfortable with decimals and how they relate to fractions now, and their data is so impressive!  We all feel so much more confident and ready to start the first 5th grade unit:  Place Value and Decimal Fractions. 

This week we are tackling Topic A, which teaches students about exponents, thousandths, and the place value system all the way to millions!  I feel confident that students will succeed in this unit.  Since we are completing 2 lessons a day, this unit should not take too long, which is great news for us.  

However, I do not want to ignore the knowledge that students have learned this year despite being in 4th grade math.  Students can add and subtract fractions, mixed numbers, and more.  This is huge since they did barely even know what fractions were before.  They also can multiply multi-digit numbers, they can divide using long division, they understand decimals, and more.  These are all vital skills that needed to be taught, and students have worked so hard on learning these concepts.  I know that I am proud of them, and they are proud of themselves too! 

So, let's celebrate what they know and tackle the new concepts with grit, perseverance, and positivity! Go 5th Grade!