Week of September 28th

 Hi Everyone! Hope you've all had a great week!

Can you believe we've been in school almost a month already?

We've been spending more time on our Chromebooks during each subject. The students know we are doing this just in case any of of us in the class may have to spend time at home for an extended period of time. It helps us troubleshoot technical problems together in the classroom instead of by ourselves at home. We are practicing logging in, working on Google Classroom, and other online programs that will support our learning.

MASK UPDATE:  We are three weeks into school and while students are doing so well at wearing masks, it is getting "more annoying" for some kids. I am working hard to honor kids wanting a few seconds of a mask break every once in a while. However, some kids are getting too comfortable pulling their masks down. Maybe ask your child if I have talked to them about wearing their masks correctly or if I have had to tell them to put a mask on. Some masks are too big and some are too small, I am trying to help the best I can. Please ask your child to try theirs on in front of you, is their nose sticking out the top? If so, try to find a mask that fits better, or let me know and I will get them a better fitting masks from school. As Mr. Duerwaechter said in his e-mail today, we all need to do our part to keep schools open. Please remind your child how important wearing a mask is.

We've really enjoyed shaking up our reading time this week. We spent one day this week reading outside soaking up the beautiful weather and another day we spent reading by the "fire".

Next week our class begins leading the morning announcements for the school. Each student will be offered the opportunity to read the announcements over the school intercom. If a student feels nervous doing it by themselves, they are offered to give the school announcements with a friend in the class.

Next week is Custodian Appreciation Day. NDLC is compiling photos of each class showing their appreciation to our great Custodian staff. Here's our class photo with our Thank You sign!

Daily Health Screening: Please see this link for daily health screening. Parents should go through each of these questions with their child before the start of each school day.

Upcoming Events:

September 30th: Picture Day

September 30th: Ms. Burris is out for training (I will still be in the building)

October 1st: Ms. Burris is out for training (I will still be in the building)

October 1st: Unit 1 Math Test

Curriculum Update:

Reading: This week we will be learning how to see more in our reading habits and in our stories. Students will acknowledge the reading work they've already done and identify their patterns of strength and how to build on those strengths. They will also be identifying what they don't do as a reader and discover new ways of getting better at reading. We will continue working on noticing details, being thoughtful readers, and asking questions to see more in our stories.

Writing: We will incorporate what were learning in reading this week into what we are writing in our own stories! Students will continue writing their book series.

Math: We have learned everything that this unit has to teach! Place value, rounding, and adding and subtracting large numbers. This week we will be reviewing all the things we have learned and practicing our skills. On Monday, a math review will be coming home. It is NOT required, however it is so VERY helpful to complete before Friday's Unit Test. The test will look identical (aside from the number choice) for each problem. I will attach the answer page for you to use, however it's helpful for me if you mark the problems that were difficult for your child, so I can better help them this week in the classroom.

As always, your child is welcome (and encouraged) to log onto Freckle and Xtramath at night or on the weekends to practice math skills. The students seem to like both websites. You have parent access to Xtramath too, if you would like to see their progress.

Word Study: We are talking about consonant suffixes and vowel suffixes to the end of words. We are also talking about the exceptions. The English language always seems to have exceptions!

Content: We are continuing to work on geography and better understanding the locations of continents and oceans. This week we will zoom into Wisconsin and the areas around the state. If you have time, please review (or just talk about) these things with your child.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Best,

Carly Burris

Week of September 21st

 Hi Families! Happy Friday!

We've had a busy week in fourth grade! 

Thank you for sending in pictures of your child's favorite reading spot! I have loved seeing their favorite places to cozy up with a book. They made frames for their pictures and we displayed them in the classroom. If you didn't get a chance to send in a picture and your child would still like too - feel free to email me the picture and we will add it our display!

We worked together to come up with some classroom rules. Based off what the students came up with, I made a chart that I have hanging on the board. Here are the rules we came up with:

This week I started choosing students to share during the "Share" portion of our Morning Meeting routine. We select students to share the Friday before the following week. I told students it is okay if they'd like to share about an object from home but that instead of bringing it in, a parent can send me a picture and I will project the picture on the board as they share. This just helps us refrain from letting anything important get lost at school.

We have our first birthday next week! Unfortunately, treats (even pre-packaged store-bought treats) are not allowed this year. Instead, on your child's birthday, they will choose the activity, greeting, and get to share. They can also bring in a book to share with the class.We will try to do an extra activity on their birthday as well. Thanks for understanding! I know, it's a bummer that we can't celebrate with treats.

Daily Health Screening: Please see this link for daily health screening. Parents should go through each of these questions with their child before the start of each school day.

Upcoming Events:

September 24th: Virtual Family Night

September 25th: No School

September 30th: Picture Day

September 30th: Ms. Burris is out for training (I will be in the building though)

October 1st: Ms. Burris is out for training (I will be in the building though)

October 1st: Unit 1 Math Test

Curriculum Update:

Reading: We have been working hard to summarize what we are reading, making greater predictions, and creating and recognizing our reading goals. For summarizing, some of us stop after each chapter to summarize the chapter, while others are stopping at the end of each book to summarize the whole text. We've been making predictions about our read aloud text, The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin and about our own books. As we make these predictions, were self evaluating and determining is it a Level 1, 2, or 3 prediction? We are also working as partnerships to create and discuss reading goals. Be sure to ask your child what they are reading, what are their current goals, and what are their accomplished goals.

Writing: We finished writing true stories about our lives. We worked really hard to incorporate and to continue writing with DAST (dialogue, actions, senses, thinking). We will now write fiction stories. We started the beginning and middle of our fiction stories today and WOW was I impressed! For our fiction stories, we are using events and situations that really happened to us and changing the characters names, setting, etc, so that is is a mystery if it really happened to us or not.

Math: We worked on adding six digit numbers and talked about the importance of estimating an answer before we solve it to see if it is reasonable. This week we will move into subtraction. We will be subtracting large numbers. I will help students understand that one amount is being taken away from another amount, instead of just learning the standard algorithm. (Don't worry, we'll get there) Take a look at this progression of how the brain learns subtraction strategies.

https://gfletchy.com/progression-videos/

Word Study: We are finishing our first unit this week. We learned about short vowels, short vowel exceptions, and some long vowel words. We will be moving on to unit two. There will be another packet coming home tonight. Remember, these are just for practice, but they are very helpful in your child's spelling development. Unit two is all about suffixes. We will learn about vowel suffixes and consonant suffixes. We will work on understanding the difference between the base word and the suffix. For example: tallest - tall is the base word and -est is the suffix.

Content: We are finishing up our study on geography and researching these questions:

Where is Wisconsin?

 What and where are the 7 continents?

What and where are the 5 oceans?

How can you identify the physical features and land forms in the world?

Please never hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, concerns, etc! Have a great weekend!

Carly Burris

Week of September 14th, 2020

 Hi Everyone!

We completed our second week of school! I have really enjoyed getting to know your children as students and as individuals!

We are still getting a feel for where a good seat is for everyone in the classroom. This week I prompted students with, "The seat I would work best is..." and they were invited to share which classroom table/spot/chair would best suit them for learning. Seats did change on Thursday, but some may still be changing. 

Does your child have a reading log? Here are the ones we are using in class. If they don't, tell them to make one (or get one from school). They were supposed to begin logging their reading last week.

For homework today (Friday, September 11th) I assigned students to take a picture of their favorite place to read. This could be at home, outside, etc. I recommend parents to send that picture to me via email or on the Remind app. Please let me know if you have and questions about this. Students were also assigned to write 10 minutes adding to their current writing piece and begin making revisions if they complete. I will be checking for both of these on Monday!

Classroom Jobs were offered this week as well. Your child was able to pick their top 3 choices from a list of 18 jobs. Students began their job today. It is going well!

Daily Health Screening - Please see this link for daily health screening. Parents should go through each of these questions with each child before the start of each school day.

Upcoming Events:

September 16th - iReady READING test (this will take the place of MAP)

September 17th - iReady MATH test

September 24th - Virtual Family Night

September 25th - No School

September 30th - Picture Day

September 30th - Ms. Burris will be out for training (I will still be in the building though)

October 1st - Ms. Burris will be out for training (I will still be in the building though)

Reading

This week we have continued fall in love in with reading. We have worked together at finding books that are just right for us, making and identifying reading goals, and figuring out how to be a strong reading partner.

Writing

This week we have been working hard at adding to our trouble stories. We have had a lot of discussion about how much adding details (dialogue, action, sense, thinking) to our stories improves them. We've also been learning about how to level up our revision process to make our writing even stronger.

Math:

We finished up a mini-unit on rounding, greater than/less than, and place value. Next week we will be reviewing our addition strategies. We took a quick quiz on Thursday and it will be coming home next week. I take the information from the quick quiz and use it to plan activities for review for the following week, to be sure your child will be successful on the test at the end of the unit. Please do not panic if your child did poorly on the quiz. We will review it before the final test. If you want to offer additional support at home, you can, but it is NOT required.

Content:

We are learning about geography! This week we learned about lines of latitude and longitude and how to read maps. Next week we will learn about regions and how to understand different types of maps!

First Week of Fourth Grade ✔

 Hi Everyone!

Happy Friday - what a great first week of school we had! There were so many rules and changes this year and everyone has handled them so well. I am really impressed.

You could tell by the end of the week that we are definitely working harder than we have the past few months. Many kids were struggling to keep up with the rigor and level attention that is often expected in 4th grade. The good news is that with a few reminders, everyone was respectful and doing their best!

Does your child have a reading log? Here are the choices of logs they were allowed to choose from. If they don't, tell them to make one. Students were supposed to begin logging their reading this week.

Does your child have one of these? It is very important. It's their agenda. They should pull it out every night to check and see what's for homework. (hint: it's ALWAYS read 20 minutes). Some nights I will add 15 minutes of writing or 10 minutes of math.

We did a lot of things this week to get to know ourselves better. One of those things was to create hopes and dreams for ourselves for the school year as well as specifically in writing. Next week will create classroom rules together. Students will sign the rules and we will begin enforcing them. I will send a photo of the Class Rules chart we create in next week's blog. 

In the next couple of weeks, we have our first student birthday! Unfortunately, treats (even pre-packaged store bought treats are not allowed this year. Instead, on your child's birthday they will choose the activity, greeting, and get to share during Morning Meeting. They can also bring in a book to share with the class. We will try to do an extra activity on their birthday as well. Thanks so much for understanding! I know it is a bummer that we cannot celebrate with treats.

As a reminder, you can always send your child with a box of snacks - if that is easier than packing one each morning!

Have you signed up for remind? If not, sign up here.

Do you have access to your child's seesaw journal? If not, click here.

Daily Health Screening

Please see this link for daily health screening. Parents should go through each of these questions with their child before the start of each school day.

Upcoming Events

September 7th: No School

September (date TBD): iReady Test (This will take the place of MAP)

September 24th: Virtual Family Night

September 25th: No School

September 30th: Picture Day

Curriculum Update

Reading: This week we will continue to fall in love with reading while also thinking about how we can be good reading partners. We will think about the kinds of notes we should be taking and the way we should talk about books. When your child is reading at home, they should be reading for about 18 minutes and writing for 2 minutes. 2 minutes should produce at least 3 Post-Its of writing to put in their book. Here are some charts that might be helpful:

            

Writing: This week we wrapped up our week of falling in love with writing. Check out the whole school initiative here: 

We hope the writing love lasts throughout the year. We are beginning a unit on Tuesday

about narrative stories that have trouble in them. Here are some charts that the kids will see this week. If it's hard for your child to come up with ideas in class, you might see writing come home as homework. Some days it will come just because writing at home is important too!

Math: We are working on rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 1,000.  We will also be reviewing our addition strategies at the end of the week. This week, the first quick quiz will be coming home. Quick quizzes are to see if a child learned the new content that was being taught, if they didn't it gives me, as the teacher, time to reteach it to that child before the unit test in a few weeks. So a few wrong answers on a quick quiz is okay (and totally normal).

Social Studies: We are going to begin our study of geography this week. We will learn about our place in the country and world. We will also study the regions of the US and learn other valuable map skills.

Word study: This week we will be looking at one syllable words and words that have an ending that changes. A packet was sent home today that is optional. However, if you child does it, I will look at it and let them know I'm grateful for the extra effort.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me!

Enjoy your long weekend!

Best,

Carly Burris

First Day Pictures

Here are some photos of us working hard during writing and enjoying our books during reading today!