We finished our Opinion Writing unit last week. The unit ended by students writing persuasive speeches on topics they are passionate about. We celebrated the students hard work throughout the unit by creating a 'stage', filling the audience, and listening closely as our peers shared their writing on topics they really care about!
Hope you all had a great week!
There is no school 11/25 - 11/27.
This week was FULL of presentations. The students presented their research on extreme weather for reading, their research on energy for science, and they gave powerful persuasive speeches in writing. Here are some pictures!
We will upload the presentations to Seesaw this week!
One of the closing circle questions at the end of the day this week was "Who in your life makes you the happiest?" This by far was my favorite question I've as the students this year. It was so sweet to hear them respond with answers about their dog, moms, dads, siblings, and grandparents.
Thanksgiving is this week! Check out this article out featuring NDLC's very own art teacher, Ms. Kuplack!
https://fox11online.com/good-day-wi/get-creative-with-a-thanksgiving-day-craft-idea
November 25: No School
November 26: Happy Thanksgiving! No School
November 27: No School
Curriculum Update:
Reading: We are starting our new reading unit this week! Back to fiction books! Students wont be filling out a book log the same way they used to. It will now look like this:
Students spent last week Friday personalizing their work plan folder. They will fill in their plan for the day listing a page goal, a partner talk goal, and a jot goal. They are challenged to practice the same "talk" with someone at home when they do their homework. They should also practice the same "jot goal" that they did in class at home. Please remind your child to talk AND WRITE about their reading each night for homework. During out nonfiction unit, students learned about notetaking using the following strategies: Chronological, boxes and bullets, problem/solution, cause/effect, and compare/contrast. Students will be learning that they can use those same strategies and organizers to take notes about characters in fiction stories.
Writing: We will begin our new writing unit this week as well! This unit focuses on literary essays and students will be working on writing arguments about texts. They will begin by writing essays that defend character-based ideas and will practice organization and writing clear claims.
Math: We've been working through our division unit! There are four different strategies that were taught to the students. It was their job to try each and then decide which works best for them. By now, many students have found 'their' strategy. Division games came home last week and will come home this week for homework. Practice helps, so if your child is struggling with division, encourage them to be playing those games. This week we started 'seminars' (which are the same as small groups, it just sounds more exciting and 'professional') 🙂 I will continue to pull each child into a seminar to practice division!
Please refrain from teaching your child the standard algorithm. Take a look at the progression of how division is learned here.
Word Study: We will begin unit 5 this week. On Monday, practice packets will be coming home. These are not required, but highly encouraged. Students who do these packets tend to do very well on the unit tests that end the unit. Unit 5 focuses on working with words that have a vowel sound that doesn't say its name. This is called a schwa. If you'd like to learn more about this check out this blog.
Content: We are learning the functions and processes of humans and plants. Last week we spent some time learning and discussing the human eye. The students seem to be really interested in this unit! I am excited to continue.
I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving! Stay safe!
Carly Burris
Hello!
I had such a great time talking to each and everyone of you at conferences last Thursday! I am really looking forward to meeting with the rest of you this Tuesday. I cannot say this enough, but thank you so much for being such a wonderful and supportive parents to not only your child, but to me as well. It is very much appreciated. Your children have made such an impact on me and I smile whenever I think about the fact that in five, ten, or even twenty years from now, when I think back to my first year teaching, your children will be coming to mind. They are an incredible group.
Last week bookmarks were sent home advertising the Virtual Book Fair this year. I have heard that in the past some parents like to donate books to the classroom. If that is something you are interested in doing, here are a list of books I think the class would enjoy:
Dog Man Crime and Punishment by Dav Pilkey
Baby-Sitters Club by Gale Galligan
Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure by Jeff Kinney
Becoming Brianna by Terri Libenson
Owl Diaries Eva in the Spotlight by Rebecca Elliot
Diary of a Wimpy Kid The Deep End by Jeff Kinney
Here are the links to access the Virtual Book Fair for NDLC:
https://bookfairsfiles.scholastic.com/flippingbooks/F20-premium-booklist/F20-premium-booklist.html#p=1
November 17: Virtual Parent Teacher Conferences (4:00pm - 7:30pm)
November 20: Early Release
November 25: No School
November 26: Happy Thanksgiving! No School
November 27: No School
Curriculum Update:
Reading: We are wrapping up our nonfiction weather unit this week. Students are taking all the information they've gathered throughout the unit to make a presentation that they will be presenting on Tuesday. Some students chose to create a poster board with their team while others are mostly creating a slideshow. We will upload these to Seesaw later this week! After we finish our presentations, we will be taking an end-of-unit assessment to see what we've learned throughout the nonfiction unit. Our next unit brings us back to fiction reading. Students won't be filling out a book log the same way they used to. It will now look like this:
They will fill in their plan for the day listing a page goal, a partner talk goal, and a jot goal. They are challenged to practice the same "talk" with someone at home when they do their homework. They should also practice the same "jot goal" that they did in class at home. Please remind your child to talk AND WRITE about their reading each night for homework. During out nonfiction unit, students learned about notetaking using the following strategies: Chronological, boxes and bullets, problem/solution, cause/effect, and compare/contrast. Students will be learning that they can use those same strategies and organizers to take notes about characters in fiction stories.
Writing: We are nearing the end of our opinion writing unit. Students are currently working on writing persuasive speeches! I am very impressed by some of the topics student's chose to write about - I definitely have some young activists in my classroom! We will be celebrating all they've done throughout the opinion writing unit this week as well as take 'mid-essay unit' to see what kids still need to learn when it comes to writing essays. This will guide what is taught as kids start writing essays about the books they read.
Math: We finished the multiplication unit on Friday. If your child's test comes home with a low score, please know that I will keep working with them in class. We will be moving on to the division unit on Tuesday which uses multiplication a lot for understanding the concept of equal groups. Please refrain from teaching your child the standard algorithm. Take a look at the progression of how division is learned here.
Word Study: We are in Unit 4. We are learning about the vowel-consonant-e exceptions, continuing work with vowel and consonant suffixes, as well as better understanding the silent "e" and how words with a silent "e" change when adding the suffix "-ing".
Content: We are finishing up our Energy unit this week! Students are creating presentations that they will be presenting on Tuesday. Many teams decided to create a poster board and some decided to create a slideshow. These will be posted to Seesaw later this week!
Hope you all had a relaxing weekend. Here's to another great week!
Carly Burris
Hi Everyone!
Our class is running pretty low on dry erase markers. If you happen to have some lying around the house, I'd love to take them off your hands. Or, if you are looking to donate something to the classroom, dry erase markers would be much appreciated!
We enjoyed the warm weather this week. We went outside for reading!
Student Council has begun! All students who submitted an essay this year were accepted. I am really impressed by how many students in our class decided to join. Many students have been sharing all of the ideas they have to help NDLC. I am excited to see what these fourth graders can do!
If you haven't already please sign up for Parent Teacher Conferences using this link: https://ptcfast.com/schools/NDLC
Then, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/28GzZ1wuwncMgKXp6
This form will help guide our conference and assure we discuss everything that you feel is important!
November 11: Picture Retake Day
November 12: Parent Teacher Conferences (4:00pm - 7:30pm)
November 17: Parent Teacher Conferences (4:00pm - 7:30pm)
November 25: No School
November 26: Happy Thanksgiving! No School
November 27: No School
Curriculum Update:
Reading: We spent the beginning of the week practicing the process for reading nonfiction texts. We then started our new unit which includes a whole class research project! Students are working in small groups studying various types of extreme weather and natural disasters. This work will allow them to continue working on their reading of nonfiction as well as have them improve on their notetaking, synthesizing, ability to read a variety of texts, and grow research based ideas. Here are some photos from this week while they were working hard to research their topic:
Writing: We will be finishing up our review writing early next week. Students have been composing some amazing and very persuasive review pieces! I definitely have some new restaurants to try, new movies to watch, and new video games to play after reading their reviews! Next week we will move into writing persuasive speeches to make a real-world difference.
Math: Last week we worked on two-digit by two-digit multiplication. The students did very well transitioning into more tricky multiplication. We've been practicing many different multiplication problems, estimating, and reading and solving word problems. The Quick Quiz the students took Friday afternoon will be coming home early this week.
Word Study: We began Unit 3 on Monday which will focus on the vowel-consonant-e syllable. Although this unit is very short, we did not finish by Friday, November 6th like originally planned. We will take our Unit 3 Fundations test on Monday, November 9th!
Content: Students began working in their small inquiry groups researching an energy topic. Each day students are guided with a big question to prompt their research for the day. Students will gather all the information they learned each day and at the end of the unit they will create a presentation with their small group to share!
I am looking forward to meeting with all of you at parent teacher conferences! Please always feel free to reach out if you ever have any questions or concerns!
Have a great weekend!
Carly Burris
Happy Election Day! We voted today! Today we privately voted in our classroom's voting booth and we individually brought our ballots to NDLC's ballot drop box at the end of the hallway. We even got 'I Voted' stickers to wear! Here are some pictures:
