Today was quite possibly the #bestdayever! The classroom was transformed into the best restaurant that HPA has ever seen, and the 4th graders dined at this fine establishment all day. Students got to "taste" books from different genres while learning about the qualities that each genre has. Throughout their book tasting, students sampled one different book from 4 different genres. While they only tasted one book, they had the opportunity to browse each table as well as our dessert table for many other books and genres. Many students left class today with at least one book on their want to read list and many left with more than one. Students are also beginning to identify themselves as readers and recognize what types of books they enjoy and what types of books take a little bit more focus. I am so excited that we are beginning to form our reading community.
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Today, we finished out studying the four main parts of speech - nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns. Students have been working hard to learn to label them in a sentence as well as ask themselves identifying questions. Tomorrow, we will have our first quiz of the school year on these three parts of speech. :)
Your child may also be coming home with a letter from me about our flexible seating. We have had quite a few incidents of treating the seats and/or peers inappropriately which has resulted in the popping of one of the yoga balls. Because of that, I have removed the seats from the classroom for the time being. In order to earn the ability to use the seats again, students have been asked to write me a letter about it. Students that do not turn in a letter will be asked to sit on the carpet without a pillow or in a normal chair. I would love if you would take a moment or two to check in with your child about these behaviors. It's been a really crazy first two weeks, but I promise I will update the blog ASAP with some pictures and some ELA happenings. Until then -- I saw this video this morning and it made me smile. :) Enjoy and welcome to the 4th grade! We are starting to dive into some work and the 4th graders are rocking it. We are spending the majority of this week studying the morphology of different words - specifically parts of speech. We are focusing on the basics (nouns, verbs, and adjectives). The students are excited to learn a new word - morphology - and to realize that this word isn't as scary as it sounds. I encourage you to ask your child to point out nouns, verbs, and adjectives to keep the concepts fresh. Along with our morphology study this week, we are doing our first mini-writing unit. We are reading The Best Part of Me, which is a collection of paragraphs written by 3rd-5th graders. We are going to make our collection of paragraphs by choosing what we feel is the best part of ourselves and explaining why. I am so excited to learn more about each 4th grader and cannot wait to see the creative writings they produce. :) Below are some fun pictures from Friday's flexible seating try-out day and our first Scholastic Book Frenzy. :) ![]() After our first three days of getting to know each other, we were reading to started switching for blocks. I was excited to get to meet all the 4th graders and I think the 4th graders were excited to have a change of scenery for a bit. In language arts. we did a lot of the first day essentials, such as talking about expectations as well as learning where some things in the classroom, but we also did a connection circle about our favorite books. I loved hearing about everyone's favorite book or books and am even more excited to see all the book selfies. :) We also got our school brain juices pumping by thinking about our most memorable school experience and why that was so memorable. We also began to talk about our 40 book challenge and I was thrilled to see how many students were ready to get started. Here's to a great year!
As I sit here writing this post, I can't help my smile with excitement. Excitement for all the knowledge that the 4th graders already have and excitement for the possibilities of the year. Words can't describe how EXCITED I am for the year. (How many more times can I say excited?!) Today, we got to know each more through our first class connection circle. The purpose of connection circles are to help build a classroom community where each child feels safe and respected. We talked about our summers today, but throughout the year, we will use connection circles to address any issues we might be having as well as discuss tough topics that might come up. My home is to create a safe classroom environment where each child feels safe enough to share how they are feeling and respected enough to help each other out. We also practice our safety drills. We discussed each drill in depth and why it is important to follow expectations during these drills. Students asked very deep questions to help make sure that we all feel prepared during these potential situations. We ended the day talking about growth mindset. Students learned about a lot of different famous people who had failures before they became famous. The video we watched is here. :) We are excited to continue the discussion of growth mindset throughout the year. As the second day of school comes to a close, I want to just say how blessed I am to get to work with every single one of your children. They are all so fun and happy, and I am so excited for a simply amazing year!
Today, my homeroom got to dive into knowing each other deeply by creating hands that are reaching for the stars - just like we are reaching for the stars in our works. The kids brainstormed a list of things, people, places, etc...that makes them them, and then drew them on the hands. The finished hands are featured on the bulletin board in the hallway. We also did our first Just Dance of the year and your kids have some moves. I absolutely loved watching them let loose and get silly, and I think they loved it too! I cannot believe how fast the summer went and that the first day of school is already over. I am so excited for the school year ahead and cannot wait to watch your children grow and learn. We are going to have an incredibly exciting year and the adventure will be worth it.
Today, we got to learn a little bit about each other through a fun toilet paper activity. Students each took however much toilet paper they wanted and for each square they had, they shared something about themselves with us. Students were so funny when they found out the plan as they didn't know the game until AFTER they had grabbed the toilet paper. We also started to sort out our supplies and as many of you know, this may be a never ending process. :) We finished the day by reading the first part of The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins and talked about our hopes and dreams for 4th grade and our lives. Students are working on making Dream Jars and I can’t wait to see them all finished. |
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