Sketching like a naturalist

During art today we practiced including details in our sketches.  We also talked about how naturalists use their sketches to show variations between similar specimens.

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Organization

Third and Fourth grade is a great time for learning how to be organized and independent.  We have been working on this slowly since the beginning of the year and recently we took time to reorganize our binders to make them more effective and useful as we learn.  Our class binders and planners are wonderful tools for helping us gain the skills necessary for later in our school career and it is wonderful that we can take time now to work on setting ourselves up for success!  Please take time to look at your child's binder and help them in this often difficult process. Thanks!

Passport to Genre

What a great job the students did today discovering different types of Genre!  We are in the process this week of "hunting down" books that fit each of our chosen Genres. As part of their future reading groups the students will be continuing to identify the Genres of the books they read and stamping their Genre Passports as they go. "Oh the places we go when we read a book!"

OPI Powerpoint

 

Finally they're here!  I finally figured out how to get the powerpoint of our wonderful trip to OPI up for all to enjoy! (Thanks Hailey for the help)  Please take a minute with your fabulous kiddo to experience the great adventure we had.

Grading System Update

            I am sending home pieces of returned work for the months of October and November.  These are the pieces that your child has chosen not to put into their portfolio.  I will be sending these packets of papers home each month after we have done our portfolio work. 

Just a quick note on my grading marks.  Currently I use three letters to grade their work.

B = Beginning ( This means they are either in need of reteaching or additional work in class to further their learning.)

D = Developing (This signifies that they are understanding the information but that they still need some work on the basic concepts)

M = Mastered (If they have this letter they have shown that they are capable of understanding the concept and that they only need to review or practice a little to keep the concepts firm.)

Because of some confusion with these marks I will be changing them to the following letters.

R or Reteach for B’s

S or Satisfactory for D’s

M will still represent Mastered.

I am sorry for any confusion this lettering system has caused.  I tell the students all the time that mistakes are okay as long as we learn from them. I am doing my best to do just that! :)

New Planner

You may have noticed a new style of planner come home this week.  We are working on our organization skills and keeping track of our work.  The students will be getting these planners checked at the end of the day to make sure they fill them out correctly and then checked in the morning to make sure they completed their homework.  Please be aware that these are organizational tools for the students and are a great way for you to be aware of some of the work we are doing in class.  For questions and comments it is still best to email me or call me at the school.  Please feel free to use these as a way to open discussion with your child about the wonderful learning they are doing as Wildcats!

Food Bank

Our trip to the food bank was a wonderful learning oportunity this week.  We got to learn a lot about how the food bank worked, how many people it served and where it got all of the supplies and personell needed to run it.  The students had great questions for the workers.

We made sure to ask about what kind of food the food bank needed right now because very soon we will be doing a food drive.

 
We took notes on some of the statistics of running the business so that we can use them in our new math project.  We will be learning what an average family spends on groceries each month and compare this cost to the average low income families monthly budget. (This also gives us a great opportunity to work on our estimating and averaging skills in math)

STAY TUNED FOR MORE NEWS ON THE UPCOMING FOOD DRIVE! :)