Week of October 1st

I can't believe we're already in October. We concluded our Student Council elections. Here is a picture of all the students who ran for Student Council and I'm so proud of the students for taking a huge risk. Congratulations to our new Student Council representatives, Derek and Hallie!

Just as a reminder, school picture day is Tuesday, October 9th!
Here are some updates about our learning this week!






Reading:

• We wrapped up our launching unit with discussing different ways students can keep their discussions going. 
• In reading workshop, students read their D.E.A.R. books and track their thinking on stickies. I introduced the idea of "writing long" off a sticky and students tried this on their own in their reading response journal.
• After reading through the journal entries, I chose a few entries that went beyond retelling the story (noticing how the character changed, what a character did that was surprising and coming up with a theory about a character).
• We wrote a "response" together as a class using our read aloud as a common text.  

 Writing:

• We launched our personal narrative unit on Monday. Choosing a topic can be a hard task but students learned that writers often choose topics that have a strong emotion behind it and possibly a lesson learned. 
• Students brainstormed different emotions and possible stories to match.
• We spent two days planning the beginning, middle and end. Students learned to add dialogue and sensory details to their plan and use color coding to make sure they had it sprinkled throughout their story. 
• We reviewed our rules for drafting such as skip every other line, let the ideas flow and don't get bogged down worrying about spelling. 
• Students focused on developing setting details in their writing. 

Math:

• Students spent time reviewing for the unit 1 math test and took the math test on Tuesday.
• We began a new routine this week called broken calculator. This is where students create equations following certain rules and certain numbers can't be used.
• We began our data unit by discussing what data is and examples of how people collect data.
• Each student received a bag with a handful of cubes in it and they had to work together to organize the data. 
• Students measured their heights to the nearest half in and we created a class line plot to analyze and interpret the data. Words and phrases we used to analyze the data are outliers (unusual), range (if data is spread out), maximun, minimum, and cluster/clump of data (typical).
• Now that we had an idea of what the typical height for fourth graders are, we're using sample data to determine how much taller fourth graders are compared to first graders. They spent time trying to represent two sets of data.

Science:

• Students finished the scratch test on Monday and reflected on the activity. This activity allows students to test one of the properties of minerals, which is hardness. 
• We observed some new rocks as part of the calcite test activity. Students learned that calcite is one of the most abundant minerals on earth and is the only mineral to react to acid. We had some sample rocks and put each rock in vinegar to look for a reaction, which would give us evidence that calcite is a mineral present in that rock. 
• We let the vials sit overnight and observed them two days later. Students looked for additional evidence for calcite and they wanted to pour the vinegar into evaporation dishes to see what would be left behind. We will find out when they return from the three day weekend.
• We began reading The Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth to continue learning about rocks and minerals and how they form