Finally Friday!

We made it through our first full week! We also managed to do a little learning too! Our day began with setting ourselves up for success and getting Ready to Learn. At the end of special, we had our first fire drill and then went to the ILZ (Innovative Learning Zone) for our first guest speaker! Mary Kennedy, the Hilliard Education Association president, talked to the students about the history and origins of Labor Day and the beginning and purpose of unions. Next, since we are problem solvers, we brainstormed issues and problems we see in our school, community, state, world, etc. as well as possible solutions to these problems. What problem did your kiddo discover and who did they work with today?

We only had about 15 minutes of academic block time which we used to decorate and personalize our writer's notebooks. In math, 4th graders worked on our next pretest: multiplication and division. We'll be organizing the students into groups and start working next week. We also worked with patterns and had our first tears of the year... like I mentioned at Curriculum Night, I'd rather have tears in 4th grade than college! We worked through our frustrations with not understanding challenging problems, and learned more than just the math. :)

In meeting, we shared something good from this week and played a game called alibi. We also worked on our organization by writing in our "planners." Students are either getting organized on paper or digitally using the calendar app, notes or reminders. Have them show you what they are using.

After lunch and recess, we watched Flocabulary's Week-in-Rap and finished up our 'More than Smart' presentations. Ask them about this!

Welcome! 19-20 school year

It has been an amazing start to the school year! I'm so sorry that it has taken me so long to start blogging about our day... Here, you will get snippets of information about our day. Use this information to have better conversations with your kiddos about school. I found that it wasn't until I asked my children more specific questions that I would receive more than a shoulder shrug about school. Now, we have wonderful conversations with little prompting which helps keep me connected to their learning in middle and high school.

Last week, we participated in many activities and read many books helping us to get to know each other and Arrow better. This week, we began more academic learning.

When we arrive, we read the morning message on the gorgeous Apple TV which tells us of any out of the ordinaries and gives us instructions to remind us of our morning procedures. After special, we head to our academic block. In 4th grade this week, we are working on setting up our writer's notebooks and getting familiar with reading resources. In my room, we are reading Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, as a read aloud. (Ask your kiddo about read alouds in their room!) We have also been creating lists of ideas in our writer's notebooks as some students said that was always the hardest part of writing. At about 10:40, we head to math where 4th graders are working on the place and value of whole numbers and becoming efficient with addition and subtraction. After math time, back in homeroom, we have our meeting where we begin sharing (today's question was, 'What did you have for dinner last night?') and then our activity was based on the book, Recess Queen, which we read first and then played a game of body language telephone. :) During lunch, students that will eventually be attending Bradley, received a bracelet that they can use to attend any Bradley sport over the next week for FREE! Finally, once we return from recess, we have a few moments of quiet time. This is a time where students can do anything as long as it is quiet and independent. It is a time to calm themselves from recess and get their minds right for the rest of our day. During Explore this week, we've been working on social-emotional skills~Monday, we learned about resiliency and yesterday and today looked at what being called 'smart' really means and how to better specify skills they are strong with than use such a broad term.

Overall, we've had a great transition to the year. I cannot wait to see the wonderful and amazing things the rest of the year will bring!