Our classroom community came together this week and came up with a new way of taking care of our classroom and materials. They wanted everyone to be more involved, and the teachers wanted to make it an opportunity for students to take more ownership and leadership. They brainstormed, discussed, disagreed politely, ran through possible snags, and let the ideas flow. We now are piloting a new job routine -- ZONES! Each member applied for a zone, and they have a list of tasks to work together to complete. WOW...our classrooms are looking so much cleaner with their buy in!!
On Thursday, Fourth Grade took in the exhibits and shows at the Bob Bullock Museum! Thank you to all the fabulous parents who offered to chaperone -- it made it so easy to spread out and see different things, and kept everyone safe!
In ELA, we are refining and improving the complexity of our compound sentences -- using commas and conjunctions gives us a way to add variety to our writing. In reading, we have been studying poetry and its structure. We've got a routine that helps us make margin notes -- and if we use it, we see the meaning so much clearer! We covered some narrative poetry through our last Bluebonnet Nominee book, Bravo! We learned about Hispanic heroes, and how they have stood up for equal treatment/fairness throughout history. Poets, artists, scientists, and cooks -- embracing hard work and this country. Similes have been the highlight of figurative language this week. Our nonfiction article helped us see how songs, movies, and even advertisements all contain similes and other forms of figurative language. It was eye opening to see how many songwriters, as a few students remarked, "Must be good at writing poetry!"
In math, we are noticing how much our understanding of fractions has grown over the past weeks. Our mathematical vocabulary has grown with terms that are now familiar and useful like "numerator", "denominator", "equivalent", and "inequality." We have a much better understanding of how a fraction expresses a relationship between parts and a whole, and we are much more aware that fractions connect in so many places (division and measurement, to name a few!). 4th grade showed what they know about generating equivalent fractions with multiplication or division. All participated in comparing fractions with a variety of strategies: logical reasoning, cross-multiplication, and using visual representations.
SBLC scientists are wrapping up their digital science projects. Each group is preparing a slideshow detailing their experiment through the scientific method process and we look forward to a gallery walk next week. This project has led to thoughtful conversation about how each group member contributes, qualities of true collaboration, and greater self-awareness on everyone's part!
Enjoy your weekend!
Jen and Jewellyn
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