Kiker's Strength-Based Learning Cohort

Even with a surprising ending, this week was packed with lots of learning! In ELA, we worked diligently to complete our expository text for our Time Capsule project. We outlined, drafted, sought out critical feedback, and drafted again. Our final steps were to edit, type and insert the photo we took. This project has asked us to TRANSFER our knowlege and APPLY it. We weren't just labelling and identifying text features (heading, captions, bylines and dates), we were CREATING them. That takes a depth of understanding to do. Having to think about an audience and what you as a writer want your  audience to gleam from your piece is big work. In math, we've created multiple drafts of our time capsule graphs. To elevate the quality of our work, we've listed criteria and noted essential features for each type of graph. Between drafts, students met with a "critical friend" for kind, specific, and helpful feedback. We're excited to publish our final drafts d...

We learned new rhythm and enjoyed the West African Djembe drums! It was exciting to learn how our hands (plus goat leather) make incredible sounds. Our field trip to the Bob Bullock proved to be another fabulous learning experience! Thanks to all the wonderful chaperones who helped us navigate the three floors of artifacts. Seeing pieces that Stephen F. Austin penned and actual cannons brought history to life. If you haven't been to the Bullock in a while, it's had some amazing renovations in the past few years -- worth it to go back!! We enjoyed a Keynotes concert that featured many of our 4th grade singers. Awesome job to all of our performers and soloists! Third graders learned about electricity with a presentation by Austin Energy. The Van de Graf generator was by far their favorite part...a truly hair-raising experience! We have been pursuing deep understanding of expository text by analyzing what makes an effective Introduction, Body (Example...

On Tuesday, 4th grade attended the Austin Symphony at the Long Center. Music, singing, and a bus ride all gussied up -- what could be better?! In all subjects, we have been examining what it means to understand our learning on a surface, deep, and transfer level. We are looking at our work not as a grade, but as an opportunity to evaluate how well we know the LEARNING intentions. There's a big difference between completing an assignment and really UNDERSTANDING what the concepts are in the task. In ELA we have been looking at Word Work with those levels in mind. We've recognized that we need to put full effort into our centers -- the whole 15 minutes -- to really be practicing the words or language skill. We will be sending notebooks home soon -- you will see a marked difference! We have also been honing our skills with determining importance with our 5 word strategy. It's a tough one -- only choosing 5 words that are important to the section is challenging, bu...

This week we continued our focus on integrity. We thought about how we can reach out and be a friend, how we can do things without being asked, and we can take care of materials (treat them like treasures!). In ELA, we have looked with a writer's eye at editing. It is essential that we look at our writing thoroughly after we draft to insure accurate spelling and punctuation. We are learning to embrace that extra effort it takes to go back and check carefully. We revisited our Texas tree Vignettes too. We revised with fresh eyes. It was important to check back with our research to make sure our stories were accurate. It was a bit messy, but we are so glad that, with this later look, we were able to create pieces that will help our readers understand the events more clearly. Writers are also drafting important expository text based off of their heart maps. Ask them about their subjects! We are enjoying writing about things we care about! In reading, we used our 5 word strateg...

This week we focused on the word integrity. We discussed how it's not just "doing the right thing when no one is looking," it's being true to the values we hold. It's our words, our actions, our habits...that show what we believe. Integrity goes way past saying things -- it's the follow through that counts. In addition, it has EVERYTHING to do with how we treat people. We've also been pausing in all kinds of circumstances to think about how our decisions and words have a ripple effect EVERY TIME and affect EVERYONE. Lots to chew on. We are digging deep into how to develop ideas with specific details in our writing, and we had the opportunity to write about something we each care about. We created our own prompts, outlined, and drafted our expository pieces. Next week, revision and editing! Our reading study included a strategy called "5 Words." It's an amazing (almost magical) way to summarize sections and entire pieces of nonfiction te...

This week we focused on the power of our words. We considered the impact they have to bring people up, or bring them down. Our words have the power to make situations better or worse. Please have your SBLCer check his or her red folder for pink spring conference forms. Thanks for sending your spring conference preference slip back with your kiddo on ASAP so we can make time to meet on Monday, 2/17 if needed.  We're wrapping up several weeks of powerful fraction work and made some meaningful connections between fractions and measurement. Starting with distances around the room, student pairs created a unique distance measurement and labeled a measuring tape from 0 to 2 whole units. This rigorous task involved lots of comparing and ordering fractions, folding to create evenly spaced intervals, and effective collaboration. Your child can tell you about their creative unit name, which classroom objects they measured, and the feedback they gave/received from others. We started o...

This week our focus has challenged us to "be the world to one," rather than just "one in the world." Discussions have run deep with how our actions and words truly have an impact on everyone around us. We also talked about how all of us: humanity and nature make the music of this world, and without our unique voice, that music is missing something. Discover what you want to add to the music. Speak up. Say something. We wrestled with big history this week. We celebrated  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and The Little Rock 5, Ruby Bridges, and the thousands of others who took a stand during the Civil Rights Era. To understand this better, we looked at primary source pictures -- these leaders, their actions, their speeches, their marches -- which brought them to life. We examined timelines and asked powerful questions. Again, another opportunity to look at the world -- right now -- and ask, "How can I be the world to one? What do I want to say that makes...

One of the goals in building confident and competent learners is that they own their learning. What does this mean? It means a few things. We want kids to set goals about what they want and need to learn. Once they do that, learners are monitoring their understanding against those goals, asking for what they need, and practicing until they reach a deep level of understanding. It was an opportunity this week to take several Benchmarks. We got some practice, but we also were able to pause as we were working to think about areas we feel confident and areas we want to be stronger. Rather than waiting for others to tell them what to work on, they already have goals in  mind. It's empowering! This week, writers have been penning their vignette narrative poems. They are in all stages of revising, and editing, using helpful feedback. They are learning a lot of Texas history through the eyes of another -- in this case a tree. We read Love That Dog  by Sharon Creech. Jack found hi...

This week we have been examining how the brain truly LOVES challenge, and challenge, in turn, brings struggle and failure. Which is NORMAL, natural, and actually GOOD. We do, however, need to have a mindset that we are resilient -- we can "bounce back" -- from what we are currently seeing as setbacks. We talked about mindful strategies which keep us present in the moment. Resilience takes positive self talk too, and our morning meetings had us sharing phrases we can tell ourselves to keep us moving forward. Mrs. Bankston visited this week, and her lesson had us discovering our "spirit animal" when it comes to tough situations. Ask your child what they identified with and why! We also had time to listen to some amazing jazz on Friday morning in person with the Austin Jazz Ensemble. We have been challenged and resilient as we are putting together our Point of View Historical Fiction Vignettes. We are putting ourselves in one of Texas' famous oak trees and tell...

So many choices in one short week! Our morning meetings have focused on ways we can lean into good at every opportunity. We can choose to lean into good and connect with our learning community, lifting up the others around us with words and actions. We can feel gratitude for the fabulous struggles that come with deep, meaningful learning. We can choose to cultivate a sense of inner peace with mindfulness strategies and we can use the transformative power of a mindful breath. In math, we're building our understanding of fractions and started by constructing a fraction kit. This is a concrete tool that allows each of us to build benchmark fractions like one whole, halves, and fourths. We compared the number of halves to fourths and are starting to build an understanding of how a fraction is a relationship between a part and a whole. Our number talk today challenged us to brainstorm fractions that are equivalent to 1/2. We explored using numbers and pictures why 4/8 and 2/4 are bo...