Second Nine Weeks Reading Expectations

This week, readers will learn all about their second nine weeks reading expectations.  Mrs. Koster and Mrs. Nash are excited to share this quarter's goals with you all, and we know you will be excited to hear all about them!

In addition to choosing one book from one of our featured authors this quarter (Judy Blume, Andrew Clements, and Ralph Fletcher), students will be reading one fantasy chapter book of their choice.  There are lots of great fantasy books on the current best sellers lists, and tons of great fantasy books that have been around for years.  The remaining 4 books are free choice chapter books!

Students will be allowed to choose from a variety of response options outlined on the reading expectations information sheet.  However, if you have a great idea for a response that you'd like to try, talk with Mrs. Koster or Mrs. Nash about your idea!  We're want to hear your ideas!

Look for more informationi on the Second Nine Weeks Reading Expectations to come home this week, and remember to get your parents to review and sign the information page by Friday, November 2nd!  All responses will be due by January 11th.

Happy reading!

The Garden of Abdul Gasazi

This week in our Readers Workshop, we read The Garden of Abdul Gasazi. In the story, Alan falls asleep on a couch and then wakes up and goes on a frightening adventure into a magician's garden. The book's words sound as if the adventure is real, but the pictures give tiny hints that maybe the whole adventure is a dream. One hint is that the framed picture hanging on the wall over Alan's head while he's napping looks quite a bit like two of the scenes in Abdul Gasazi's garden. Since things in your dreams sometimes look a little like things you have seen when you're awake, perhaps Alan's memory of the framed picture makes its way into a dream. The flower pattern on the rug near the couch is also repeated several times in the Gasazi adventure - can you find them?





Readers, Alan's adventure may not be a dream after all. What hints did you find in the story that maybe his adventure was not a dream, but actually happened? Do you believe that Fritz really was turned into a duck by Gasazi? Or, do you believe it was all a trick? Leave a comment to share your thoughts. Be sure to back up your ideas with evidence from the story!

ELA Kitchen Update

Chris Van Allsburg is also an illustrator! We have noticed how intricate and detailed his drawings are. We have also noticed that he chooses to use black and white frequently.

This week in Reading Workshop, we have kicked off our author study on Chris Van Allsburg. Today, we explored his website, learning about his writing life. We discussed that Chets Creek students study authors to study author's craft, apply our knowledge of their craft to our own writing, understand how life experiences affect writing, and gain a deeper understanding of process and content through shared experiences. When we read the same books as our classmates and engage in discussions about them, we become a community of readers!



Chris Van Allsburg writes modern fantasy. Later this week, we will explore the features of modern fantasy and discuss how features of a text can help us figure out which genre the story is. We will also be exploring theme. Theme is the central idea of the story. When trying to find a theme, we ask ourselves, "What is the author trying to say or teach?", or, "What is the author trying to get the reader to think about?"

Readers, we encourage you to explore www.chrisvanallsburg.com to learn more about the books we are reading and Van Allsburg's writing life! Tell us some interesting facts you have learned about Chris Van Allsburg.

In Writing Workshop this week, we are learning a strategy to help us when we write to a prompt.This will help us prepare for our writing test this spring! Remember that the writing test is no different from the things we have learned in writing workshop! The strategy is called R-U-P-R.

R- Read the prompt.
U- Underline the topic, audience, purpose, and format.
P- Plan your writing.
R- Reread, edit, and revise your writing.

We are also discussing how to elaborate on an idea. When we write to a prompt, we need to make sure we stay on topic and choose one particular part of our story to elaborate on.

Writers... How do you feel about the RUPR strategy? How is it helping you? Do you think that using the RUPR strategy will help you when writing to a prompt on the test?

Science Totally ROCKS (and Minerals) !!

ROCKS in Review

Although rocks are nonliving, we know they are constantly changing both above and below Earth's surface. We also know that one important way for scientists to classify rocks is based on HOW they are formed.

Igneous rocks form from molten (melted) rock.
Sedimentary rocks form when layers of sediments settle on top of one another and harden. They are made up of soil, shells, bits of rock, and dead plant and animal matter.
Metamorphic rocks are rocks that have formed as a result of heat and pressure.

Visit the following interactive website in order to review these main topics from Chapter 3, Lesson 1 (How are rocks classified?):

Rock Cycle Website


Minerals: Our Newest Focus

Our focus will now turn to Minerals, the natural, nonliving solid crystals that make up the rocks we have been studying! Did you know that scientisits have identified almost 4,000 kinds of minerals?

In our initial mineral explorations, we will use our powers of observation (and hand lenses) to study the color, luster, hardness, and streak of various "mystery" minerals. We will then use scientific mineral charts to identify the names of the minerals by comparing our data to the charts. In a “virtual” science lab (Gizmos), we will repeat this process and also conduct density and acid tests as well! 

Following these labs, our focus will turn to Chapter 3, Lesson 2 (What are minerals?) in our textbooks.

Students, what is your favorite physical property (color, size, shape, texture, luster, streak, hardness, mass, volume, density) to explore and WHY?

For those students who would love to earn even more Behavior Bucks, visit Gizmos at home and identify mystery mineral “W” in the Mineral Identification Lab. Secretly tell your science teacher (Mrs. Phillips or Mr. Pinchot) the name of this mystery mineral, and you will earn $10 extra bucks to spend at our next auction! (Shhhh-don’t tell your friends and classmates. They need to read this blogpost and visit Gizmos all on their own in order to earn these special, extra bucks!) Happy science sleuthing!

Chris Van Allsburg

This week is the official launch of our largest author study of the year!

Every year, fourth graders fall in love with the work of Chris Van Allsburg.  Many fourth graders might already know a few of his more popular books (Jumanji, The Polar Express, Zathura), but they haven't seen anything yet!  It's inevitable that, after reading more of his memorable stories, he will quickly become a new favorite author.

We'll begin our author study by getting to know a little bit about his life.  Readers will visit his website, but they can also find out more about him right here!  Check this out:

Meet Chris Van Allsburg

Has anyone ever told you to turn off the TV and do something more productive?  You might think about it more seriously next time.  Chris Van Allsburg hatched his incredibly successful career as an illustrator and author of children's books when he didn't want to sit at home in the evening and watch TV.  He began to sketch pictures instead, and in those sketches he discovered stories waiting to be told.

His wife Lisa thought the sketches would make great books for children.  One evening, she brought home author and friend David Macauley to look at them.  David was so impressed that he recommended Chris to his own editor.  Chris Van Allsburg's very first book, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, was chosen as a Caldecott Honor Book in 1979.

Chris Van Allsburg was born and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  He lived in a neighborhood where he could find tadpoles, play baseball, and ride his go-cart down the street.  He liked to draw, but after sixth grade his interest moved to sports and other "more socially useful" activities.  He thought he might become a lawyer, but a drawing class during his first year of college rekindled his love of art.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with an art degree and also studied sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design.  he began his professional artist's life as a sculptor.  Many of his pieces (like a flying saucer colliding with an observatory) suggest qualities of humor, mystery, and storytelling similar to his later illustrations.

Chris Van Allsburg has published a new book almost every year since 1979.  Two of his books have been awarded the Caldecott Medal:  Jumanji in 1981 and The Polar Express in 1985.  He has more ideas for pictures, stories, and sculptures in his head than he has time to create.  It takes him seven months of hard work to take a book from its beginning ideas through its delivery to the printer.

His ideas most often begin as random pictures in his mind.  Those pictures are like clues to the story that is waiting to be told.  The story evolves as he asks himself, "What if?" and "What then?"  Once the whole story is in his mind, he works like the director of a movie and carefully chooses the point of view, lighting, and perspective for each picture.

Chris Van Allsburg's sense of action and illusion unique to his illustrations is a result of the variety of his choices, his technical expertise with different media, and, of course, his talent and persistence.  He said of his second Caldecott Medal, "This award...suggests that the success of art is not dependent on its nearness to perfection but to its power to communicate."

Readers, want to learn more?  Check out this Reading Rockets video interview with Chris Van Allsburg!  (Click here!)

ELA Kitchen Update

Skills Block October 15-19

Possessives

Last week, we talked about possessive nouns.  The word "possessive" means showing ownership.  We learned that we add apostrophe +s to the end of singular nouns to make the noun possessive.  When a noun is plural and already ends in an "s", we just add an apostrophe.  However, if the plural noun doesn't end in an s, we use an apostrophe +s to show ownership.  For a little extra practice before your snapshot, check out the practice items at this link.

Adverbs

This week, we'll practice identifying adverbs.  Adverbs tell more about the action (verb) in the sentence.  They can describe how, where, when, or to what extent something happens.  Adverbs can be used alone or as part of a longer adverb phrase.  Many adverbs end in the suffixes -ly or -er, especially when they're used alone.  Check out the tutorial here, and be sure to play a few rounds of the game before you leave it behind. 

Vocabulary

Don't forget to brush up on your the latest vocabulary words!  Review last week's words here, and check out the new set below.    

Sentences with Style

This week, we're studying the fourth and final type of our "Sentences with Style"!!

* So far, we've learned that we can combine two complete sentences using a comma and a FANBOYS word, otherwise known as conjunctions.  FANBOYS, remember, is an acronym that stands for:  for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.  This type of sentence is called a "compound sentence".

* We also learned that we can add a phrase (not a complete sentence) to the beginning of a sentence, using a comma to join the two parts.  These phrases are called "openers".

* Then, we learned that we can add those same types of phrases onto the end of a sentence, using a comma to join the two parts.  When the phrase is on the end of the sentence, we call it a "closer".  

* This week, we will learn about "interrupters".  Instead of adding a descriptive phrase at the beginning or end of a sentence, we will insert the sentence into the middle of the sentence!  We will use commas before AND after the phrase to set it apart.  

This week, Language Researchers, as you're reading, look for sentences with style.  When you find a sentence that has an opener, closer, interrupter, or is a compound sentence, share it with us all by leaving a comment on this post!  Bonus Bucks for great sentence shares!  

Oh, the choices on the CAFE menu!

In Mrs. Nash and Mrs. Koster's ELA classrooms, you will find a CAFE menu board. CAFE is a way that students and teachers can set goals, conference, and put strategies into practice. As the year progresses, our ELA students will become more involved in the CAFE process. The C stands for Comprehension. This means that you understand what you are reading. The A stands for Accuracy, meaning you can read all the words. F stands for Fluency. Fluency means that your reading sounds smooth and you pay attention to punctuation when reading out loud. Lastly, the E represents Expand Vocabulary. This means that we tune into interesting words and read to increase our vocabulary. The four pieces together combine to become the elements of reading!

Students in both classes have selected, using sticky notes, which piece they believe they need the most help with. Now, we are beginning to conference with students individually and set goals together about what strategies will help them improve in that area! The best thing about the CAFE program is that students are held accountable for their learning. If we show them a strategy we think would be helpful while conferencing with them, we set a time to follow-up with them and see how it worked.

Underneath each piece, we will post strategies that we discuss in reading workshop or in a one-on-one conference. As the year moves on, our list of strategies will grow longer! We are excited to dive into CAFE and DAILY 5 this year in fourth grade!

Readers, which letter did you put your name under on the CAFE board? Why did you select that area? Do you know of any strategies already that could help you improve in that area of your reading?

Division Decisions

In Math Workshop, we have been working to connect division to multiplication. Many times, we even find ourselves thinking of division problems as multiplication problems so that we can use a multiplication strategy to solve them.
Consider 56 divided by 4

When looking at this division problem, we ask ourselves, “How many 4’s are in 56?”. By doing this, we recognize that we will be finding the number of groups of 4 that are in 56, or _____ x 4 = 56.

Decisions, decisions. What strategy should be used?

Many students find it simple to use an efficient form of Skip-Counting by multiples of 4 to determine the answer. Starting with the 10th multiple of 4 would be very common. The answer is 14. It takes 14 groups of 4 to equal 56.

Other students would incorporate this same strategy into a different model, such as a Multiplication Cluster. The approach uses decomposition of one of the factors to make smaller, easier probloems. In the example below, again 14 is decomposed into 10 and 4 to make the two easier problems. 10 groups of 4 is 40. Adding another 4 groups of 4 (4x4) or 16 “builds” 14 x 4 = 56. 56 divided by 4 can also be thought of as 56 divided by 2, and again divided by 2 (dividing by 2 twice is the same as dividing by 4). Some students like to refer to this strategy as the “Halfsie-Halfsie”. 56 divided by 2 is 28. 28 divided by 2 is 14. This strategy only works when 4 is the divisor.

A more advanced strategy would be to take the dividend (total) and decompose it into smaller multiples of the divisor to make smaller division problems that would “build “ (add up to) the original division problem. This method is called a Division Cluster. 56 could be decomposed into 20 + 20 + 16 and solved as three smaller division problems. 20 divided by 4 is 5. 20 divided by 4 is 5. 16 divided by 4 is 4. 56 divided by 4 is 14.

Last but not least, the Partial Quotients Method (also lovingly referred to as the “Russian Peasant” Method), is a special model we move our students toward in order to progress their thinking into a more “standard algorithmic” set-up. If you look carefully at the smaller problems that are solved in each of the examples shown below, you will see that they are the same as in the earlier examples. Even though the mathematical “models” are different, the “strategy” of using good mathematical sense to decompose the dividend into smaller numbers (landmark multiples of ten or single digit numbers) is the same, so that the reasonableness of solutions can be easily assessed (Does my answer make sense?).
Our approach is a conceptual-based approach, teaching students that there is a relationship between multiplication and division and there is a meaning as to the dividend, divisor, and quotient. One represents the total (dividend) and the other two parts represent the number of groups and the size of the groups that make up the total.

These are just a sampling of the more common strategies our students are currently using in the classroom to solve division problems. Students often find themselves creating their own unique ways of approaching division problems in addition to those shown here. :-)
Promoting this deep understanding at Grade 4 will then more easily transfer later (5th Grade) into understanding why the division algorithm works (which is very abstract in nature and cumbersome to understand conceptually).

Happy Dividing!
P.S.- Students, leave a comment sharing your favorite divison strategy (and why), and earn Behavior Bucks to spend at your next class auction!

Mrs. Nash's Homeroom- Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition

Mrs. Nash's Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition on PhotoPeach

Mrs. Phillips' Homeroom- Weathering, Erosion, Deposition

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition- Phillips HR on PhotoPeach

Election 2012

Students,
Are you interested in the upcoming Presidential Election? Election Day is Tuesday, November 6th. The Scholastic website (www.scholastic.com) is a fantastic place to visit in order to learn about each candidate, how electoral votes work, what presidential debates are, what current national issues are, and more!


Scholastic also has a student voting poll, so you can cast your vote today! The poll ends tomorrow, October 10th! Vote Here after learning about each candidate and their presidential platform.

Leave a comment to tell us if you are able to place a vote and also leave a comment to tell us something NEW you learn from perusing through this amazing website! Happy researching!

Weathering and Erosion

Have you ever wondered why rocks are so many different shapes, sizes and textures; or where sand, silt, soil, and clay come from? What about how the Grand Canyon was formed? Do you know why sidewalks are constructed with cracks in between each concrete section? Well, this week in Science we have been answering all of these questions while exploring agents of weathering (the breaking down or wearing away of rocks). We have investigated five agents of physical weathering: water, wind, temperature changes, ice, and roots of trees/plants. We also participated in two labs. Our Chalk Weathering Lab helped us better understand wind and water as agents of weathering, and our Chocolate Chip Cookie Lab led us into additional conversations about water as weathering. We have learned that rocks expand when they reach certain heated temperatures by the sun's thermal energy, and that they contract when they cool back down. This process of heating and cooling of rock causes them to weaken over time and weather (break down). In the textbook we also read about chemical weathering, which is caused by carbon dioxide forming a weak acid when it mixes with rainwater which changes the composition of rocks. There is just no way rocks in nature can escape the many agents that are constantly causing them to weather, even though most of these "changes" happen very slowly over time.

We have also explored erosion and recognize that there are four agents of erosion: wind, water, ice, and gravity. Next week we will participate in an outdoor water erosion and deposition lab, which should be a lot of fun.

To review information about weathering and erosion, watch this fun Study Jams video: http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/science/rocks-minerals-landforms/weathering-and-erosion.htm 

Leave a comment to share something NEW that you learned by watching this video. Happy viewing!!