News from Room 208
Weekly Updates from Miss DeWitt's Class
October 9, 2015
We also practiced subtracting numbers with ungrouping and regrouping. The kids were awesome at this! I can tell the really worked hard on subtraction last year. We then went into how to use the difference that they found to check their work. We talked about how subtraction is the opposite of addition, and how to use addition to check the answer of a subtraction problem.
We took Quick Quiz 2 this week. Once Unit 1 is finished and the students have taken their test, then our Math binders will be sent home for you to see the pretest, quizzes, test, and Dreambox efforts for that unit. I will hopefully be able to get those to you in then next few weeks. This is a long unit.
*it can teach us a lesson
*it can help us make the right decisions in the future
*we can reflect on our past
*we can see how our state started
*we need to learn how our lives are changed because of events in history
Such great ideas! I spoke with the kids that my life growing up was different than theirs, even though I was only born 23 years ago! It's amazing to hear about what life was like when people were young. I ask my grandparents all the time about how different their childhood was compared to mine. I encouraged them to ask their parents, grandparents, or even great grandparents about what life was like while they were growing up. I'm so excited to hear the stories that they were told.
Language Arts from Mrs. Edwards
Last week in reading we successfully completed our MAPS test. The students have independently practiced getting their Book Club reading done. We had a few students struggle to get the reading done by Thursday. Please remind your child to spread out the reading, so they are not overwhelmed come Wednesday night. The questions your child is writing for the Book Club (Fish Bowl questions) are meant to bring up discussion from the week’s chapters. We had a few ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions pop up. I have provided them a list of question starters. This is something we will continue to work on.
This week in reading, we had a lot of prep time getting ready to send home THE BINDER and finish editing our personal narrative. As we wrapped up one unit, we began our new unit with a pre-test on our newest unit, Interpreting Characters. The pre-test is not scored, but has feedback on it asking your child to think about how he/she could have expanded their answers. I have also provided a rubric which is how I will score the final quiz towards the end of our unit. We are about half way through our whole class practice Book Club book. Once we are done, your child will be put in a similar group. Each group in the class will have a book from the same genre, but a different title.
Writing: The editing part of writing can require the most patience from the students. Learning that writing is a process, takes some time. We have spent most of this week and part of last week looking to make sure all the “I’s” are capitalized, and we have indents at the beginning of each paragraph. Surprisingly, punctuation at the end of sentences seems to be forgotten at the beginning of 4th grade. The students’ personal narratives ranged from one paragraph to three pages. All were meant to focus on one true story that happened to them. This week we also managed to take our noun quiz. As we move through the grammatical elements I look forward to seeing the students identify within their reading the grammatical terms we are learning.
The Binder: Please check out your child’s Language Arts Binder. It will show the work he or she has been working on for the first six weeks of school. Please help your child remember to return the binder on Monday. If you have any questions or concerns please let me know!