Merry Christmas!

We had quite the week before we left. Hopefully, you all are having a great week off. I wanted to let you all know how proud I am of your work on your "All About" books. I have really learned what you're are experts at. I can't wait to finish all of the published books. Your family should be very proud.

Thanks for the wonderful Christmas presents. That was very thoughtful of you! I hope you enjoy playing with the games at inside recess. I also think we had a great time at the party. We're pretty low-key in the fourth grade. I hope you liked the nachos. I wanted to post a few new pics from our celebration on Friday. I won't post any pics of you kids, but I will post what you wrote, as you reflected on this experience. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Giving Thanks

I hope that all of you spend time with your family and friends, thanking each other for all you have. We have the priviledge to live in this country. Right now, there's no other place I'd want to be. We have the gifts of this land and ideal that you can be anything you desire to be. It takes hard work and determination. Let's give thanks for being able to live in a land where we can all go to school and gain as much knowledge as we can. I'm thankful for all of you and your families who support you.

Cleanest Room?

Our class won the "Cleanest Room Award" for last week and it's our responsibility to recycle something in particular for the week. We've chosen to recycle aluminum of any kind. Please send your soda cans and your food cans, rinsed out and dry anytime this week. We are so proud that VB is the ONLY school district in the state of Arkansas to have their own recycling program. We get a weekly update of how many tons of paper we recycle as a district. Way to go guys!!

Yeah, It's Been Awhile

Why does this seem to be the common title for my posts? I guess I seem to wait and collect a few things to share and then get it all off my chest. Maybe that's not healthy. Well, we have really settled into our routine. I am SO proud of the way the kids are doing in Reader's Workshop! They know to get started on their independent reading as soon as our minilesson is over. They go and get out their reading logs and then find a comfy spot to read. I have been able to begin my third rotation of guided reading these past few weeks. Since conferences, we spoke that I would be beginning guided reading. Now that I have assessed every study on the Benchmark, we have begun small groups. They are going great. We have finished up our study on characters in Reading for October and now going on to Nonfiction reading.

We have also been wrapping up our Personal Narratives in Writing this month. Monday and Tuesday are going to be publishing days and we will celebrate on Wednesday. We talked at conferences about how we were going to "Raise the Quality" of our narratives that were posted outside in the hallway. I must say that every student has exceeded my expectations. They are not equally the same, but every student has made a great gain because I can ask a question about a story we read, or a student's story such as "What's the story about? What's the story really about?" and every student can come up with the real message and meaning of the story. It is so exciting to see. I am so proud of their improvement.

We finished up our study of government in Social Studies. We did lots of discussion on civic duties, the make up of our national, state, and local governments, and went on to follow the election. I loved it! I know these kids are very much aware of what our government does for us and our responsibilty as citizens of this country. You could tell that they wished they were old enough to vote. I guarantee that each student will be registered to vote when their time comes. We did have a schoolwide mock election and then our class had a mock election on Tuesday. The results were surprising, but didn't follow the real outcome: Obama 4-McCain 21.

We wrapped up our Unit 3 on Multiplication and Division in Math. They are still becoming more aware of the importance in knowing their multiplication facts. We start Unit 4 Measurement on Monday. We are also starting our Animal study in Science and will be doing research in writing with animals. They are very excited about writing informational texts.

We have OG &E coming to talk with them on Thursday morning. Citizen's Bank will be giving them an ice cream party for the savings program they participated in. We will also tour the bank on Nov. 20.

Have a great week! Email if you need anything! Oh yeah, we finished The Indian in the Cupboard Thursday and I have started our new read aloud Swindle by Gordan Korman. I know you've been hearing about it.

Update!

Well, we've gone through a lot of new things these past two weeks. I'm so proud to say that our class published their first narrative story and they were great. They're hanging in our hallway! I've been in and out of the building so much lately. It is very hard to be away, believe it or not. It's more trouble to find and plan things for a sub to do. I'd rather be at work with the kids. I can modify and adjust better that way. That's part of being a teacher. I was away at Literacy Lab, which is a class the fourth grade teachers have been enrolled in for two years now. It's put on by a very educated man named Ken Stamatis, who is the Reading Instructor for Harding University. He is the one who has put together the best degree program for teachers of reading there is.

Another reason I've been out is because of being fitted for my new splint which I will wear for the rest of the year. I have TMJ, which deals with my jaws, and have had this since I was a teenager. It's pretty painful and has given me lots of headaches, tension in my face, neck, and shoulders. I even hurt to the point of having a CT scan over a year ago. Needless to say, I'm hopeful that this will subside the pain and I can get on with my life. So, that explains why your kids have probably been saying, "Mrs. Brown wasn't there today." Or, you probably didin't know!

We've gone on into Science and are almost finishing up Weather. We'll be doing some hands on stuff next week. We've also gone to Unit 3 in Math. I have sent home two green sheets in their Tuesday folder that explains a little of the activities we'll be working with for the multiplication in this unit.

I'm assessing every child on a new test called the "Benchmark". I know that sounds like the ACTAAP test we take, but it's just a new reading assessment. It will show your child's reaing level in letters, not numbers, but I will corellate the two on the report cards.

Clayton Scott is here this week. He's a poet and former classroom teacher. He travels all over the state from the day we start school to the day we finish. He is visiting every fourth grade class in Van Buren. We'll have a school Poetry Slam on Friday at about 1:00-2:15. It's going to be awesome!

Conferences will be coming up soon in October. I look forward to talking with you face to face and meeting you. I have really gotten to know your children. They are great. Some like to pull a few tricks with the subs, but they're really a great class. Gotta love 'em!

It's Been Awhile

Well, I had been checking the site meter and we don't get many visits to our blog unfortunately. This is a great way for me to communicate to you what we are doing in class. This week has been really busy! We had the Book Fair! Lots of students have been buying AND reading books. I have purchased some and also have had some donated to our class by our peers and the book fairy. I also have titles from the book fair that are aleady in my library for the kids to check out. We also had Grandparent's Day Wednesday and Thursday. It was quite busy here and in the parking lot too!

We are currently working on establishing and maintaining the Reading Workshop procedures for Aug./Sep. and I am conferencing with your children on what they're reading, reading orally to me, and taking them to books in our class library that they might enjoy. We have discussed the importance of reading that 20 minutes per night. Ask them what they thought about it. We had a good turnout on the purchasing of books from the book order. I'll probably send one home for October, just because there's always good fall books in them. Lots of students are giving book talks to their peers, which is like a mini-commercial for a book, or book reccommendation. I am very pleased with the progress we've made so far.

In writing, we have a MAJOR due date for our published works: September 30th! Last week, the students went through the writing process of outlining and drafting of a small moment or narrative story from their life. I have them home with me as I have been enjoying reading them this week. We chose a new topic on Monday and have gone through the process again, only this time we'll revise and edit this piece for publication on September 30th. It's a little challenging to get students to realize that they can live a writer's life just by observing things around them. They think that if they've never been anywhere special or won something, then they have nothing to write about. I always give my little simple pleasures of writing about my son. They think I'm silly, I'm sure.

In Math, we're on to the study of Data, and have learned about line plots and graphs, and how to analyze those graphs. They will be creating their own survey question next week to ask other classes and continuing the data dissaggregation process.

We are wrapping up our study of the American Revolution in Social Studies and beginning our study of weather in Science Monday. There will be no performance grade on the progress report for Science.

I hope everyone has a relaxing weekend with the nice weather! GO HOGS, BEAT BAMA!

Check Out Scholastic Site

If you would like to read the standards that will be assessed during the first nine weeks on the report card for Math, please go to our Class Scholastic Site. It's under the announcements section. I also added some new things to the Homework section.