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| Perimeter... it's there. Can you see it? |
Odil had a desperate need to know what the word "schema" meant and how it is connects to reading, so that is what we focused on this week. We listened to the song, "You've got a friend in me" by Randy Newman (you may know the song from the animated film, Toy Story) and made three types of connections. We found out that our schema is the sum total of our prior thoughts, feelings, ideas, and experiences - so basically our hearts are the center of our schema. Everything we have experienced helps us make connections between the text and things that happened in our own lives (text-self), things that we have read in other stories (text-text), and larger themes or BIG ideas that are happening in the world at large (text-world). Students made some impressive and deep connections to the song, particularly, relating it to our unit of inquiry on migration. Feel free to listen to the song at home and see what connections you can make!
Students worked on a skill called Close Reading. It helps students read with a purpose connect challenging topics together using different strategies, like underlining important words and circling unknown words. Then students re-read the text to find context clues to help them discover the meaning of those circled words. In the end, we wrote a gist, or a statement describing what each article was mostly about. Through this process, students found vocabulary words that related to the theme of migration. They recorded and created a personalized list of vocabulary words at their reading level. Then, we discussed these words and we found commonalities among them and shared the meaning of the words. All student generated, all student lead, all student learning. It was pretty cool! Ask you child about a few words they are learning and what they mean to them.
In math, we have dived head first into what exactly is perimeter and area. Simply put, it has been a blast seeing the closed polygons (figures/shapes) that students created. They then traded their creations with a partner and each calculated the area and perimeter. After which, they traded again and shared their thinking about how they solved them. We created area and perimeter posters and put them using everyone's work and ideas about how to describe/explain both concepts using words, numbers, pictures, and real-life examples. After all, if we can't connect our learning to the real-world, then why are we learning it in the first place? Am I right? Ask your child about what is perimeter and area: What does it mean to you? Why would we use it in the real-world?
Our new read aloud is Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan and it begins with a tragic event. It is about how a young girl is forced to change, grow up a little, and face the realities of life that she has been protected from her entire life. It is a story of love and perseverance, full of metaphors and life lessons that reach deep into the soul, heart, and mind of any reader. Feel free to check it out, or maybe even download it to your Kindle or Nook? Maybe you could read it and discuss the story with your child at home as we read it in school? If you do, please don't read ahead and spoil it for us though:)
As we enter the final weeks of the calendar year and before Winter Break, please stay keep that structure and consistency you have at home. Excitement and joviality permeates everything this time of year - which is a great thing! At the same time, we are still keeping the high expectations and intensity of fun going here at school. Let's keep working together and reminding our children to continue reading 20 minutes each night. Enjoy the week!
Homework: Reading 20 minutes and preparing for December's book share!
Monday: Enjoy Constitution day & read!
Tuesday: No School
Wednesday: IXL Math Grade 4 Geometry P.20 and P.21
Thursday: Please go over and sign your Math Test:)
Friday: Read, Relax
Learning about area requires, square tiles, smiles, markers, grid paper, and a lot of fun!
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