4R Experiences

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Sevinch, Volume 34: May 4, 2015

Sevinch and Khwahish at the paper-making mill. True friendship.

I thought last week couldn't be better than this week, but I was wrong! Samarkand was amazing! What a tremendous opportunity for students to experience learning by doing, interacting, and creating. Curiosity abound, students were risk-takers and worked with on a loom next to workers in factory, created designs on paper that was created using 1,300 year old traditions, and walked among ancients tombs of people credited with shaping the world today.

With this experience and excitement, students are working on their final artifact assessment, a Publisher page, that features their chosen artifact, a handmade sketch drawing, images, introduction explaining the significance of the object in their 4th grade culture, and how the five principles of objects applies to their artifact. We are excited to see the creative pages form and immerge into something informative, reflective of who they are, and how they express themselves.

Our study of decimals, fractions, and percents will continue into next week. MAP Testing in reading and Math is next week, Tuesday and Thursday morning. Please make sure your child gets a good night's sleep and has a comfortable, healthy breakfast. I am positive we will be our best.

May book share guidelines are up. We will follow our regular monthly schedule.

Enjoy the week!

Owler: Sevinch

Homework
Monday: Cause and Effect activity
Tuesday: Inference activity
Wednesday: Find the Meaning Activity
Thursday: IXL

Christopher and Ji Su doing research on their artifacts.

The morning at the train station. The carpet factory.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

May Book Sharing

May is the month of “FREE CHOICE.” That means that you may choose any type of book you would like. The restrictions are:

You must not have read the book before.
It must be at an appropriate reading level.
It cannot be a graphic novel.

Once you’ve picked the book, get it approved, then read and enjoy!

On the date of your presentation, you will give a regular presentation according to the rubric we have been working with all year. Then, you must read a selection from the book aloud to the class. Choose a part which you feel is interesting, funny, descriptive, scary, well-written, suspenseful, or otherwise grabs your attention.

Before your presentation, practice reading your selection out loud many times. Use your parents or your siblings as a practice audience. Be sure you can pronounce all words and names correctly. Practice putting feeling into what you say. No one wants to hear a mumbling, monotone (robot) reader!

Before you start your read-aloud, set the scene and tell us what has already happened, so that we can appreciate what we hear! Don’t forget to tell us WHY you chose this particular passage! Finish with a closing statement.

You are invited to the Reading Night!

Please join us for Family Reading Night!

Family Reading Night for Preschool - Gr 5 families will be held on Thursday, April 30^th.

The event will start with wonderful read alouds from teachers and story performance for a young audience. Following performance and read alouds, families will be able to rotate through various stations and engage in interactive and fun reading activities.

We hope to see you all there!

Ekaterina , Volume 33: April 27, 2015

Ekaterina, our owl of the week, and the scarf and design she made on our Hast Imom field trip! So cool!

One thing is for sure when talking about our community: When we do something, we do it well and with style! Learning this week has been just that.

Thanks for bringing in your artifacts! We will be taking pictures of them next week. We made pencil sketches and outlined them with thin black marker. This will be added to the final TIS Witness pages each student is creating for their artifact.

Fractions has been a breeze. Seriously, we are rocking out on them. Now we are creating equations using different fractional units, like 1/4 + 1/2 + 1/8 + 1/8 to equal one whole. We are using dot paper, or a grid to help us draw pictures and label each fractional amount. Soon, we will be looking at how fractions, decimals, and percentages are related!

You may have heard about our read aloud with "Thank you, Mr. Faulker" by Patrica Polacco? Yeah. I can't read the book passed the second page without crying. This time, I made it to the dedication page. Books are powerful and can bring so much emotion to us. Students were asked to identify an object from the book and choose one question below to answer:

How do author's use objects to describe a character's feelings?
How do author's use objects to show how a character changes?
How do author's use objects to describe a setting, or mood?

What tremendously deep and personal responses did we get! Students analyzed the text and found deeper meaning in a variety of objects from the story. Now, students are using these same skills in their own book club books. I can't wait to hear about what objects they chose and why.

As the end of the school-year nears, a lot of events are happening! Participate! Have fun! We are only in 4th grade once! Live it up! This Saturday is Arts in the Park. I will be there grilling hot dogs (sausages). Stop by and say, "Hello!"

Sports day is also next Friday, 1 May. Cheers, posters, team-clothing ideas, chants, and general rowdiness is expected! We are going to have a blast!

Lastly, Student Led-Conferences are Friday, 24 April. Please check your email for your time. Students have over three units of work to share that they are proud of! Enjoy the week! Also, the photos from last week's field trip to Hast Imom. It is north of Chorsu bazaar in Old Taskhent. If you haven't been, I strongly encourage you to go! We learned how scarves with prints were made. Also, wood carving, ceramics, and looms!

Owl: Ekaterina

Homework:

Monday: Get ready for trip.
Tuesday: Sleep

Wednesday: Math Activity

Thursday: Vocabulary activity - man, manu

Friday: Read, Relax, and enjoy the warm (hot) weather:)