This week we completed our 2nd "Genius Hour" and I must say the kids are loving it. I am so impressed with the ideas that kids have come up with....How Amish kids live without electricity, how dolphins communicate, how are kidney stones formed?....just to name a few. I have students asking to stay in from recess to work on their genius project.....this is unheard of in 4th grade:) You can literally hear a pin drop in our classroom from 10:40-11:40 on Tuesday mornings. It is awesome to see kids working on a project they are passionate about. Many of them have asked about working on their projects at home. They can absolutely work on their projects at home. I also told them that we are only able to print in black and white at school, so if they want color pictures they will have to bring them in. Please keep up the conversations at home about Genius Hour with your child.
Tomorrow the students have their first Social Studies test of the year. It is over Chapter 1 which covers the geography and regions of Michigan. The task for today is to write a fact that they have learned in this chapter about Michigan. There is only one rule-- they cannot repeat a fact that is already in one of the comments, so they need to read through everyone's comments before they write.
Our class headed out Friday morning for the annual Fun Run! After some pre run dancing the kids took off around the loop.
We have been working a lot on strong reading habits this year. We go over these strong habits during our mini lessons, then the students have their silent reading time to practice these habits. In the comments below please have your child write one of the strong reading habits we have been working on.
We have been working a lot on rounding to the nearest ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand and hundred thousand. We created this anchor chart together to help us remember the steps for rounding large numbers.
Take a look at our first Chalk Talk of the year. When we do a Chalk Talk the students are not allowed to say anything, they let the "Chalk do the talking." In this Chalk Talk the students were asked 4 different questions about their expectations for this year. Take a look at their work.
On Tuesday the students put together their writing notebooks. They brought in photos, stickers, souvenirs etc. from home. The purpose of creating a personalized writing notebook is to help the students come up with ideas for writing.
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October 2015
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