Happy Friday!

Reminder:  Field trip to the UC Botanical Garden on Tuesday, November 13 (9:00-12:00)  We will return to school by lunch time.

School pictures were sent home today so make sure to check with your child so you can oogle over their beautiful, smiling faces!

After our first long week after a short Halloween week and Daylight Savings Time, it's FRIDAY!
Today was a fun-filled day. We had the wonderful opportunity to meet Jesus Sosa and learn all about his wood-carving craft. He shared with us his favorite pieces, his story, and many other things. It was wonderful to meet such a talented and inspiring artist! Remember, Jesus Sosa's wood-carvings are on sale at TBS in the Labyrinth  TODAY (FRIDAY) from 2-5:30. His items range from $5 and up.

This afternoon we had some fun with states and capitals. We played Jeopardy that asked questions about state names, capitals, location, and spelling. It was a fun and (healthy) competitive activity that merged some different aspects of our state study.

We finally finished our read aloud book, The Neddiad, before dismissal today!

Homework
4th Grade Math: Multiples page (see below)
 5th Grade Math
Wordly Wise:  The students will be bringing home Wordly Wise books to work on as part of homework if they have not finished in class.

State Packet with Capitals and Abbreviations due TOMORROW.


Reminder:  Field trip to the UC Botanical Garden on Tuesday, November 13 (9:00-12:00)  We will return to school by lunch time.

4th Grade Math:  While some students are bringing home classwork, a number of students will have this page on multiples.  In class we continued to work on breaking apart multiplication problems. 
Some students worked with Sima today, practicing estimation for double-digit by double-digit multiplication problems, to be sure their answers are reasonable. They also learned how to use arrays and equations to represent the partial products that make up 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication problems.  Homework: Finish the handout, solving the problem 2 different ways using arrays.

We spent the later morning and early afternoon working on Words Their Way and "getting to know our brain". Students took a quiz online in order to find out the different ways they are smart. The quiz asked various questions that touch on the 8 different types of intelligences-- Kinaesthetic - Body, Smart, Linguistic - Word Smart, Logical - Number Smart, Interpersonal - People Smart, Intrapersonal - Myself Smart, Musical - Music Smart, Visual/Spatial - Picture Smart, and Naturalistic - Nature Smart. The students received a personal code that allows them to access their results. We encourage you to talk to your child about what they thought of the activity and what they may have learned about themselves. Later, we'll use these results to create a classroom diagram of all the different types of learners in Strawberry Creek. We're hoping to start some conversations about gifts and challenges and the different ways we all learn.
For an explanation of the 8 different types of intelligences, please click here. 
If you'd like to look at your child's results please click here.
Also, it would be great if you took the test yourself and compared your results with your student!

We ended the day with a review and short assessment of what we've learned so far in botany. We'll continue the rest of the assessment tomorrow.

Homework
4th Grade Math:  optional multiplication story problems
5th Grade Math
Wordly Wise:  The students will be bringing home Wordly Wise books to work on as part of homework.
State Packet with Capitals and Abbreviations due Friday


Reminder:  Field trip to the UC Botanical Garden on Tuesday, November 13 (9:00-12:00)  We will return to school by lunch time.


With all the excitement from the election (what we're sure is a byproduct of our FABULOUS electoral college lesson yesterday!) we started off the morning with a calm drawing exercise. We listened to drew pictures and shapes while listening to music-- many students chose to pay attention to the tone, speed, and beat of the music while they drew. We then had a discussion about the election and took at look at the electoral vote map from last night's events. We had many excited students in the class that were eager to share their knowledge and thoughts about the 2012 Election!

In math we continued to focus on multiplication. To even further our skills and knowledge with multiplication, we learned out to break down multiplication problems into smaller, less challenging problems. For example, 15 x 13 becomes (10x13) + (5x13). Knowing how to break apart the problem makes it easier for some students to understand what multiplication really is, while also helping them solve the problem in smaller steps.

We finished up our stories in Writer's Workshop and began illustrating some parts of our stories. We're looking forward to putting together our published work for all of you to read!

This afternoon we met with our Laurel Creek buddies for an indoor reading picnic. This time the students in Strawberry Creek picked out two books that they thought their buddies would enjoy.

Today was our first Study Hall before dismissal. Because we're getting farther into the school year and more homework is starting to pile up, we've decided to use our Wednesday afternoons to check-in about homework and catch up on any work from the week (or get ahead!). We're hoping that Study Hall will become a time and place for students to ask questions about their work and also to lighten their load at home.

Homework
4th Grade Math:  Extended multiplication facts:  Option 1 or Option 2 
5th Grade Math
Wordly Wise:  The students will be bringing home Wordly Wise books to work on as part of homework. 

Reminder:  Field trip to the UC Botanical Garden on Tuesday, November 13 (9:00-12:00)  We will return to school by lunch time.

4th Grade Math:  The past few math classes we have focused on finding patterns in multiplication by looking at factors, multiples and most recently powers of 10.  How the place value of a product can be predetermined when multiplying with factors ending in zero (40 x 2 = 80, 400 x 2 = 800, 40 x 20 = 800).

We focused some Wordly Wise time on adjectives and making more descriptive sentences. Everyone was really excited to incorporate words like grotesque, enchanted, incompetent, and brawny. We spent the rest of the time working on Wordly Wise and getting acquainted with the new words from lesson 4. 

This afternoon was centered around talking about elections and the Electoral College. We did a little reading and watched a short video explaining the Electoral College before diving into our own little simulation of a presidential election. After we built some knowledge on the electoral college, we dove into a discussion about cats and dogs-- which makes a better pet? Our discussion proved to be a lively one, filled with strong opinions, valid points, and all those other great things that make up an election! Students were then asked to cast their private, personal vote to make up the "popular vote". It turned out that dogs were voted better 14 to 8. After the popular vote was cast, students then took on the role as the elector from the state that they researched. They cast their vote for their state and our electoral vote agreed with our popular vote. It was interesting to see how the two different votes agreed with each other, but when we took away a swing state like Florida from the "dogs" (29 electoral votes) or add California to the "cats" with its 55 votes the Electoral College could possibly win out over the popular votes.

Cat and Dog discussion.

 Reflecting on the Electoral system.

 Calculating the electoral votes.

 Final reflection on the electoral system.

 No cats or dogs were injured or insulted in the process.

Homework
4th Grade Math:  Finding patterns with factors of 100, 200, 300 . . .
5th Grade Math: Check Cerrito Creek's Blog

State Capitals Review packet due Friday. 

It was great to come together again this morning after such a long weekend! We started the day off with some housekeeping-- new table seats, circle spots, and cubby cleaning.

Math: Today's math kicked off with a version of "What Time is it Mr. Fox?" game out on the basketball courts. We wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather and get some active time in before jumping into factors! When we reconvened in the classroom we worked on finding the factors of 100, 200, and 300. Many students figured out the factor patterns and quickly breezed through 100, 200, and 300.

Students split in half during Writer's Workshop-- half the group worked with the computers on finishing up their stories and the other half worked on a new Words Their Way sort. After about 45 minutes the groups switched!

We're looking forward to taking advantage of Election Day tomorrow and will take the opportunity to talk about a few things surrounding this historical day!