Readathon Tomorrow!

Reminders:

• Readathon tomorrow: Students will be reading all morning in class. They may bring in one sleeping bag, one pillow, and one small stuffed toy to read more comfortably if they wish, as well as books! If they wear pajamas, they should bring clothes to change into for recess in the park. We are looking forward to it.
• Bake Sale tomorrow: Hopefully all the families can donate something to our Healthy Bake Sale. If students would like to buy something from our bake sale, or donate money to the Marine Mammal Center, they should bring $1-$3 (3 item maximum per child) to school.

Homework:
Three Week Reading Log is due tomorrow
Fourth grade math

Purple group: We read a book in math about Sir Cumference as part of Readathon week, and students chose books from the book swap.  Then we tallied more about adding fractions, and students practiced with a JUMP math activity.

No homework tonight!

Gold Rush Puppets
Students continued their papier mache projects making different characters for our Gold Rush presentation.  See them hard at work below.

Book Swap tomorrow

Reminders:

• Book Swap: Please drop off books for the Book Swap if you haven't yet had a chance.
  
• Readathon this Friday: Students will be reading all morning in class. They may bring in one sleeping bag, one pillow, and one small stuffed toy to read more comfortably if they wish, as well as books! If they wear pajamas, they should bring clothes to change into for recess in the park. We are looking forward to it.
• Bake Sale this Friday: Hopefully all the families can donate something to our Healthy Bake Sale. If students would like to buy something from our bake sale, or donate money to the Marine Mammal Center, they should bring $1-$3 (3 item maximum per child) to school on Friday.
  

Homework:

Three Week Reading Log is due on Friday.

4th Grade Math Homework, due tomorrow
Purple Group:
Option 1: Unit 6, pages 24-25; students may wish to download & print 5x12 rectangular arrays for fraction work
Option 2: More Fractions Handout

4th Grade Math
Blue Group: We read, Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland, to include math in our focus on literature this week. Students worked on making common denominators to add fractions, and go started on the homework pages.

Purple Group: After a multiples and Around the World math fact warm-up in the sun, students finished a fraction assessment, and we discussed how to add fractions, using rectangular array representations to help. We noted that by converting fractions to equivalent fractions with the same denominator, we can simply add the numerators.

5th Grade Math
5th grade added decimals today and put more time into their problems of the week. I am proud of how much progress everyone has made on their POW, and it's only Wednesday. I heard numerous students say today, "I thought the answer was this, but it can't be that!" That is the sound of a math brain at work. Homework is in the packet. Remember that gymnasts are trying to get the highest possible number of points.

Cultural Studies and the end of year performance: Today the students began the first steps of preparing for our end of the year show. We will be interpreting the book, By the Great Horn Spoon, with special adaptations by the students. A group brainstorming activity led us to create lists of how to improve the cultural representation of the story, which will necessitate creating new characters. We used the movie version as a way to evaluate one way of doing this.

Puppets: The performance will include puppets. The students began the first step of creating the puppet today, and will be developing a character starting tomorrow.

Bring books for Book Swap tomorrow!

Reminders:

• Book Swap: Please drop off books for the Book Swap tomorrow, Wednesday, April 4. This is the last day to donate books.
  
• Readathon this Friday: Students will be reading all morning in class. They may bring in one sleeping bag and one small stuffed toy to read more comfortably if they wish, as well as books! If they wear pajamas, they should bring clothes to change into for recess in the park. It should be a wonderful morning dedicated to reading.
  
• Please return the volunteer sheet, which you can download here! We still need parent volunteers to help bake at school, bake things with children at home, or cook breakfast on Friday, April 6 at the Readathon.
  
• We need drivers for two field trips. Due to budget constraints, the end of the year camping trip has turned into a day trip to Marshall Gold Discovery State Park in Coloma on Friday, May 4, and a day trip to Sacramento to the State Capitol and Sutter's Fort on Thursday, June 7. Please let us know if you can drive.

4th Grade Math Homework, due tomorrow
Blue Group Homework
Purple Group:
Option 1: Unit 6, pages 17-18
Option 2: More Fractions Handout

4th Grade Math
Blue Group: Today we used pattern blocks to find common denominators for fractions to begin adding unlike fractions together, practiced telling time on clock faces without numbers, and reviewed subtracting over zeros.
Purple Group: After our 5-minute multiplication warm-up, we shared equivalent fractions using 5x12 arrays, students broke arrays into different fractions, and they wrote equations summing to 1.

5th Grade Math

Fifth grade spent more time with estimation today. They added decimals by making sure the decimals were lined up in their vertical algorithm. Students are finding all kinds of interesting patterns in the palindromic numbers problem of the week. We work on it a bit each day. Homework can be downloaded on Monday's blog.

Chemistry Unit Project Gallery Walk
Students shared their books summarizing what they learned in our chemistry unit in science with the other students in the class. We asked students to rate work using the rubric, and make positive comments and ask questions on comment sheets. Students are still learning how to make specific comments, rather than blanket praise, but they did learn more chemistry from each other. After rating themselves for their work, students completed a 3-2-1 bridge thinking routine, comparing what they knew about atoms and matter at the start of the unit to what they know now. Snapshots of our gallery walk are below.

Reminders:

• Please volunteer for the Readathon & Bake Sale! We need parent volunteers to help bake this Thursday, April 5, bake things with children at home, cook breakfast or help with the Bake Sale on Friday, April 6 at the Readathon. More details here.
• Book Swap: Please drop off books for the Book Swap tomorrow, Tuesday, April 3 and Wednesday, April 4.
• We need drivers for two field trips. Due to budget constraints, the end of the year camping trip has turned into a day trip to Marshall Gold Discovery State Park in Coloma on Friday, May 4, and a day trip to Sacramento to the State Capitol and Sutter's Fort on Thursday, June 7. Please let us know if you can drive.

Science Homework:
Finished Chemistry Unit Projects are due tomorrow! More details about the project, including the checklist and rubric detailing the assignment, and links to videos the students can watch, can be found here. We will conduct a gallery walk, and it is important every student participates.

Fourth grade math homework, due tomorrow
Option 1 (plum): Unit 6, pages 9, 10, 14 & 15
Option 2 (periwinkle): Fraction Handout
Blue Group: Division and story problems.

5th Packet; 5th POW

Author Visit: Today we enjoyed hearing from author and publisher, Shirin Bridges. She shared about her inspirations as an author, and motivation for creating a publishing company focused on women in history.


Literature Partners: The wait is over. Today Strawberry students learned of their new book assignments and their partners. In this round of book groups the students plan with their partner to set reading goals, and follow teacher guided assignments for note-taking. Each week the partners will meet to officially discuss the reading and their notes. If a student needs more time than is available in school to read their book, they are asked to bring it home as part of the reading homework for the week.











New Read Aloud: Today we also began our new read aloud, Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli.

5th Grade Math: 5th graders practiced the essential skill of estimation today on a worksheet and in a game. For multiplication with decimals, it is essential for students to be able to check their answers with estimation. Does my answer make sense? Is that about what it should be? Is my answer totally absurd?

Fourth grade math
Purple group: Sima was absent today, so Stephen taught class. Questions of the day: How do fractions of differently sized wholes compare? How can we find the fraction of a group of things? Students used 5 x 12 rectangles to find many different fractions, and answered story problems asking them to find fractions of a group.
Blue Group: Today we continued our work with fractions by delving into the concept of one whole and fraction of the whole. The students are being stretched to understand that fractions represent part of a whole, which can change depending upon what the "whole" is, and then apply this to problem solving with the pattern blocks.

Please Return Readathon Volunteer Handouts

Reminders:

• Please volunteer for the Readathon & Bake Sale! We need parent volunteers to help bake for the sale Thursday, April 5, bake things with children at home, cook breakfast Friday, April 6 at the Readathon, or help with the Bake Sale itself Friday 1:00-2:00 p.m. Details in the handout students brought home, which you can also download here.
• Start collecting books for next week's Book Swap. Books may be dropped at school on Tuesday, April 3 and Wednesday, April 4. Frequently asked questions (and answers) about the Book Swap can be downloaded here.

Science Homework:
As we mentioned on Wednesday, students should bring in their finished Chemistry Unit Projects on Tuesday, April 3. More details about the project, including links to videos the students can watch, can be found here.

Yesterday's 4th grade math homework:
Please give your parents their copy of the Parent Letter for this new unit on fractions and decimals: you can also download it here. Complete Unit 6 pages 3 and 5; for option 2, shade 1/48, 1/24, 12/12, 36/48, 1/96, 7/8 on page 3, rather than the fractions on that page.

Fourth Grade Math:
We met as a group today, playing Odds & Evens Tag as a warm-up, then working in pairs to solve "The Unusual Baker" problem. Students looked at 6 different cakes cut in unusual ways to determine the fraction of a whole cake and cost of each piece. Many students confronted misconceptions they had about fractions, for example, if there are 3 pieces, is each piece 1/3, or only if the pieces are equal sizes? Explaining their thinking was much more challenging for most students.

Cooperative Learning
Our morning activity involved geometrical pattern blocks--small groups solved one or two problems using clues using geometrical terms about types of angles, polygons, etc. Check out a few pictures below.