Thursday, September 13

Homework

Reading - 20 minutes.  Be sure to record the Title and pages read in your planner (this year's version of a reading log).

Writer's Book Cover -  Assigned on Monday, due TOMORROW.

5th Grade Math:  5th grade: make a factor rainbow for 144 (last page in your packet). Students learned how to find prime factorizations with factor trees today and represent all the factors of a number with factor rainbows. They finished doing number puzzles with four clues. They learned a game called Factor Captor. Tomorrow is game day!  Please check Cerrito Creek's blog for an overview of 5th grade math homework.

4th Grade Math:  Today we worked in partners to check last night's homework and continued to review subtraction, as well as addition, through the game Close to 100 and Close to 1,000. Homework tonight:  Addition worksheet. Please try to complete at least a few problems from  each section (2-digit, 3-digit and the backside puzzle addition problems).  The 4thGrade Math letter was sent home in paper form today with the students.

Updates and Reminders:
Picture Day is Monday, September 24th. Forms went home today with photo package details and general information about picture day.  

Back to School Night is Thursday evening, September 20, 6:00-8:00pm

Today in Strawberry Creek:

This morning, we solidified our Community Agreements. The students came up with wonderful ideas about how to create a respectful and successful classroom community. We came up with 12 total agreements and will be signing the agreements next week. After lunch, we discussed different emotions and how they are associated with the Zones of Regulation (green, blue, yellow, red). There were some insightful ideas surrounding the reasons why we feel the way we do in certain situations. Students drew facial expressions and glued them into the appropriate zones. We finished out State Puzzle this afternoon and started to look more deeply into the history of different States. 

The ZONES of REGULATION (as demonstrated by Strawberry Students) 

Blue & Green?

 Definitely Blue. . .

Yellow!

Exceedingly YELLOW!

 Turning RED!

 REALLY RED!

 REALLY, REALLY RED!

 Go GREEN!

Our Zones poster.

Wednesday September 12th

Homework

Reading - 20 minutes.  Be sure to record the Title and pages read in your planner (this year's version of a reading log).

Writer's Book Cover -  Assigned on Monday, due by Friday.

 5th Grade Math:  Please check Cerrito Creek's blog for an overview of 5th grade math homework.

 

4th Grade Math:  Today we continued our review and development of the subtraction operation.  Homework tonight:  Each child has a specific page of subtraction to hone their skills at his or her level of understanding.  Some students are finishing work from class time, and others have a new sheet.  Please read the 4thGrade Math letter for more details about general homework expectations. 
 

Today in Strawberry Creek:

Today was a busy day in Strawberry Creek. We had a first PE class on the park's tennis courts, followed by a school-wide fire drill. All the students did a wonderful job during the fire drill. The 4th graders had their first day of Spanish today, while the 5th graders explored some of their favorite things to do during Writer's Workshop. After the park and recess, the 5th graders went to Spanish while the 4th graders delved into Writer's Workshop. This afternoon was our first Buddy Day the kindergarten and first graders of Laurel Creek. The 4th and 5th graders entered Laurel Creek with a puzzle piece and found their corresponding buddy piece. After getting to know each other for a couple minutes, the buddies helped decorate calendar numbers for Strawberry Creek's Wall Calendar. It was great to see the "big" buddies interact with their "little" buddies throughout the class period. We finished our time with our buddies by creating a secret handshake. 

Photos from Buddy Day

Class Agreements

Homework
Reading - 20 minutes.  Be sure to record the Title and pages read in your planner (this year's version of a reading log). Here is a PDF of the  Homework Planner
Writer's Book Cover -  Assigned on Monday, due by Friday.

 5th Grade Math:  We continued our work on factors and multiples today. Each week's homework will be downloadable in one or two files. Students receive all their homework for the week on Mondays and are encouraged/expected to keep pace with the instruction, not do it all on Monday night.  Here is this week's packet in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2
 

4th Grade Math:  No required homework tonight.  Today we began our review of subtracting with regrouping by a demonstration of how "10" was born, and a reminder of the meaning of place value (1s, 10s, 100s). Students currently secure with regrouping (borrowing) focused on a preassessment for multiplication and division.  Due to our morning all school assembly, class was shorter than usual and did not allow enough practice time to send our assignment home for homework, however some students chose an optional homework assignment for tonight.

Strawberry Creek weekly schedule.

Today in Strawberry Creek:
Strawberry students considered the class agreements we came up in our brainstorm on Monday, and "voted" for their top four in each category.

 Our work on the USA puzzle took us to the East Coast and part of the Midwest today. 

We were introduced to our reading/writing composition books. Throughout the year we'll be using these composition books for various reading and writing activities. Today we completed our first reading response. After reading for 20-30 minutes, the students wrote about what they pictured as they were reading.

First Monday of the School Year!

Homework
NEW - Homework Planners are in the binders.  Take a peek.
Reading at least 20 minutes.

Writer’s Book Cover Decoration: Details below and due by Friday, 9/14/12.

4th Grade Math:  Finish the subtraction facts sheet that we started in class and play the MADS game with someone. Make sure to record the date you played and who you played with on your envelope. A few students took home optional pages to work on, or had completed the classwork.
5th Grade Math:  Packet due on Friday (see Cerrito's blog for details)

Also:  Please bring in a summer artifact if you have not already!

Writer's Book Cover Decoration Homework:  We are personalizing our writer’s books! 

Use photos, collage material, drawing, painting, words . . . to decorate one side each of the 2 card stock pages (5 ½” x 8 ½”). 

 One will be attached to the front cover and the other will be the back cover of your writer’s book.

 Required:  Take care with your work and fill the whole page. 

 In class we will attach your wonderfully decorated covers to the books, and share what or how you chose to decorate your book and why. 

Our Monday
After a warm and sunny weekend, it was nice to see all the smiling faces of the students in Strawberry Creek this morning!
We continued to share some more summer artifacts this morning and learned all about our classroom jobs and responsibilities. In fourth grade math, we divided into odd and even numbers and played a chase game and reviewed some methods of subtraction ("counting up"). With time running out at the end of the hour, we were briefly introduced to Base 10 blocks and are anxiously awaiting to find out How 10 Was Born.

Odd and Even Chase Game

Today we divided into smaller groups to discuss Classroom Agreements and what we will need to do in order to have a successful year. There were some great ideas about how to treat each other and our surroundings. Tomorrow we will come up with a more concise list and vote on the agreements to narrow them down. 

A Great Day at the Lake!

Thank you for sending your children to The Berkeley School.  We have a terrific class filled with bright, warm hearted and happy students. 

In the classroom this morning the students had the opportunity to finish work began earlier in the week with the Hopes and Dreams and USA map puzzle.  After a few summer artifact shares it was off to the bus to head to Lake Anza.

Our day at Lake Anza:  After an unexpected change of plans (the bus could not drop us off at Lake Anza as the road was temporarily closed) we were dropped off near the Little Farm, and had a lovely hike up Wildcat Canyon Gorge trail.  The trail follows the stream and is towered over by sprawling bay laurel and ancient oak trees.  At the lake we had a pleasant day of sunshine, cool water, gritty sand, the infamous grey clay, and, of course,  smiling children.

The hike up the gorge.

In the lake.

To see the whole collection of photos from our trip click here: Lake Anza.