Currently December

With December being such a short month, our class is going to be jam-packed with activities galore for the next two weeks! I came in early over the break and decorated the room - it even snowed! (Well... it's fake snow, from a can, that doesn't melt!) While decorating, I had a neat idea for December. Why not ask Santa for a classroom Elf on the Shelf? So, I wrote a letter to the Elf Boss asking for the best behaved, well-trained, elf for our classroom to help monitor our students during this busy time of year. I addressed the letter to the North Pole, and hoped for the best. Wouldn't you know, this week, we had a special announcement that a package had arrived! It was Tinsel, our unique classroom elf, assigned from the Elf Boss at the North Pole to watch over our class. It was too perfect! Tinsel is making a great addition to our classroom. So far, he's really enjoyed "hangin' out" 

Unfortunately, in the chaos of the first day, one of my kiddos grabbed him from the box. Panic spread around the room - the story goes that you can't touch an elf, because they will lose their magic powers and won't be able to return to the North Pole each night to report back to Santa. Even though we were discouraged all day, we were greeted by Tinsel the next morning as he "hung out" under our whiteboard with a little note explaining that his boss was kind enough to provide him a second chance with some magic. (we could even see he was covered with sparkles - must have been his elf magic!) We are hoping for Tinsel to have an enjoyable stay with us for the rest of the month of December! I just hope he stays out of trouble!

I'm linking up with a fellow fourth grade blogger, Farley from Oh Boy Fourth Grade for this month's currently:

 

  

Have a splendid week!

Miss S.

Thankful for A210

I haven't had time to focus on blogging lately, so I apologize for my lack of posts. I've been busy planning, differentiating, enriching, supporting, integrating more technology, and basically just living the dream! Being a permanent sub, I knew that time would be my biggest obstacle, but I didn't really realize the full extent of it. I'm definitely spending a lot of time to make the most of this opportunity, and provide my students with the best learning opportunities I can! I'm so thankful for my students, my school, my oh-so-helpful colleagues, and my position. It's the time of season to express gratitude, and with tonight marking the end of my Thanksgiving break, I truly want to point out how thankful I am for being able to have these things in my life, and I could not imagine spending my time any other way - that's why I love to teach! 

In other news, our room has been busier than ever as I started a HUGE project with my fourth grade students. Two weeks ago, I introduced the 30 Book Challenge to my students. This project is adapted from Donnalyn Miller's original idea from her educational book, The Book Whisperer. When I initially presented this hefty requirement, I really discovered my actors and actresses, as some students pretended to faint, some dropped their jaws to the floor, and a select few even rejoiced in excitement. I do realize that asking 9 and 10 year old students to read 30 books is a lot (probably even more than most adults may find time to read in a year!)  But I ensured them that they would be able to do this, as failure is simply not an option. After explaining these lofty expectations and providing students with their own reading response journals, I really saw their love for reading begin to grow. At the end of the first week, during our Friday "book commercials," I had students begging for more time at the end of the day to share their books with their peers. One of the most common questions I heard all last week was : "Miss S, when are we going to have our 15 minute quiet read time?" Yes, they are insistent upon reading!  I love their enthusiasm for reading that has began to show, and I am looking forward to seeing their continued progress with growing a passion for reading. 

In science, we are still continuing our focus on environmental studies and animals. After learning about various animals, and their habitats, students created their own biome-in-a-box with their table group. Each group was responsible for a different biome (ocean, rainforest, grassland, freshwater, and tundra). They needed to research various animals, animal adaptations, vegetation, plant adaptations, region, climate, and environmental issues and type their information. Each group also had the challenge of using a shoebox and limited supplies to show animals, their adaptations, vegetation, and climate within their shoebox display. I must admit, these biomes came out to be very well put together! I loved the creativity each group displayed in their unique creation of their biome.  

Finished biome-in-a-box display in our hallway!

They painted animals white to show their adaptations to this frigid biome. 

Looking ahead at this week, we are still continuing our 30 Book Challenge, and discussing a new class read-aloud (which is TBD until the class votes, but my fingers are crossed for Roald Dahl's the BFG!) We are also going to be doing some very fun winter projects - I am looking forward to this month! 

Have a wonderful week!

Miss S.

Trick - or - Tweets

With Halloween this week, the past few days have been quite a treat! With my first week finished, I am so thankful to my students for being so patient and helpful. I have to give them a lot of credit, they really helped make the week go by smoothly as they kept me on track with their daily routines. Amidst the Halloween excitement, we had a very busy week of learning! 

Our vertebrate models are still standing!

In science, we started our environmental unit with a focus on animals and their classification. To introduce our discussion on classification, we put on our biologist thinking caps and classified the students in our classroom. Students had to start with a broad attribute (like gender), and then become more and more specific to divide the class into specific subtopics. We started by grouping by gender, then working our way to students with glasses, and students without glasses, and our last category was by eye color. On Tuesday, students were challenged to do an inquiry-based task where they had to work with their team to classify an assortment of fifteen animals into separate groups. . They focused on physical attributes like fur color, legs and no legs, fur or scales, etc. Some groups looked beyond physical aspects and classified the animals based on their habitat - this provided an assortment of perspectives for our classification chart! On Thursday, we learned more about how scientists classify animals into two broad categories of vertebrates and invertebrates, and then become more specific within their animal groups based on physical attributes. In celebration of Halloween, we even were able to look at x-rays of animals and then build model vertebrates and invertebrates to learn about the role our backbone plays in supporting our bodies. Students LOVED looking at the x-rays! 

We cleared up some misconceptions about fish, snakes, and frogs
having backbones, and discussed why they need these backbones for support. 

Another highlight of the week was that our Twitter feed is up and running! I set this up on the outside of our door so any passersby can always "follow" what we're doing in our classroom! We spent part of our time during Explore (a time we are so fortunate to have built into our schedule that is dedicated to remedial instruction and extension activities). I taught them the jargon of Twitter (one of our language arts words this week) and in a quick "Twitter 101" session. We learned about how our "tweets" communicate our thoughtful opinions on subject, and how a single tweet can be no longer than 140 characters. Since then, they can't stop asking if they can tweet about our learning! I love their excitement, and how they are being held accountable for their learning. (They still need a little work on their use of creative hashtags, though.) Our first opportunity to tweet was to answer our essential question in language arts this week, which was "How do movies show facts and opinions?" Some students used specific examples to respond, and others provided summative statements of their learning. On Friday morning, we tweeted about Halloween as they created a simile statement to describe their evening, and then had to provide a fact to support their opinion statement. I have some truly creative thinkers! Check out what they had to say. 

My favorite is "My Halloween was as awesome as Kennywood" 

Looking ahead at next week...
Tomorrow marks my very first open house! I can barely contain my excitement, as I can't wait to meet the parents of my wonderful kiddos. 

Have a wonderful day!

Miss S.