Art Institute Field Trip
Mrs. Miller took our class and two others to the Chicago Art Institute to check out famous paintings and sculptures. Although I had to miss the trip, the students and adults alike said it was a fantastic day!
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Fractured Fairy Tales
During our LMC time, students have been working on creating their own "Fractured Fairy Tales!" They wrote a script on a shared Google Doc with a couple partners, searched for images to represent their characters and printed them out, they attached green straws to the pictures and performed a puppet show on the green screen using the DOINK app. They should be uploaded this week - be sure to check them out!
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Energy Transfers
We just completed one of my favorite lessons of the school year: The "Energy Transfers" lab. Students explored 12-20 objects that, through their use, changed energy forms several times. For example, a boombox is plugged in, so it starts with electrical energy, transfers to sound energy, and has the byproduct of motion energy (since it vibrates a bit). Students identified the energy transfers in much more complicated items, mapped out those energy transfers, and then recorded videos of their explanations. Finally, students made a blog post of their four favorite videos that they wanted me to grade in order to determine their level of understanding. Check them out on their ePortfolio!
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Social Studies
We began our unit on Illinois by learning a little bit more about the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals and how they relate to the needs of our state. In order to ensure that each student really understood each goal, we played a game of "HeadBanz" and had kids walk around giving each other clues to help them identify the goal that was on their forehead. As we progress in this unit, students will be exploring the ways our state can improve in six core areas and writing a book that we hope to publish at the end of the school year!
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Daily Mini Lessons
Each day, I'm trying to incorporate a 5-15 minute mini lesson on a topic of interest to the students. Some of these topics are science or social studies related, while some are focused on a unique holiday or tradition. This is a great way to learn a SMALL amount of knowledge about a WIDE variety of subjects with no stress!
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Reading
Students continue to enjoy reading novels with their peers. They generally get to read their first or second choice book out 10-12, and do all of the work in class. We introduced Summary Writing this round, so students are now writing summaries at the end of each day's reading. Heads up that our summarizing style is a bit of a mix between retelling and summarizing, so these summaries are a bit longer than traditional ones. Students continue to record their discussions and after we finish our student-led mini-lessons, we will be adding new types of discussions to the mix!
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Global Invent-It Challenge
Students have begun work on inventing a new product or improving an old one for a contest that we hope to enter next month. The company that provides us with engineers and scientists as pen pals is conducting the Global Invent It Challenge, focusing on making the lives of senior citizens easier. Our class has split into groups and is now developing several inventions, prototypes, and specs. Wish us luck!!!
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Math in Focus
We are wrapping up Chapter 7 on basic decimal concepts and are about to begin Chapter 8 on decimal addition and subtraction. They are both very short units so the next test should come up pretty quickly!
The IXL skills for the kids to work on at home are:
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KidnerPals
We focused on GRATITUDE during the month of December, SELF-REGULATION in January, and we will be teaching our kindergarten friends about HONESTY in February. We enjoy spending time with our younger friends, acting as mentors who focus on social-emotional skills and behaviors. We get to play games, read books, play activities, etc. Be sure to ask your child about their KinderPals experience!
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Writing
We finished the Expository/Informative Writing unit in December and are wrapping up the Opinion Writing unit this week. Students spent 14 lessons learning about persuasive writing techniques and wrote one long piece and several short portions. This week, they will be writing their final essay using the organization techniques that were taught in class through mini-lessons. They have chosen their topic from a list I provided them, and will be given a specific organizer for their prompt, as well as an organizer template to write their essay on. They will do this over three class periods this week.
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Engineering Design
Students had fun designing the tallest tower they could out of various materials in the classroom. Their end goal was to build something strong enough to hold a golf ball on top without breaking. Honestly, several groups made quite impressive designs and used some smart building methods! Students got to talk about their experience with their engineer/scientist pen pals and it was an excellent springboard to our current Invent It Challenge!
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Homework Club
Just a reminder that we have HOMEWORK CLUB before school and during lunch recess most days of the week. This is a time for students to get questions answered, finish up classwork or homework, work with a partner to complete a project, etc. Although lunch recess homework club has been well attended, morning homework club is often a lonely place! ;) Here is the link to our weekly schedule. Check it out if you'd like to drop your child off at school at 8:15 to get some work done in the classroom: paulsolarz.weebly.com/our-weekly-schedule Typically, we have AM HW Club on Mondays and Fridays, while Lunch Recess HW Club is generally every day except Friday.
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Explorers
Our last social studies unit was on Explorers (mostly a study of European Explorers). After we learned about their purpose for exploration, we each chose a specific explorer to research in detail. Students created poster board projects to show off the information they learned. Slideshow of images below:
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Fact Fixer in Math
The 4th grade teachers and I noticed that students were having quite a bit of trouble with their multiplication and division math facts at the beginning of the year, so after a little research we decided to use Fact Fixer in the classroom in order to give students a boost! We spend 5-10 minutes about every other class period following the prescribed routine. Students are fine with the process and appear to be improving their skills! Of course, any help at home with flash cards would be really appreciated too!
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Passion Time
Students continue to spend some class time exploring their own personal interests (often times with a partner). Some are focusing in on scientific ideas, others have focused more on art. Although there are no restrictions, I work hard to guide them towards a direction that will be most meaningful for them and produce the most learning possible (while still being enjoyable for each child). Please find out about your child's current Passion Time topic (and help them come up with their next one!). Thanks!
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Music Concert
Students did such a nice job in their 4th grade music concert in December! Mrs. Tosheva and Mr. Berger did an outstanding job preparing the kids!
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Classroom Investigations
Depending on the lesson, students often have the opportunity to move around the classroom to travel between stations. This lesson was an explorer lesson that had students analyzing maps, reading their textbook to find specific information, and paraphrasing information from their learning.
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Connecting Reading & IXL
We are extremely lucky to have access to IXL this year for our students! Not only do we use it in math class to solidify new math skills, but we also can use it in reading and language arts as well! Students practiced skills in several different areas before taking their most recent MAP tests. Hopefully, with a little practice, students will continue to improve their reading skills!
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