Busy Week In Fourthlandia

Hello Fourthlandian friends,

This week was a busy, busy, busy, week because we worked hard and accomplished a lot.

In Math, we learned about place value and practiced using whiteboards. Today we did adding and subtracting using the open number line. We also learned about line plots and plotted the length of our feet. First, we had to measure them with measuring tapes to the closest quarter of an inch. Here is a picture of our line plot.

We came up with way more job ideas and started thinking about what jobs we would be good at. Some of the new jobs we thought of were Sports Statistician and Technology Helper. We are filling out job applications next week.

Specials went well this week and we had our first TAP. For TAP we had Library, PE, and Art. We are working to follow our classroom rules even when we are at Specials.

In Writing this week, we started coming up with realistic fiction ideas. We thought about what stories we wish to see in our classroom library and asked ourselves, "what might my character struggle with?" We wrote letters to our families for curriculum night and hope that you all can come. We also FINALLY got our Writing Notebooks! We had a ceremony and spent time decorating our notebooks with pictures that inspire us. Here are some pics of us working






















Finally, in Reading Workshop we read with stamina for twelve minutes! Here is a picture of some of us reading with stamina --------------------------------------->

We read the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and talked about logical consequences and ways that we can fix the mistakes that we all make when we're having a bad day.

We have improved morning meeting with a new system where we work to earn twelve minutes of extra recess. This morning, we earned 7 extra minutes!!!! We also decided on a new attention getting strategy where the teacher says, "Hocus Pocus" and all the students say back, "Everybody Focus." It's working really well so far. Woooohooooo!

Later gators!

From your bloggers,
Ayla, Shira, Samantha, Ben, Maya, and Ms. Swaim

PS Maya came back to Franklin from Ecuador this week. We are SO EXCITED she's back!

Another Week Back in Fourthlandia

Hi!

This was another four day week. We kept pretty busy with writing and math and more writing. Here is what we were up to this week:

In writing, we had to write a story in 45 minutes. It was called an On Demand. We did it so our teachers can see what we know as writers at the start of fourth grade.

We also started figuring out what jobs we need to make our classroom run smoothly. So far we've come up with the Blogger, the Teachers Helper, the Water Bottle Filler Upper and many more. This is just the beginning and next we're going to think of funny names for our Fourthlandian jobs.

This week, we narrowed our rules down to five of the most important ones. Here is a picture of the class rules that we all signed -------->


In reading, we had a guest teacher, the new Literacy Teacher, Mrs. DeFelice. She taught us how to pick a just right book and about what shoes you should wear to walk a dog. She compared choosing two shoes to choosing books. The strategy was called I PICK. P for purpose (why are we reading, I for interesting (are we interested in reading it), C for comprehension (whether we understand it), and K for know (whether we know most of the words).

We also practiced building our reading our stamina and opened our classroom library. Our record is 16 minutes with 24 kids following all the expectations while reading.

Mrs. Harold also visited our classroom and talked to us about being leaders rather than followers.

There feels like there is much more to say, but we have to pack up. It's Friday!

Have a fun weekend!

Till next time,
Your Fourthlandian Bloggers (Billy, Samantha, Matt, Shira, and Justin)

Happy First Week in Fourthlandia, Welcome Back to School

Dear Fourthlandian Family, Friends and Fans,

Welcome to our blog! Here, you'll learn about everything we've been up to in school. We hope you enjoy!

This week was a HOT week! We got into the swing of school and practiced 4th grade routines. We also read a lot of books that inspired us to start building our classroom community that we have learned will be called Fourthlandia. 

We read a strange book called Rules of Summer and thought about all the things NOT to do in the summer. We also read, Roxaboxen byAlice McLerran which was about kids who build a magical community on a desert mountain. After that, we read The Big Orange Splot about a man named Mr. Plumbean who had a creative mind and convinced his neighbors to paint their houses to look like their dreams. All of these books helped us think about our own hopes and dreams for our classroom community.

This week we also realized we need to come up with rules that will help us learn and feel successful in school. We worked in small groups and brainstormed all the possible rules that we could have. We're just getting started though!

We had our first All School Meeting and our first Chorus class. Here is a picture of the whole fourth grade at Chorus:



Finally, we ended our week with the Marshmallow Challenge where we had to build the tallest structure out of raw spaghetti, 

tape, string and one marshmallow on top. Here are some pictures of us building and some pictures of our creations.

We are looking forward to school on Tuesday!

Sincerely, 
Fourthlandia