Our first weeks of school

Welcome to our first blog post of the 2014-2015 school year.  This will be a summary of our first weeks.  On September 11, I had the pleasure of meeting some of the parents at our Open House.  I talked about my expectations of the students, as well as how the language distribution will look in this 50/50 Dual Language classroom.   It was nice to share ideas on how to handle missing homework.  I really like to hear feedback from the parents so we can put a system in place that works for all.



In Social Studies the Fourth Grades are utilizing New York Studies Weeekly, a newspaper dedicated to covering the Common Core Standards for the grade.  The first theme we are investigating is Precolonization which includes the study of native americans.

  In Math, we are studying place value.  The new Math Modules are extremely rigorous.  I would like to direct parents to EngageNY.com as a resource where the Math Mods are published by grade level. Parents can go on and see the exact lessons that will be taught.    

Here we are using number lines as a strategy for rounding.

Abi and Matthew critiqued each other's fluency during center time.  They took notes and gave one another tips on how to improve their reading.  Some things that were mentioned were, "raise your voice a little" and "pause when there is a period."

In Science, our first topic is Astonomy.  The class created moon calendars for September, which we traced onto acetate which the students can hang in their bedroom windows and compare with what they see in the sky at night.

It has been really great getting to know the students.  Now it's time to work hard and learn!