Character Trait Charlie

This idea was a collaboration between our fourth grade team. We noticed that our students needed more exposure to character trait vocabulary words and their meanings. They also needed to practice proving that characters were displaying these traits using textual justification. So we created Character Trait Charlie! Each week, we replaced 6 of our regular spelling words with character trait words. We study the words and describe the actions, feelings, thoughts, and words that a character with this trait would use/have. Then we categorize each trait as positive or negative. It's so easy to refer to these words as we are reading now that we have studied them and they are always visible.

Awesome Animal Adaptations!

This week, Mr. Barber visited our classroom to teach us about animal adaptations. He showed us some incredible stuff like huge elk antlers, bear and javelina skulls, pheasant feathers, an Arizona black tail rattlesnake skin, and a badger fur. He taught us about how different animals adapt to their environment in different ways. Right now we're writing informational books and reports about animals and their adaptations so we had a lot of background knowledge to connect our new learning to. Thanks for visiting us, Mr. Barber! If you want to learn more about animal adaptations through a fun game, click here!

We're also reading a new book titled Where the Red Fern Grows - one of Miss Barber's favorite books! Mr. Barber showed us how Billy sets traps for raccoons in the river bottoms with one of his own steel hunting traps.  Then we set it off on Miss Barber's wooden pointer! Ouch!

And finally, this week was Family Night at Peter Piper Pizza. Here's a picture of Miss Grace and I making pizzas for the Mensendick families! We had a blast!

8th Grade Holocaust Museum

Our class recently finished reading Number the Stars. Now we are reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes in order to compare and contrast Annemarie Johansen's WWII experience with Sadako Sasaki's post-WWII experience. Coincidentally, the 8th graders in Ms. Clark's class just finished studying the Holocaust and created a Holocaust Museum for our school to tour. We visited the museum and got to ask the 8th grade tour guides lots of questions about the Holocaust. At the end of the tour, we all filled out a reflection where we wrote a wish for the world or a reflection about what the Holocaust can teach us today. Thanks for bringing our learning to life, Ms. Clark's Class!

Talking to a 8th Grade Tour Guide 

Reflections

Door Decorating Contest

Every year for Read Across America week we do a door decorating contest at our school. This year the doors were judged on "creativity, theme, and Dr. Seussiness." Here's the evolution of our door - definitely a team effort. I was so proud of the way my kids worked together on this project!

D.E.A.R.

D.E.A.R. stands for Drop Everything And Read! This week is Read-Across-America Week in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. Our school is doing many things to celebrate, including D.E.A.R. time every day when the whole school drops everything and just READS! Here are some pictures of us enjoying our 20 minutes of simply reading. :)

Teaching Theme

We have recently been learning about finding the theme of a text. The theme is the THE MEssage for your life and oftentimes the author writes about a main character that learns a lesson in order to teach the readers that same lesson as well. Patricia Polacco's books are some of the best examples of texts with themes. On Friday, we read "The Bee Tree" and found the theme after identifying characters, setting, plot events, problem, and solution. We recorded our learning using a "somebody wanted but so then" summary that includes the theme/moral at the end.

We just put up a "common themes of literature" poster to help us as we read. 

Grandmas and Algebra!

We recently read an excellent book called "The Doorbell Rang" by Pat Hutchins and used it to show off our division and algebra skills.

In the book, a mother makes cookies for her two children and tells them to share.

Then, more and more friends arrive at the house and the number of cookies each child receives gets smaller and smaller.

The cookies look and smell delicious, but on each page we read that "no one makes cookies like Grandma!"

At the end of the story, Grandma arrives with more cookies for everyone!

First, we wrote the mutliplication and division fact families represented by the situation in the book.

Then, we wrote an equation that represented the relationship between the number of cookies, the number of children, and the number of cookies each child would receive.

Finally, we graphed the equation.

And as a big surprise, Grandma came to visit the next day and brought us cookies!

Using Inferencing to Solve Riddles

We have been making inferences all year!

To make an inference you take....

What You Read 

and put it together with 

What You Know.

Test your inferencing skills at this website!

The Power of Persuasion

Our class recently wrote a letter to our principal asking him to allow our class to watch the videos posted on our class website on our school computers. Follow the link below to see the letter.

Can you identify the topic, author's position, author's purpose, and supporting evidence?

Our Persuasive Letter