What a day!

1. The second graders came in and we got to show them our biographies that we have been working so hard on. Ms. Kath liked the biographies so much that she wants to create a BOOK! We also had a read-in.

S loves to read

Some girls made a reading corner of their own!

Library corner during the read in.

F. likes to cozy up and read with her friends!

T. wore her goofy bear slippers!

2. We earned our fancy lunch in the cafeteria by reading over 1.5 MILLION minutes. We are very proud of our classmate T, it was announced he had read the most minutes in ALL of 4th grade this morning.

3. In the afternoon we had our "Magical Math Celebration". Mrs. Brown made gingerbread houses, Mrs. Yaglowski showed Donald Duck in Mathmagicland, Mr. Engel was in charge of computer math games and I got to lead "Geometric Penguins"! We had a total blast. To quote one student, "Ms. McCormick, this was the best day of 2011!"

Geometric Penguin

4. At the end of the day, we wished each other a fantastic end to 2011, and talked about all the things we are looking forward to in 2012.

Have a wonderful winter break 4th graders! See you in 2012!

Love,
Ms. McCormick

Wednesday

1. We took a math quiz on Units 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, and 6.10.

2. Mrs. Brink let us play jungle tag for TWENTY MINUTES in the morning

3. We had two special guest speakers from General Mills that talked to us about healthy eating and getting enough exercise. We sorted foods into "healthy" and "not healthy" categories.

4. We had library and got to peek at all of the new books Ms. Z purchased this fall. On Thursday morning we will be able to check them out!

Tuesday

1. We practiced what a CODE RED lock down would look like.

2. We studied partial quotients. We are getting very good at dividing big numbers!

3. We finished typing our second grade biographies.

4. We had Music with our new teacher Mrs. Sharp.

Spelling December 19-22

winter
holiday
snowman
portable
season
icy
desert
dessert
snowflake
party

No Excuse: there, they're, your, you're 
Challenge: celebration, aquarium, aquamarine, charity, family, relatives

1. "We typed our second grade biographies in the computer lab." -J StudyLinks 6.4 is due tomorrow.

2. "We worked on partial quotient division in math." -F

3. "We had an awesome literacy lounge, Ms. McCormick got to meet with each guided reading group."-E

4. "We had plenty of read-to-self time." -M

Reminder- spelling in bubble letters is due tomorrow.

Math Story Problems

Here are some of the math story problems some of you created on the back of your spelling test- Very cool!

T: A jug of apple sauce weighs 28 lbs. If I buy 39 jugs for a party, how many lbs. would that be? (Cool first-person story problem T!)

L: There are 4 trucks. Each truck holds 82 flowers. Each truck is completely full with flowers. How many flowers are in all?

J: Try out this challenge lattice problem: 800,008 x 1,000,302

S: Jake had 126 books and 6 people he was giving them to. How many books does each person get?

T: There are 444 pieces of candy. There are 222 kids. How many pieces of candy would each kid get?

1. Mr. Santos visited to teach us about division in the ad industry. If you had $900,000 to spend on commercials, and each commercial cost $425,000, how many ads could you buy?

2. Many of us signed up for the achievement fair. We can't wait!

3. We did A LOT of reading, and did ten word summaries. We are getting quite good at them, Mr. Hall worked with two small groups.

4. This morning, I had a meeting about data, turns out all of our reading at home is really paying off. I am looking forward to testing in January and seeing all of the progress we continue to make in 4th grade.

Have a wonderful weekend :)

 

1. We watched the 5th graders perform their winter music concert.

2. We played a count-off math game and took our 4th timed multiplication facts test.

3. We told knock knock jokes, practiced homonyms, wrote penpal response letters and met with guided reading groups in literacy.

4. We learned all about our upcoming 4th Grade Magical Math Celebration. In order to go to the celebration, we must have all of our late and missing work TURNED IN. Don't forget to bring back your party form tomorrow.

1. We learned a new method to divide in math. Math homework went home tonight to practice this method. We are so grateful that Mr. Hall came in to help out with small groups.

2. Ms. Tami visited and we finished Captain Nobody. All of us really liked the ending. We look forward to reading The Secret of Zoom by local author, Lynne Jonell.

3. During literacy we talked about the importance that setting plays in stories. We W.O.W'ed and invented our own settings. Later this week we will be trading our setting descriptions with our peers, and turning them into stories with exciting plots and interesting characters.

4. Today was Ms. Albee's last day as our music teacher. We wish Ms. Albee the very best of luck in the future. We had a great time learning how to play the recorder with her.

Spelling December 12-16

aid
appear
argue
comfort
exercise
imagine
notice
practice
struggle
surround


No excuse: city, many, she, then
Challenge: continue, galloping, receive, succeed, summarize, recreation

1. In math we worked on division with Mr. Duberstein using partial quotients. Mr. Duberstein could also name all of the birds that came to our bird feeder this morning. We identified over 6 different types!

2. We made our own "healthy choice" menus in science. It is so important to eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. If you get the chance you should check out choosemyplate.gov.

3. During literacy, P handed out our pen pal letters. Tomorrow we will work on creating unique, interesting responses.

4. Guided reading groups were QUITE interesting today. We had a special guest visitor come in to join our discussion about landforms. While reading Joey Pigza, we all got GROSSED OUT and could help but shriek while reading chapter 5. For those of you who aren't in the Joey Pigza group- you should DEFINITELY get a copy from the library.

Have a lovely evening. I am so proud that you all were showing BENGAL PRIDE towards our guest teacher this morning :)

1. In math, we finished up our Unit 5 test and started Unit 6. We are excited to practice multiplication and division story problems. We realized that multiplication and division are very similar. Some of us find it helpful to say 2 times WHAT is 16, instead of 16 divided by 2 is 8. Parenthesis (DO THIS FIRST) homework is due tomorrow morning. 

2. We noticed we had 8 birds at our bird feeder at the SAME TIME. We stayed very still and wrote down some detailed observations in our science notebooks.

3. Mrs. Sateren and I co-taught a lesson about "first person" narratives. We were only working with a small group, but everyone in class seemed to want to participate. We had a great time reading "A. Wolfs", The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. I am looking forward to posting some first person student work at the end of this week. We loved listening to S's story about the g.e.e.k squad! Our cursive spelling practice is due on Wednesday.

4. We worked on writing. Tomorrow we will edit our second grade biographies!

*** Is this blog post written in first, second or third person?***

1. We took the Unit 5 math test, it went well.

2. We celebrated Y's birthday with treats during read-to-self. Mrs. Sateren continued to teach us about apostrophes. We then tried using them in our own writing.

3. We had library and checked out new books for the weekend.

4. Report cards were sent home. Each of you have so much to be proud of in first trimester. We are making tremendous growth!

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!

1. In math we took a "trip around the world" all in the comfort of our very own class! We calculated times and distances it would take to travel from country to country. We decided that if one of us wins the lottery, we might actually have to do this...

2. After talking about the distance it would take to get to Rome in math, we decided to do a reading about Michelangelo. Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect and poet from the 1500's. We also promised that we would no longer go "highlighter crazy" and only highlight the MOST important information.

3. In science we built a circuit with Mrs. Yaglowski.

4. During recess we filled up our bird feeder that is outside our classroom window. We hope the birds come back!

1. We took a math quiz about using the lattice method and partial products method.

2. Ms. Tami came and read Captain Nobody.

3. We rounded numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1,000.

4. We took our final test in health all about teeth.

We have conquered PLACE VALUE! In 4th grade, we have an understanding of place value up to 1 BILLION. T found this in the newspaper and correctly labeled it for us.

1. We had a great time in science with Mr. Warner. He told some really cool stories about HUGE magnets in real life.

2. In math, we learned scientific notation. Many different careers use scientific notation to display REALLY big numbers. Tomorrow, the Study Link 5.9 side of worksheet 5.9 is DUE.

3. We had a very productive Literacy Lounge. I got the chance to meet with our new literacy groups. We are very excited to start some new books. The whole class seemed to enjoy listening to Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos.... "Let me get back to you on that!"

4. We also discussed our word study about homonyms. A homonym is two words that SOUND the SAME but have different meanings. I am very impressed with all of your terrific homonym examples!

Spelling, December 5th-9th, 2011

cent
scent
sent
piece
peace
pore
pour
their
there
they're

No Excuse: apple, but, flower, other
Challenge: cereal, patience, patients, serial, homonym, geography

1. In math we were working with BIG numbers. Tomorrow we will have a quiz on Units 5.1-5.8. Study Links 5.8 is due tomorrow morning. Be sure to be practicing your multiplication facts at home.

2. We discussed how to take care of our teeth in health. We learned that if your tooth falls out, you should put it in a glass of milk or saliva. Do not let the tooth dry out!

3. We had library with Ms. Z and learned how to look for non-fiction books in the Brimhall Library.

4. Today was the first day of our new schedule. Recess is now ten minutes shorter, and as a result we get to spend more time in Music, Art and Phy. Ed!

Happy Monday! Tonight is the perfect night to stay in and read a good book :)

Pizza Math

I hope you have a lovely three day weekend. I thought I would post some "Challenge Math" in case you are looking for something to do. Turn it in on Monday in exchange for a special treat.

-Ms. McCormick

PS: If you make your own maze, it might get posted on the blog... :)

Pavek Museum

1. Today we went to the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting. All of us had an awesome time. Not to mention- we learned a TON about magnetism and electricity.

2. We played Learning Bingo with Mid Day K.

3. We took a CML Test

4. We had time to unwind from the field trip and read-to-self. 

J worked the switch board

Radio Show Hosts

Recording a radio show

We were all "shocked" that electricity can move so fast :)

News Announcers

We played Jeopardy!

Super Power Story...

Check out E's beginning to his independent writing story... You are going to have to talk to E to find out how it ends.

Way to go E!

E and K are looking for birds!

1. We watched and observed birds at our bird feeder.

We love when Ms. Tami comes to read!

2. Ms. Tami came and read Captain Nobody. We discussed how we have several "Captain Nobody" characters in 4M.

3. We spent time working on our writing , some of us shared our stories with each other.

4. We said goodbye to B- it was her last day. We are really going to miss her!

1. We continued to practice partial products. We spent some time working on multiplication estimation.

2. We decided to practice W.O.W (work on writing). We now know what W.O.W looks like and feels like. We have a new list of independent writing topics that we are keeping in our literacy notebooks. Today we wrote a story about having a superpower. We wrote non-stop for 18 minutes! WOAH!

3. In science, Mrs. Yaglowski came over and we watched Bill Nye. Bill Nye sure knows a lot about electricity and magnetism!

4. In art, we made "bird's eye view" maps. Most of us are almost done coloring them.

REMEMBER: Math homework due on Wednesday. Our field trip to the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting is on Thursday.

Spelling: November 28th-Dec 1st

Theme 5, Week 2

better

cobbler

diamond

present

pupil

scour

shower

stable

swallow

temple

No Excuse: has, her, into, more

Challenge: atmosphere, buffet, column, neutral, climate, impact 

I am hoping to post FOUR fantastic things about fourth grade each day... Here we go!

1. We finished Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me. We LOVED this book, and had a great time making text-to-text connections with Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

2. We had library with Ms. Z and checked out some wonderful new books for the week.

3. We discussed ecosystems and wolves. We learned that overtime the wolf population in the USA is dwindling, due to humans and other predators. We hope to learn more about wolf populations in Minnesota and find out what our class can do to help.

4.  In math we learned how to multiply partial products. It was a brand-new method for a lot of us. We also rocked our multiplication table test, and realized that many of us need to study our 6's, 7's and 8's!