Learn Excel Letters and Field Trip Cancelled Due to High Winds

The students received their letters from Learn Excel today and they were very, very excited.  The kids at Learn Excel decorated the envelopes and gave some great information about themselves.  My students were very interested in what the other person had to say.  "Mr. P., I can't wait to meet [name]," I must've heard this about 10 times.  I've never done something like this before, but I'm thrilled about how motivated my students are to write and communicate with their pen pals.

Unfortunately, our field trip, which was supposed to happen tomorrow (Wednesday), has now been cancelled due to the forecast of 50+ mph winds.  The students were going to spend most of their time in the Crow Island Woods and the woods are a very dangerous place with high winds.  The students were very upset about this, but we are working with Learn Excel to reschedule before the weather becomes too unbearable.

Seeds "Planted", Book Review Board and Book Report

We have a lot of stuff going on here at school.  In science we have planted our seeds in water.  The students love it.  We have taken detailed observations of the changes in the seeds.  We will continue to monitor growth and record our data inside our Hydroponics journals.

When students finish a book, it's an accomplishment and I want to celebrate it, as well as check for comprehension of the book as a whole.  I've created a Book Review board outside of the classroom where students are allowed to write their own review of the book and create a new cover of the book, which they love.  This review must include a synopsis of the book, as well as a reason for why they gave the book its star rating.  It's great to watch the other students in the school (mostly 3rd graders from our hallway) reading the book reviews.  I asked one student who was reading them today if he liked them and he said, "Yeah, they're cool."

I will be sending home a detailed letter today about our October/November book report.  I am not having the students read a particular genre, but they will need to respond to some questions and create a model from a scene in the book using clay or any other building material.  This will be due just before Thanksgiving.

Deep Thinking and a Teachable Moment

Each week I like to preview the latest Time magazine, mostly because this class is fascinated by current events.  This week the cover story is on Alzheimer's.  We discussed what it is and I told the students that scientists are working on a test that would tell people if they are at risk for getting the disease.  I was amazed at the depth of thought each student gave to this rather difficult subject.  A student raised their hand and said they would not want to know if they were going to get it and another student said they would want to know.  A very rich and deep discussion followed where students ended up writing a short, but detailed answer to the question of whether or not they would want to know and why.  We shared our responses at the end.

While I was standing there listening to these fourth graders talk about this topic I couldn't help but notice how deeply they were thinking.  Every student had their hand raised to share their viewpoint.  I turned it into a writing activity because that adds another layer and skill.  They jumped at the chance.

At the end of the discussion I asked them to go home and ask their mom or dad if they would want to know.  So, be prepared for this question, or bring it up if your child forgets.  Ask him/her what they thought.  You will no doubt get an interesting answer.  While this topic may seem a bit advanced, the thinking and reflection that went on during the brief 25-minute discussion was awesome.  Purely awesome.

Letter Home to Parents

I sent a letter home today updating everyone on the latest happenings here at school.  It's on a green sheet of paper.  Below is that letter verbatim.

Mr. Peterson’s Newsletter

October 15, 2010

Dear Parents,

It was a pleasure chatting with many of you at the parent party last week.  Thanks to the Fehrenbach’s for hosting.

Here at school we have a lot going on.  A venture that I have not talked about yet is a partnership with the Learn Excel charter school in Chicago.  This is a school that opened with the help of about 30 Winnetka families who supplied books, resources, and even today they continue onsite tutoring every week.  Maureen Cheever, principal at Hubbard Woods, asked if one 4^th grade class from each school in the district would volunteer to work with Learn Excel.  With an eye on diversity and broadening horizons, I decided to volunteer.

About Learn Excel Charter School

They have a network of 4 schools that are located throughout Chicago.  The one we are working with is located at 2401 W. Congress Parkway, just off the Eisenhower expressway at Western Ave.  I visited there this week and the school operates inside a church.  The church is old and their “gym” is the basement of the church.  They have 44 fourth graders, all African-American.   Learn Excel was recently highlighted on the Oprah Winfrey show for outstanding achievement and was awarded $1 million.  I saw a poster in their resource room that highlighted their ISAT scores, which were very impressive. You can learn more at www.learncharter.org

The other 4^th grade classrooms are Mike Dugo at Crow Island and Chris Basten from Hubbard Woods.  On October 27^th (Wednesday) we will take a bus over to Crow Island to meet our partners from Learn Excel.  In our meeting yesterday down at Learn Excel we paired up Learn Excel students with Winnetka students.  We wrote pen pal letters to them today to introduce ourselves.  They will write back before our trip to Crow Island.  Our goal for that day will be for the students to make a connection with their partner.   The students will participate in a seed scavenger hunt in Crow Island Woods, a restoration project involving the removal of the invasive buckthorn in the prairie behind Crow Island, and a tour of Crow Island and its history.  I’ll keep everyone updated through my blog.

If you haven’t seen the blog yet, please subscribe.  It will send you an email when a new entry is written.  It’s a great way to stay in touch with the activities in your child’s classroom.  I try to write a new entry a few times a week.  The address is:

http://mrpetersonsfourthgrade.blogspot.com/

In math we’re in the middle of Unit 2 all about place value and organizing data.  Ms. Quach has provided our classroom with a math centers bin that is an essential part of a differentiated classroom.  Students who finish early are allowed to work in this bin to enrich their learning.  It’s really great.

In social studies we started discussing immigration. Students identified some of their own family history and we looked at interesting facts from that country.  Next week we will begin an integrated novel unit that integrates reading and social studies.  The book is called Nory Ryan’s Song.  It is the story of an Irish girl whose family is greatly affected by the potato famine and is forced to go to the United States.  It ties in nicely with our whole class discussion of pushes and pulls for immigration.

In science we have germinated our seeds and many of them have already sprouted roots.  We planted bean seeds, popcorn seeds, sunflower seeds and pea seeds.  The students love it.  A huge focus for this unit, and all of our science units, is taking detailed observations about how things change from day to day.  Our crayfish arrived a little early, but that will be our next study, starting near the end of October.

Conferences will begin at the beginning of November.  I will send home a sign-up sheet early next week.

Enjoy this gorgeous fall weekend!

Thanks,

Partner Writing

Today was the first day of the year where I will be allowing two people to write a story together.  I wait until October to allow this because many students need to get into a rhythm with writing on their own before working with a partner. Even now, I only allow this on Tuesdays and Thursdays because while there are many benefits to writing with a partner, there are also a few things that can be less than beneficial to help each child progress.

Some of the benefits include watching students bounce ideas off one another and making a deeper connection through writing than they would have without that opportunity.  I also noticed today that one student is using quotations in his individual story while his partner was not ready for that yet.   While writing their new story together, the student who knew how to use them properly showed the other student how to use them.  Research says that when students are able to teach other students how to do something they have reached the deepest level of understanding of that concept.  I love seeing peer tutoring going on inside the classroom.  It's great.

A difficult part about partner writing, however, can be when one student dominates the writing process and doesn't allow the other student to write any of the story.  This can occur with physically writing the story or accepting of ideas.  I carefully monitor each group's progress and continually ask them what's happening in the story, where it's headed, etc.  If I receive a shared response about where it's headed I'm happy, but if it sounds as if one student knows and the other is in the dark, we've got a problem.  I can also look at their journal to make sure they are both writing equally.

Lucy Caulkins (the creator of the Writer's Workshop philosophy) believes that writing should be a social experience.  I agree with her on this, but I also like to make sure that I'm building independent writers as well.

Math Games Friday

Friday is math game computation day.  Each week I pick a game from either the Everyday Math book or I create one myself.  I'm actually in the process of putting together a book of math games to be submitted to a publisher.  That's a little ways off, but still a goal of mine.

The goal of Math Games Friday is to get the students working with numbers with a variety of operations.  We haven't hit division yet, but we are playing quite a few games that involve addition, subtraction and multiplication.  Every game involves two things that most people have in their house - dice and playing cards.  A few of the games I've designed have very simple goals - be the first to get to "x" number.  The game might involve them rolling the dice, multiplying the numbers together to get the product, and finally taking a card off the pile to add to the total.  They have a score sheet next to them to keep track.  Simple as that.  Once the students see there is a goal or set number to reach, they really get into it.

Math games at home can be just as simple.  You will see how your son or daughter begins to develop their own strategy for adding problems  like 18 + 8 or 14 + 3.  Learning the facts takes a lot of time and commitment.  I've found this class needs as much work in computation as they can get so get your dice and cards and put in some quality math time.

Have a great weekend everyone.  I just found out from a friend of mine that I will be playing Whistling Straits tomorrow (Saturday).  I think I'll need to buy a few extra sleeves of balls.  Regardless, I'm sure it'll be fun.