Ms. Fraser's 4th Grade: Weekly Update :)

What a gorgeous fall day! Yesterday's rain and gloom turned into a beautiful sunny fall day. I intend to get outside and enjoy this beautiful day! :) I hope you get to spend some time outside enjoying this weather as well.

It was a busy week in our class. We started Engage NY in math, we started the hard work of revising our narrative, and we started learning about plot in Reader's workshop. Plus, on Friday we got to go and read to our kindergarten buddy. It was a great week in 5F!

In Writer's workshop students began the hard work of revising their narrative.The students learned that one of the main differences between a fourth grade narrative and a fifth grade narrative, is that in a fifth grade narrative the character needs to encounter a problem or obstacle of some kind. To help the students revise their narrative so that it included a problem/obstacle we reviewed the story arc of how narratives typically go. After this lesson many students rewrote their narrative to include a problem/obstacle. Students also thought about what their story is really about, what is the lesson/moral they want to the reader to take away from their story. Students found the parts in their story related to the lesson/moral and revised their story by elaborating on those parts. I am proud of how hard the students are working in Writer's Workshop. The students are really taking the in the mini-lessons and trying to apply the mini-lesson to their writing. When they finish taking this narrative through the writing process students should have a story they are proud of!

Story Arc for the picture book Peter's Chair

Anchor chart for how a narrative typically goes

Cole works on revising his narrative

Anchor chart for how to elaborate

Writers hard at work

In math this week, we started our first module in Engage NY. This week we focused on multiplying and dividing by powers of tens. For example, 25.9 x 100. Students learned that when you multiply by powers of ten you don't just add zeroes to the number. Students learned that when you multiply by powers of tens the number moves to the left on the place value chart and when you divide by powers of ten the number moves right on the place value chart. The number of zeroes in the number determines how many spaces you move. In the problem 25.9 x 100 each number would move 2 spaces left on the place value chart. Students also learned how to write powers of ten as exponents.

In reader's workshop we continued some of our work on characters and character traits.Students learned about point of view and how who is telling the story is important. For example, Home of the Brave would be a much different story if it were told from Ganwar's point of view instead of Kek's point of view. We also started learning about plot. We learned that good readers notice the problems/challenges that characters face in a story. As a class we charted the challenges that Kek from Home of the Brave faces. After we listed the challenges he faces, we discussed which challenges are the most important to the story and why. Our work with plot will help us this week when we start learning about theme.

Also in reader's workshop, Josh gave the first book talk of the year. Each student will be responsible for giving a book talk once every two months. (Don't worry, all the work for this project is done in class.) A book talk is a short 2 to 3 minute talk that a student gives on a book they read during independent reading that they really enjoyed. The students tells what genre the book is, gives a short summary that doesn't give away the ending, tells what they enjoyed about the book, and suggests who might enjoy reading the book. (For example, someone who likes history might enjoy this book because..) Josh gave the first book talk on the book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. He did a great job and got some other students in the class excited to read the book. Way to go Josh!

Josh gives his book talk

On Friday, we went to computers early and spent some time with our kindergarten buddies. Students did a short interview with their kindergarten buddy finding out information such as favorite color, favorite subject at school, and favorite type of book to read. This information will help the fifth graders select new books the next time we read with our kindergarten buddy. After interviewing their buddy, fifth graders read a picture book to their buddy. The students loved this activity! It was wonderful to see the fifth graders step up and act as role models to the kindergarten students. Check out the pictures from this activity. They are adorable!!