Daily Update

Wednesday – 10/26/11

·         Morning Circle – Finish Joke Share

·         Math – DPP and Spinning Differences

·         Community Circle@ 10:00 Marti’s Class was in Charge this week.

·         Snack and Stretch

·         Idaho Symbols  - Jigsaw Share

·         Lunch @11:25

·         Finished Idaho Symbols Jigsaw Share

·         Spelling Groups – Peer Sort

·         ZYLAR

·         Jobs and Choice

·         Play Practice

·         Read Aloud

·         Art @ 2:15 With Rebekah

·         Circle – Summarize The Day

Common Tasks

Ø  Circle – Morning and Afternoon – These are 10 to 15 minutes long and they are to create community in our classroom.

Ø  Math – I teach 3^rd and 4^th grade math so this will basically apply to the 3^rd grade parents, the titles of the lessons are always changing so you hopefully your child can tell you all about it. Also, 4^th grade parents the children will hopefully be writing a math article soon for The News Team.

o   Math DPP – Is a Daily Practice Problem that typically introduces a topic or is working on some skills that they may need to refresh. This is done every day when they enter the classroom. It is also done with the whole class in the afternoon.

Ø  Idaho History – This is 4^th grade Idaho History year. Every year we flip flop between 3^rd and 4^th grade Social Studies and Sciences so this is the year for 4^th grade Social Studies and 3^rd grade Sciences.

o   We are currently studying the symbols of Idaho. The children have been researching in small groups certain symbols. They are sharing their finding by doing a jigsaw.

o   Jigsaw  is basically dividing up the work and then sharing your findings.

Ø   Scientific Method – The children have been conducting several experiments which focus on learning how to do The Scientific Method. They are doing some that I come up with and we are also letting them come up with their own questions using the Wonder Wall.

Ø  Spelling Groups  - The children are in several different spelling tiers. They do a Variety of word sorts.

o   Speed Sort – This is just sorting out the words into their appropriate sorts, they will not record them today they will just be using their word cards and sorting them into sections.

o   Write Sort – The children will sort the words out one at a time, they will record these one at a time in their word study journals. They will record them in the appropriate sort column in their journal.

o   Peer Sort Test – This is a peer test and sort, they will take turns reading the word to each other and writing their word in the correct column as their peer reads it to them. They will be writing it in the column under the appropriate section, this will also be a quiz so they can know if they have learned their words yet.

o   Book Sort – this is when the children will read books, magazines or any other published material. They are looking in their readings for their types of words or rules of the week. When they find a word in their book that fits their rule they will record it in their journal under the correct column.

Ø  Journal or Free  Write – This is where children are given a prompt and they are asked to write a story or a narrative about the prompt. They can also choose free write which is basically writing on whatever they want.

Ø  News Team – This is a chance for the children to write a news article to go into our class newsletter, if they are on the news team they typically do this instead of a journal prompt.

Ø  Reading Groups – These are typically when I tier the children into different reading groups based on their abilities. We have several different books that we will read throughout the year.

Ø  ZYLAR – Zip Your Lips And Read – This is basically a silent reading time for the whole class or it can be used as a center.

Ø  Reading Games – We have a variety of games that work on everything from reading fluency to giving an opinion on what you read.

Ø   Jobs and Choice – This is when children do their job and then have  time to make a choice on what they want to finish for class or if they want to play.

Ø  Ketchup and Mustard – This is time to work on school work that is not finished.

Ø  Parents,

In past years I have had a daily email, so I am going to try it again. It will be basically an agenda of the day and I will have some descriptions of what we commonly do below but if it is on the agenda but not on the description, please just ask your child what it “is” or “means”. Please try to keep in mind that I am writing this daily and will be doing so very quickly so the email might have some grammatical errors. I will do my best to do this every Monday through Thursday.

Thanks,

Ben