What are we up to these days?

What a wonderful start to our new year.  Kids are beginning to get into the swing of our schedule and how things work in room 306.  I am having a wonderful time getting to know your kids and I hope they are enjoying the beginning of fourth grade.  We have so much to do this year and I am so excited to embark on our journey together.  Thank you so much for being such a supportive and generous village for all of our kids.  I appreciate how much you all do so very much! 

The Wild Robot continues to be one of our favorite activities.  They absolutely love listening to this book and can’t wait to hear what will come next.  They are making wonderful predictions and are learning how to write about the thoughts they are having.  It has been wonderful to see their excitement when something they predicted actually happens.  It’s pure magic. 

Here’s a label we started discussing on Thursday:

The Wild Robot is a great book, isn't it?  Write about the changes you've seen in Roz.  How has she changed?  Remember to tell us HOW she's changed and why you think she changed.  Most people change their habits, or the way they do something for a reason. 

As a class, we brainstormed some ideas about what we could write.  Talking about our book throughout our day is really a great way for them to connect and gives me a great opportunity to help them write about specific things.  They are coming up with some really great things and are backing their thoughts with evidence from the text.  YayYYyYy! 

Root Words!  We have started learning what a ROOT WORD is, and how they can help us to know unknown words.  Our first root is:  -aer

Some of the words we are studying:  aerobic, aerodynamic, aerosol, aerate, and aerie. 

Snack!  Thank you SO much for sending fruits and vegetables for our hungry 4^th graders!  We had apples brought in on Thursday and they ate three bags of apples in a few hours.  Seriously, these people are hungry!  Fall in Michigan is dreamy for a number of reasons, but the APPLES are at the top of my list.  THANK YOU all SO MUCH!

Morning Meetings!  What fun!  We have learned a lot of new ways to greet one another (my personal favorite was watching them create secret handshakes) and it has been really fun listening to them share and participate in the group activities.  I have several books that I’m using from my training this summer and I am LOVING EVERYTHING WE ARE DOING!  Truly, it has been such a wonder to see them interacting with one another. 

Speaking of interacting with one another…during Project Lead the Way on Thursday, they learned a new game using the iPad.  It was a cool game

(see the picture, you may be getting requests for this app!) but the absolute COOLEST part of the activity was how amazing your kids were to one another.  They high-fived.  They cheered not only when THEY did something great, but when someone around them did too.  They helped each other.  They celebrated their successes with one another.  They were off the hook amazing.  BravoOoOo!