Multiplication, Red Wheelbarrow, and a Giant Beaver

Notices: Early Dismissal tomorrow at 1:45

Student-Led Conferences Tomorrow 2 - 5 pm (come with your child)

Food For Fun form for Friday April 19

In-Progress Class Research Project on Beavers

Students started the morning with handwriting practice (their name and a phrase), followed by multiplication in Math. We marked yesterday's homework and they were assigned more practice. Students chose between 2 digit x 2 digit questions or challenge questions with 3 digits x 2 digits.

On Monday, an Educational Assistant, Melissa, started working in our classroom. She will spend 45 minutes with our class daily, assisting students who need help staying on task and those who need extra help with a concept. She is already very much appreciated for assisting students during math yesterday and today, allowing her and I to help many more students one on one than I could have by myself.

After recess, Ms. Koch and I continued with our Tuesday literature circles.

She took 2 groups (one at a time) into the hall to play a literacy game while the remaining students read, discussed, and completed activities on William Carlos Williams' "Red Wheelbarrow" (1923) with me. By lunchtime, everyone completed the poetry activities with me. "Red Wheelbarrow" is short, easy to understand, and does not rhyme (contradicting some students' perception that all poetry must rhyme and all lines must start with a capital letter), and also sparked discussion about what "so much depends on" could mean. Students wrote their own poem based on the format of "Red Wheelbarrow," with amazing, articulate, and thought-provoking results.

When all students were back from working with Ms. Koch, I introduced one of my favourite books called Love That Dog by Sharon Creech.

This brilliant book is about a boy in grade 4 who is scared of poetry and worried about the poems his teacher asks them to read. The entire book is written in a series of funny poems where Jack, the speaker, learns about poetry and responds to the poems he reads in class, like "Red Wheelbarrow." Many classical and iconic poems from various literary time periods are referred to. We will explore the poems Jack alludes to and talks about, learning about them when Jack does :-)

Mr. Wilson was away this afternoon and I taught the class after lunch too. They had Silent Reading, Music, and Science, where every student worked on a part of our class research project on Beavers. They will finish it next week when I teach them again. This class collaboration requires teamwork and also serves as a model for the research project they will do later on.



Hope to see you at Student-Led Conferences tomorrow from 2 - 5 pm. Please come at anytime and bring your child with you.

  

Mrs. Schneider