Holiday cheer

I wanted to take a quick moment to wish you all an amazing holiday break. I have enjoyed spending time in our 4th grade room with an amazing group of kids. We have so much fun learning, sharing, and spending time with each other. I'll miss them over break, and can't wait to rejoin them in the new year. Enjoy your holiday break! 

A little fun photo from Monday: We had some wonderful carolers singing some awesome holiday tunes throughout the hallways. I managed to snap a picture.

Final Mystery Reader

Our last reader was Ellie's mom! We had a fabulous time with her. Thank you too all who came for mystery readers. We really appreciated the time you took to join us for some holiday cheer. :) 

Bulldog Pride

More fun photos from today... :)

Jacob, Jayden and Jack, our three boy names with Js, showed up to school matching! We love Bulldog pride in our room! 

Thursday's Mystery Reader

Today our Mystery Reader was Amber, Hayden's mom. She was able to read two books with us today, and we had a blast! Here are are few snapshots from our time with her. 

Past Progressive Tense

This a GREAT site to practice the past progressive tense. Check it out! :)
Past Progressive Tense

Winter Spirit

Monday and Tuesday, we made a fun winter art piece in class. With this project, we were able to use oil pastels, water colors, and paper. Our focus was mainly on lines and blending, but also had the opportunity to talk about color variants and shading. Below is a step by step of how we created our beautiful pieces of art.

Step one: We created branches and backgrounds for our pieces using oil pastels.

Step 2: Using water colors, we painted our bulbs, paying careful attention to how light would hit a tree bulb.

Step 2: Cut and paste, an essential step of the project :)

Step 4: We added tops to the bulbs hanging from our tree branches using our oil pastels

Step 5: We enjoyed our pieces! Currently, they are hanging in our hallways so we can share our artistic skills with our school. 

We really had fun doing this quick art project in class to help celebrate the changing seasons. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do! :)

6 Minute Fluency

I was so excited to start 6 minute fluency today. As a class, we did a really great job. We had a great conversation about why being fluent readers is important as well. If you want to know more about 6 minute fluency, please look at their website. It has a lot of fantastic and interesting information. Six-Minute Solution
Here are just a few pictures from our 6 minute fluency practice today.

Two good friends in the fluency zone!

These ladies were at it like professionals today!

These two really took on their roles today! 

We were very successful today with our fluency practice. I can't wait to watch our fluency rates fly!

Mystery Reader

Sorry about the late post! I finally was able to get these photos off of my camera. Here is Derek and his mother from last Monday. :) We have absolutely loved having these mystery readers!

December 15-19

Happy Saturday!

I hope you are having a great weekend! Here is what is going on in 4h grade this week!

Peek at the Week

Math

~We will be finishing Unit 5 on Monday with a lesson on comparing data. For the rest of the week, we will be spending time working with multiplication and taking our unit assessment. For our assessment, we are going to try taking our assessment and splitting it up over a few days.  

Reading and Language Arts

~This week we will continue to work on the connect to text strategy.

~We will be starting a new fluency program in class this week. It is called the Six Minute Solution. This program quickly builds fluency through interactive, peer-to-peer repeated readings of high-interest, targeted readability passages. This trimester, 4^th graders at Independence Elementary are going to be focusing on raising our fluency scores. Why is this important? Reading fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and reading comprehension. Since fluent readers don’t’ have to concentrate on decoding the actual words, they can focus their attention on what the text actually means.

 

Social Studies

~We will continue to work with historical fiction this week.

Writing

~This week, we will have our last full week of personal narrative writing until later in the year.

~Our mini lessons this week will focus on the past progressive verb tense. The PAST PROGRESSIVE TENSE indicates continuing action, something that was happening, going on, at some point in the past. This tense is formed with the helping "to be" verb, in the past tense, plus the present participle of the verb (with an -ing ending). 

Need to Knows

~ We have library this Friday. Please make sure to bring your books to school on this day. Since we will not have check out next week, it is important to check out new books before our winter break.

Terrific Tidbits

~We have had a blast with our mystery readers. We still have a few spaces left! We would love to have you join us. Sign up here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f4ea9a72ba6fc1-holiday

If you have any questions, please let me know!  We are going to have a great week!

~ Mrs. Becklund  :) 

Friday's Mystery Reader

Today we had another great mystery reader! Reed, Lauren's grandpa, came in and read to our class. He decided to share a chapter from The Best Christmas Pagent Ever. The chapter really sparked some curiosity in our class and we are looking forward to continue reading it. 

Here are a few pictures from our time with Reed today! 

I have absolutely loved having mystery readers in our classroom. If you would like to join in on the fun, it is not too late! We still have 4 spots open. They all take place next week. You can check out our available slots here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f4ea9a72ba6fc1-holiday

Spellingcity

Here is a direct link to get to our spelling city page for practice and tests.

http://www.spellingcity.com/MrsBecklund/

Mystery Readers

On Monday we had Derek's mother in our room as a mystery reader, photos to come very soon, and today we had another special guest. My awesome friend, a graduate from West Fargo, came and shared a fabulous winter story with us. :) Here is a nice snapshot of our time with her. 

We still have a few spaces left for mystery readers. If you would like to come share your favorite winter/holiday story, sign up here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f4ea9a72ba6fc1-holiday 

- Mrs. B :) 

Read 20 Minutes

It is so important for your child to be reading 20 minutes every night. This is an awesome graphic Mrs. Steinbrink found. It really shows the power of what reading at home can do. We sometimes take this task for granted, but this image really shows us how critical it is.:)

Fact Practice

Sorry for another intrusion! As we have been progressing into more difficult concepts in math surrounding multiplication, it is clear that we need to continue working on our multiplication facts. Using xtramath is really helpful, but I found a great website that has some really fun multiplication games! If you have some free time at home, try and encourage your son or daughter to check out some of these fun multiplication games. I had a chance to try a few of them out and had a great time! Enjoy :)

http://www.multiplication.com/games

Lattice Method

I found a great resource surrounding the lattice method. If you want some assistance or more knowledge, check it out. :)

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LatticeMethod.html

December 8-12

Good evening! 

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! This weekend I had some great family time with my mother and sisters in the Twin Cities getting some of our holiday shopping done, and taking some time to rest up. :) I am excited to start this next week rejuvenated from some great family time. Here is what we will be up to this week.

A Peek at the Week

• Math -  We will continue with the same unit this week. Our focus will remain with large numbers, and the skill that we will really seem to focus on this week is the lattice method of multiplication. See the link in the terrific tidbits for a great video to help guide you through the process. :) 
• Reading-In reading this week, we will continue to work on the connect to text strategy, focusing mainly on finding text to text connections. Throughout the week, we will be doing this with nonfiction articles. The two articles will be on the same subject, so we will be able to make connections between the two texts, as well as gaining more information on the topic.
• Social Studies- In social studies this week, we will continue to work in the historical fiction genre. We have been working with different books that focus on life on the Great Plains. This will transition nicely into our North Dakota studies. 
• Word Study- In work study this week, we will be working with ambiguous vowels. This includes words that include these sounds: au / aw / al
• Writing-   We will continue to work on personal narratives this week, but will also spend the beginning of our writing time learning about 2 different elements of grammar to recognize in our writing. Monday and Tuesday  we will focus on relative adverbs.  On Thursday and Friday we will focus on pronouns

Need to Knows

• We have LIBRARY  on Thursday of this week. Make sure to bring your books back on Thursday.
• There is no school on Wednesday of this week! There is a professional in service this day, but there is no school for students. 
• Even though it looks like it will warm up this week, make sure your child is still bringing winter clothing to wear outside. It can be a bit chilly, so it is important to make sure that your child has enough clothing to stay nice and warm.
• Make sure to sign and return the slip inside of your child's report card. This lets me know that your child showed it to you. 

Terrific Tidbits

• This is a great link to help describe how the lattice method works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnNvCuZ6SMw
• We had our first mystery reader last week :) My sister Hannah drove up from southern Minnesota to read to our class. :) Here is a great photo from the day.
  
  Our class was so eager to ask her a ton of questions! We still have spaces for mystery readers. If you would like to read to us, please sign up here! www.SignUpGenius.com/go/20F0F4EA9A72BA6FC1-holiday

Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope you enjoy your day off on Wednesday! 

~ Mrs. B :) 

Partial Product Multiplication

Sorry this is so late! I came down with quite the cold, and finally have had the time to post this. let me know if you have any questions!

Partial-Products Multiplication (1-digit multipliers)

This blog post is intended to help explain how to use partial-product multiplication to solve multiplication problems. We teach many ways of multiplication in 4^th grade, and this is just another method. We like to provide the opportunity to let our students discover a method that works really well for them! I know this is not the way I learned when I was younger, but now as I teach, I really understand this method, and how it could be a method of choice for different students. If you would like more explanation surrounding this type of multiplication, I would love to explain further. J

~ In this method, multiplication is usually done from left to right. This ensures that the most important products, the largest ones, are calculated first, but it is not incorrect for a student to multiply from right to left.

~ Each part of the calculation, each partial product, is written on a separate line. Then the partial products are added. This is usually very simple and has the benefit of providing practice with column addition

How to:

1.)   As a class, we make estimations to help guide us, so we have an idea of what our answer should be around. For this problem, I would estimate 800 x 6 = 4,800

2.)   Line up your factors! It is very helpful to do this! It can be beneficial to draw a dotted line down to ensure that your numbers are being properly lined up. This will be very helpful in the last step.

3.)   For this next step, you can start from the left or the right of the larger number. I personally tend to start multiplying from the left to the right, even though this is very different from what I learned as a child. J I am going to start by multiplying 800 x 6. My answer is 4,800 and I write it down in its respective place value spots. Next, I multiply 60 x 9. My answer is 360 and I write it down in the respective spot. Finally, I multiply 6x9 and get 45. This number also goes into its respective spot.

4.)   The last step! This is where it pays off to have your products lined up correctly! Add all of your products together to find the answer. In this case, I added 4,800+360+54 and got 5, 214.

This method is difficult at first, and may take extra time to use, but I have seen it be a first choice for many students. Good luck using this method, and let me know if you have any questions! 

Dancing Into December!

I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving! I know my husband and I had a great time. We started off our turkey day with a VERY chilly 5k, and I was proud to be wearing some Independence Bulldog gear as I accomplished the feat of the cold turkey trot! After that, we spent time with both of our families, and really reflected on what we were thankful for. Time and time again, I mentioned how thankful I was to have a great class of 4^th graders. Even though I enjoyed break, I missed spending time with our class. It blows my mind to think that we are officially into December and the 2^nd trimester. We have had great experiences so far, and I can’t see what else will happen. J

Peek at the Week

Math In math this week, we will be working on a few different things. We will start our week off working with deciding when it is appropriate to estimate sums of numbers, as well as practicing estimation of these sums. Tuesday, we will spend time practicing our skills through different Everyday math games and small group work. Wednesday will be like Monday, but this time we will be moving from estimating sums in addition to estimating products in multiplication. Thursday and Friday we will focus on partial product multiplication. I am expecting this to be more difficult, and will be posting some helpful hints and tips on the blog.

Social Studies In social studies this week, we will continue to work in the historical fiction genre. We have been working with different books that focus on life on the Great Plains. This will transition nicely into our North Dakota studies. J

Writing We will continue to work on personal narratives this week, but will also spend the beginning of our writing time learning about 2 different elements of writing. Monday through Wednesday, we will focus on similes.  On Thursday and Friday we will review and practice homophones, especially playing attention to their, there, they’re as well as to, too, and two.

Word Study In work study this week, we will be working with ambiguous vowels. This includes words that include these sounds: oy/oi/ou/ow

Reading In reading this week, we will continue to work on the connect to text strategy, focusing mainly on finding text to text connections. Throughout the week, we will be doing this with nonfiction articles. The two articles will be on the same subject, so we will be able to make connections between the two texts, as well as gaining more information on the topic.

Daily 5 This week in my class, as well as Mrs. Steinbrink’s class, we are going to try a new system for Daily 5. I will still meet with small groups during the Daily 5 time, so that aspect will not be different. The work being done during the Daily 5 time not in groups will be different however. We are going to give our students a little more freedom in this time. On Monday, I will be giving the whole class a set of items they need to complete during the week during our Daily 5 time. This will allow students to choose the order of our items that need to be completed. We are going to test this system out this week, and will adjust if it does not work as well.

Terrific Tidbits

~Continue to use all of the sites I have previously listed. J

~In addition to this, make sure you check the blog throughout the week. I will be posted more math help this week since our math unit will be diving into a few different types of multiplication.

Need to Knows

~ We have library this Tuesday. Make sure you bring all of your books back. So far, we have been the only 4^th grade class to accomplish the goal of having no late books. This happened once in October, and I would love for this to happen again on Tuesday.

~ Wednesday, we will have our next counselor lesson. I have really enjoyed our lessons so far, and they have taught our students so much!

~Trimester 1 report cards will be coming home on Friday of this week. Make sure to check your child’s folder on Friday. If they do not have it, let me know! Feel free to send me an email at lnelsen@west-fargo.k12.nd.us  I will send an extra copy to make sure you do get it.

~Now that we are into December, it is so important to make suer your child has warm winter gear on! Make sure they bring hats, mittens, scarves, etc. every day so they can stay warm during recess.

~Tuesday, our class will have a sub for 1 hour as I observe another teacher in our school. The primary part of that hour will be library checkout time.

I hope you have a fabulous week! Let me know if you have any questions!

~ Mrs. Becklund :) 

Perfect Pajama Day

We had a great time with pajama day this week. It was fun to have a cozy, but very productive day. We even won Buster the Bulldog! Enjoy this picture of two of our friends, with their pals from home, working on summarizing, 

Buster decided to take a selfie on this day. Here is a nice close-up of our good pal.

It's the end of November!

Wow! The time is flying! This week and the next 2 days of next week complete November. It also marks the end of the first trimester. It blows my mind to think that our year is close to a third of the way over. I look forward to the rest of our year, and next week. :) Read on to find out what we are doing this week and next week. Let me know if you have any questions.

Peek at the Week

This week, and our very short week next week, I am excited to work on new concepts and skills as well as reviewing previously learned skills. Here is a breakdown of what our week will look like.

Math: This week in math, we will be finishing unit 4. This until really focused on decimals. We will be taking our unit 4 test this week. Starting Friday, and going in to next Monday and Tuesday, our focus will shift to unit 5, which works with computation through multiplication and estimating.

Social Studies: Our time in Social Studies this week might look a little different. It will be a combination of social studies and language arts. We are going to start looking at pieces of Historical Fiction. We will first start by reading Sarah, Plain and Tall  by Patricia MacLachlan, and then read Skylark, also by MacLachlan.

Comprehension: We will continue to work with the text connection strategy this week. We will also spend some time continuing to work on the summarizing strategy, and will have a summarizing assessment this week during our small group time.

Word Study: This week in Word Study we will focus on long and short u sounds in accented syllables. WE have been doing such a great job in Word Study lately! Keep up the great work!

Need to Knows

-We have our music performance this Thursday at 8:30. 4^th grade has been asked to wear red, white, and blue for the concert. We really hope you can make it! Our class has really worked hard on their songs, and I am so excited to watch them perform. We hope you can all make it!

-We have library this week on Wednesday. Remember to bring your books.

-Book orders are due next Tuesday, November 25^th. You can order online or send your order in.

-This week we are going to start something called bucket filling. In our class, it lets us focus on building each other up by sharing kind words about each other. If you have any questions about bucket filling, you can check out this website, http://bucketfillers101.com/faqs.php , or email me or Mrs. Dorrheim, our school counselor.

Terrific Tidbits

I do not have any new websites this week. All of the websites I have recommended can be found on previous posts.

 

 

Let me know if you have any questions, and have a fabulous week! I hope to see you at the concert on Thursday!

 

-Mrs. Becklund

State Summaries

We have had a lot of practice with summarizing these past few weeks. Last week, we presented state summary projects. I wish I could have gotten all of our great posters to fit in this picture, but wanted to show you what our school has the privilege to look at each day right outside of the he silver wing.

Buster Strikes Again

All of 4th grade has really done well following the bulldog way at lunch! We have managed to earn Buster two more times since our last post about Buster. I wanted to share this accomplishment with you, as well as a picture of one of our friends with Buster. (We were having some funny making silly camera faces with him!) 

Classroom Update

Good evening 4^th graders and family members!

I hope you had a fabulous weekend. I am so sorry that I wasn’t able to post last week. I was out of town for the weekend, and got back much later than I thought I would. Hopefully that will be the only time that happens.

Here is our look at our week. Like always, if you have any questions whatsoever, please feel free to email me at lnelsen@west-fargo.k12.nd.us

Peek at the Week

Specials this Week:

Monday – Art and Health

Tuesday – NO SCHOOL

Wednesday – Library Skills and PE

Thursday – Music and PE

Friday – Music and PE

Math: This week we will continue working with decimals. At the end of the week, our focus will shift to dealing with metric units of length. I am excited for the hands on activities that will accompany this.

Reading: We are working on a new reading strategy this week! We are going to start talking about connecting to text. Our first stage of connecting to text is seeing how we can connect texts that we are reading to experiences that we have in our life. We do this to help us build our understanding of what we are reading, to predict what might happen, to empathize with characters, and so much more! Eventually we will also work on connecting different texts and text to the world/media/etc. Even though we are working a new strategy, we will still continue to work on our summarizing strategy in small groups. In Word Study, we will start working on long and short o patterns in accented syllables.

Writing: In writing this week, we will continue to work on building the paragraph. Our class has gotten pretty great at identifying weak paragraphs in writing. From this, we have also grown in being able to take those weak paragraphs and transform them into strong paragraphs that are more exciting to read. We will also continue to work on writing our personal narratives.

Science: Measuring temperature will continue to be our main focus in science this week. Once we finish this measurement investigation, we will have the opportunity to read some really great science articles to practice our summarizing with. J

Need to Knows:

~We have library on Monday, November 10.

~Our next counselor  lesson will take place on Wednesday of this week.

~On Monday we will have a fun guest speaker. My husband, Scott, is coming into our class for about 20 minutes to talk about Veteran’s day. He is really nervous about coming to speak, but I know that our class is so excited to hear from him.

Terrific Tidbits:

I do not have any extra resources for you this week. Feel free to browse previous blog posts for links. 

Remember to keep checking the blog and your email as the week goes on! 

~Mrs. Becklund :) 

Buster the Bulldog!

Starting this week at school, we have a new friend who has joined us, Buster the Bulldog. Buster appears at lunch everyday for each grade level, and then is given to the class who demonstrated the Bulldog Way during lunch. Today, we earned Buster! He will stay in our room until tomorrow. He will be returned at lunch, and then we have the chance to will again :) I hope we can have him in our room everyday! 

Here are a few pictures of us with our new pal!

Last Week of October!

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend. I can't believe that we are approaching our last week of October together! Here is a look into our week. Make sure you take some time to check the blog and your email throughout the week for updates!

A Peek at the Week

Math: We will be switching units in math this week. On Monday and Tuesday we will be taking our Unit 3 test and finishing up some assessment pieces. On Wednesday and Thursday we will jump into Unit 4. Wednesday, we will specifically be looking into extending our place value into the decimals. If you need a quick overview of place value and decimals, I have included a picture in the “terrific tidbits” section of tonight’s blog post. On Thursday we will continue to explore decimals as we work with decimals and fractions. I am so excited to dive into this unit of math! There are some great hands on activities that we will be able to do! On Friday, we will be playing some fun and seasonal multiplication and division games to keep us working on our facts.

Science: This week we are starting investigation 3: Take Me to Your Liter! Through our experiments and hands on activities, we will be exploring what a liter is as well as what a milliliter is. If you are willing to donate items for this science unit, we would really appreciate it! I sent home a flier about it on Friday, but you can also read about it in one of our most recent blog posts. We will also be taking the North Dakota Science Assessment this week on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Reading: There will be a few things going on this week in reading. We will continue to work on our summarizing skills. To do this, each student will be digging into a book about a state of their choice. They will have time throughout the week to work on summarizing the most important information, and they will share their information with the class next week. In our small groups we are going to be working on tall tales and myths. Through these, we will also talk about figurative language, especially hyperboles. J

Writing: This week we will continue to work on our personal narratives as well as building the paragraph.

Word Study: In Word Study this week, we will be focusing on long and short e sounds in accented syllables. Our class did great with the long and short a words last week, so I am excited to see how this week goes!

Terrific Tidbits

Math

~keep working on Xtramath and Everyday Math online. These sites can provide a lot of practice! https://xtramath.org/   http://emccss.everydaymathonline.com/g_login.html

~Decimal Place-Value Review 

Reading

~ Spellingcity is still important! Make sure you are still practicing your words! https://www.spellingcity.com/MrsBecklund/

Need to Knows

~We have LIBRARY on Friday, the 31st. Don’t forget your books!

~I will be gone on Friday, the 31^st at a training for the district.

~ The Chip Shoppe Fundraiser products will be available for pick up on Wednesday, October 29^th. Products can be picked up in the gym starting at 2:30 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. ALL ITEMS have to be picked up on October 29^th. Thanks for Supporting our school!

~ Halloween is on Friday, but we are not allowed to wear costumes to school. If your student wears their costume to school, they will have to change.

I hope you all have a fabulous week! If you have any questions, make sure you email me at lnelsen@west-fargo.k12.nd.us

~Mrs. Becklund J

FOSS Science Investigation

Dear parents and students,

In the upcoming week we will be entering our next FOSS science kit investigation. Throughout this investigation, we will be working with defining metric units and learning about and measuring capacity. The main purpose of this investigation can be summed up in four points:

•        Students will discover the need for a standard unit of measuring volume and capacity.
•      Students will be able to identify the standard units for measuring volume and capacity in the metric system: liter and milliliter.
•       Students will use metric tools to measure volumes of liquids and capacities of containers.
•       Students will use scientific thinking processes to conduct investigations and build explanations: observing, communicating, comparing, and organizing.

One great aspect of this science unit is the amount of hands on practice that is included. This is where we need your help. Since we are dealing with finding capacity and volume for multiple objects we are asking if you would be willing to help us collect a variety of containers for students to practice measuring capacity.

Some examples of these containers might be:

·         Juice Bottles

·         Ketchup Bottles

·         Syrup Bottles

·         Salad Dressing Bottles

·         Jam/Jelly Jars

·         Peanut Butter Jars

·         Yogurt and Margarine Containers

·         12 oz. Soda Cans

·         2 Liter Bottles

·         Etc.

If you would like to help, please send these materials with your student by next Tuesday, October 28, 2014. We appreciate your willingness to help us out in our science investigations!

Thank you in advance,

Leah Becklund, Eddy Delzer, & Lori Steinbrink (4^th grade teachers at Independence Elementary)