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!