Edamame Taste Test, Book Group Conversations and Tia teaches us aboutCosta Rica!

Thanks 4th Graders for supporting Becky in the cafeteria by choosing Edamame for the taste test, prepping it for 752 students to try and making table top fact sheets about Edamame!  All of this while also completing their FINAL SBAC tests!  Yahoo.  We have two friends who are busy with make-ups but the rest of us are done!  We will celebrate with other 4th and 5th Graders on Friday with an extra recess and treat!

Thank you Tia for starting to share about your adventures in Costa Rica and Panama!  We all had so many questions and were so interested in the wildlife and amazing lands!

Our classroom has started Book Clubs!  Students are using the FAB 4 Model to record Predictions, Wonderings,Vocabulary needing Clarifying and Summaries of their reading assignments.  Students are reading one of 3 Jean Craighead George books titled One Day in the Desert, Prairie or Tundra!  One day students complete the reading assignments and the next day the land in their small groups for meaningful conversations.  They then use progressions to reflect on how well they were prepared for their discussions, they types of questions they asked, their safe, responsible, and respectful behavior and lastly their ability to stay engaged and on topic for at least 20 minutes!  The hope is that thru these Book clubs students can learn about a biome, learn how to use the Fab 4 strategy to stay engaged in their reading and how to productively have a conversation about a shared piece of text!  We can all learn from one another and together we are smarter!

We are winners!

Today two middle schoolers came in to tell us the poster winners for kick butts week. Many people made posters for tobacco prevention and we had four hard working winners. All of the posters were amazing and they really showed lots of hard work. Way to go class!

So much to say...

Endeavor 4th Grade has not skipped a beat!  Students this week began SBAC testing and persevered and persisted through computer glitches and long testing windows!  We finished with smiles and even shared about the parts that were fun and interesting facts that we learned from the reading passages!

During math class we strived for accuracy and precision with subtraction problems.  We are using a variety of strategies to solve 4 digit and larger problems.  We are using our 6th sense-our Number Sense to find out which strategy is best for each problem. We have to really look at the numbers and think about the strategy that will be efficient for finding the difference.  Ask your child about constant difference, standard algorithm and number line.

Thanks to Ella and Elena we had a little fun science activity!  Using household products Ella and Elena made SLIME with each child in our class!  So food coloring stained hands and a tupperware with brightly colored slime coming your way!  Thank you Ella and Elena for bringing in all the supplies, running the station and cleaning up!  We loved the M&M's too and will enjoy them throughout our testing! Keep the slime at home and use it as a relaxation tool!

A long overdue thank you...I absolutely loved meeting with all of my Endeavor families last week. Your children are amazing and have grown so much this school year!  Thanks for sharing them with me!

Enjoy the weekend!