November 15th, 2012

TOMORROW IS SPIRIT DAY (JEANS AND A MERIDIAN T-SHIRT - You can buy Meridian T-shirts from Mrs. Templeman or Mrs. Warnick in the office.)

Several rounds of singing woke us up this morning.  Students reviewed SAT words and root words, worked on spelling activities.  SPELLING ACTIVITY DUE TOMORROW IS 10 WORDS GLUED FROM THE NEWSPAPER THAT FOLLOW YOUR SPELLING SORT RULES + 1 NEW WORD THAT FITS THE RULE.  DECORATE WITH A THEME.

We learned Rules 1 and 2 for subject-verb tense in Grammar.  Rule 1: Singular Subject Nouns generally have verbs that end in "s" or "es".  Rule 2: Plural Subject Nouns, Compound Subject Nouns, and the Subject Pronoun "You" use verbs that are plain (no "s" or "es").

In addition to Miss Sherman helping with specific spelling needs, Miss Brooke came in today to read with a group.  The rest of the students continued to read Johnny Tremain, in anticipation for teaching their peers on Tuesday.  JOHNNY TREMAIN PART III SHOULD BE FINISHED BY MONDAY.  Students will be preparing for Tuesday's presentations on Monday.  Yes, parents can read aloud to their child.

There are three ways for reading to be effective, with many variations on the methods.  First, a parent can read to the child.  This is so effective when it is part of an evening routine.  Parents can engage the child through open-ended questions...What if?  I wonder?  How would you have responded?...etc.  Second, a parent can read with the child.  This is particularly good for keeping children on track.  Parents and children can choral read (read at the same time), shadow read (child reads out loud just barely behind the parent), or take turns reading paragraphs, pages, etc.  This is most effective in a cozy setting, such as a lazy boy, the couch, etc.  And third, the child can read to the parent.  This is effective when a parent is looking for that "just right book".  If you want to know if the book is at an appropriate reading level, draw a quick grid 10x10 (100 squares total), and draw a slash inside every box for each word the child reads.  If a child makes a mistake, note quickly what it is, and continue with the slashes.  If a child corrects a mistake by himself, just write SC, for Self-Correct.  This does not count as a mistake.  At the end of the 100 words, count the mistakes.  If your child missed more than 8 words, the book is generally too frustrating for accurate comprehension.  If he or she missed 4-8 words, it is a good book to read with the child, to explain the vocabulary.  If they missed 0-4 words, the book is at their independent level, and they can easily read the text and pull the context of new vocabulary words from the text.

In addition, children are striving for fluency... 4th Graders 120-140 words per minute and 5th Grade 140-160 words per minute.  Yes, we are working hard!

TOMORROW IS THE LANGUAGE ARTS TEST.  4TH GRADERS WILL BE TESTED ON ROOT WORDS, AND 5TH GRADERS ON SAT WORDS, AS WELL.

Math was story problems. Students used beans, sequins, blocks, etc, and divided them into equal groups.  88 sequins became 8 groups of 11; 24 blocks became 4 groups of 6, etc.  We compared the algorithmic method to the bar model.  Students formed opinions of which was easier.  We did Exercise 17 in class.  HOMEWORK IS EXERCISE 18.  Please check their homework for neatness.  I didn't give the class the point for homework because students didn't write the answers into a sentence and lots of the work was sloppy.  We committed to be tidier in our homework.  The class was so well on task throughout the whole class period, that everyone got to choose from the prize bag.

Today our class was split for Art.  From now on the 4th Graders will have Art Tuesdays at 2:30.  The 5th Graders will continue with Art Thursdays at 1:30.  It was fun to visit with the 4th Graders.  We reviewed the root words, brainstormed Type III projects, and worked more on Global Scholar testing.

For History, we learned that the thinking of America was changing because of the Intolerable Acts.  We learned that people stopped considering themselves Virginians, New Yorkers, etc, but started thinking of themselves as a free nation, Americans.  The students were touched that other colonies helped the Bostonians after the Tea Party.  Flour, sugar, sheep, even Fast and Prayer days...were all given to Boston.  These colonies knew that if the king could treat Boston like this, he could do the same to them.  They began to unite and the Committees of Correspondence kept citizens abreast of all activities throughout New England.  Students worked with a partner (not one they would normally choose) and produced a visual representation of one of the 10 chapters we have reviewed.

Minicourses were introduced for the rest of the year.  Students can choose from criminology, holiday poetry, crafts, ballroom dance, cooking gifts, historic changes of Bethlehem, symbolism, etc.