National Geographic Giant Traveling Map

Finding Alberta, Canada after a Skype to a Class in Camrose!

Talk about seeing the world up close! This past week we had the opportunity to get our hands AND their feet on the Giant National Geographic Map.  Quickly taking off their shoes, my students rushed over to explore the mammoth "Map of North America".  Squeals of delight could be heard as the students found various states and features.  On the day of our first visit we just so happened to have skyped @weswils5 's class in Alberta, Canada.  It was so fun to watch the students crowd around the province on the map! A stronger, 'bigger' connection was certainly made.

I had no idea such a thing exsisted! The map which measures 26' by 35' was brought to my attention by a parent last year. It was rented for two weeks through the generous donation from our Parent Advisory Council. All the classes in the school were able to visit the map at least twice during the two week rental period.

Simon Says: Put your Right foot on a state with...

The first time we visited the map we played a "Simon Says" type game to familiarize ourselves with the map. "Simon Says find a state that begins with an M" or "Simon says put your left foot in the Atlantic Ocean". These type of statements had the students visiting different areas of the map.  The next activity was based around using the "Cardinal Directions". Using the compass rose, we found locations on the map while stepping North, South, East and West.  Student gained a better understanding and appreciation of directions after this activity. It's wasn't as easy as one would think.  Another activity involved finding particular states. Each child was given a card with a state name & had to find that state as quickly as possible. It sure was a lot of fun exploring the states in such a manner.

Every day the students asked if we were going to visit the 'giant' map.  They not only loved the size of it, but they loved exploring the different features.  Each time, someone learned something new! It makes me think that we need to be incorporating more activities like this in our classrooms.

Maps are fascinating on many different levels. Some folks may argue that 'reading a map' is not longer relevant due to technological advances and GPS systems.  Others say that reading maps lead to 'global learning'.  Witnessing the allure and attraction of these enormous maps makes me realize that students LOVE learning about places using visuals (especially one bigger than life).

How do you use maps in your daily lives? Does your child enjoy reading road maps?

Welcome Class of 2014-2015

Welcome to the Fourth Grade.  Planning on you having a wonderful year of learning with your classmates and me! This blog will provide a "window to our learning" for you, your families, relatives and hopefully many others.  (What I love about this blog is that you and your families can leave a comment in the section below!)

Fourth grade is such an exciting year.  We will spend the first week or two getting to know one another and working on some team building activities.  We will also spend time building our reading stamina. We will start out small and reach the goal of reading at a sustained pace for 30 minutes! You will be hearing a lot about the Daily5 which will give you many CHOICES on your reading journey. This year we will continue with our new math program called EnVisions.  I think you are going to enjoy learning math with the help of this program!  I have some new and exciting lessons planned in Science and Social Studies as well.

During the summer I went to a conference and found some great websites that will help us as we are learning and make your days in our classroom exciting and fun.  An app I hope to use in the classroom is called "Plickers" and the other is "Do Ink".  We will be using "Class Dojo" to keep track of homework!  Let me know if you can find out anything about any of those apps!

We are going to have a great year!  Looking forward to meeting you and getting to know you.  Please fill out this "All About You" Survey. (click on these words: All About You) It will help me get to know you before we meet face to face!  Click and you can get to know more about ME!

Please leave a comment below and tell me something that got you excited this summer!

I'll be looking out for you on the first day of school.

Random Acts of Kindness

"Ms. Albert, says, that everything we do goes out, like a ripple into the world." This excerpt is from the book, Each Kindness, written by Jacqueline Woodson, which Mr. Dearborn read to the class the other day as part of "Inclusive Schools Week".  The story is about a young school girl who misses several opportunities to befriend a classmate.  She finally makes a decision to be friendly to the other child.  The end of the story is not what one would expect (ask your child to share the story ending.)

Adding a rock for each kindness shown

The students (and I) were moved by this book.  So much so they were asking if there was a sequel. It gave us an opportunity to talk about friendship, inclusion and simple ways to make someone feel connected.   Next we discussed "Random Acts of Kindness".  Students brainstormed how to "Treat Others Like You Want to be Treated".  A few thoughts included: holding the door for someone, passing the ball to someone who usually doesn't get it; help find a missing item and Smile at someone.  

Knowing I must do something with these ideas,  I decided I needed to find a way for students to create "ripples" of their own.  I grabbed a container and filled it with water.  As I have a container of rocks in my classroom I grabbed those too.  And so, the Ten Days of Boyden Random Acts of Kindness was born.  Each student who performs a RAK at school will drop a rock in the container at the end of the day.  We will celebrate the ripples that will surely ensue from these simple yet grand gestures.  

Creating Ripples of Kindness

We started on Friday and were able to collect 12 rocks in our container.  While hoping to fill that bucket before the holidays the long-term goal is that these acts of kindness will continue way beyond our holidays and creep into our lives by habit!

Students:  What are some ways we can extend this to our lives at home?


Others:  What are some other RAK that could be added to our list for school?


Resources:

Cybraryman: Character and Ethics. This collection is filled with all kinds of resources for Character Education which includes Random Acts of Kindness

Random Acts of Kindness Foundation

20 Random Acts of Kindness for Kids: A list of other ideas that go beyond the classroom. 

 

Using Google Docs

Zack showing off his "bats"

Our district has gone "Google Apps for Education" which means that we are using "all things Google"....gmail, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.  With this initiative our school recently received a couple class size sets of "Chrome books."

Well, Room 310 couldn't wait to have a chance to use them!  Students first started by learning the different ways to log in to their Google Accounts.  Using their school usernames and passwords they can easily access their accounts from school and home!

Next students learned how to create a folder where they will place all their digital work.  That folder was shared with me along with any items that get placed in the folder.  Check out this video that Morgan and Shaylyn made showing how easy it is to create and share a folder.

Thanksgiving Dinner by Maggie S.

After that, students learned to create a document.  The first document they created was about their "Scary Stories". (These narratives are a work in progress).  As an added incentive students were allowed to add a "Drawing" to their work.  Using the Drawing app in Google the kids quickly were able to add a complimentary drawing that added to their stories.

This process was repeated again when they formulated their Jack Prelutsky-style Exaggerated Poems about Thanksgiving.   Please check out the examples.  Great poetry & great drawing!

What I love best about using Google documents is that I can give immediate feedback in the form of comments on student work - WHILE they are working.  As they are each writing I can literally "see" what they are doing from my computer and make suggestions, corrections without drawing the attention of other students.  More to come on this later!



Students:  What advice can you give others about using the Document or Drawing apps?

Spooky Writing

There's nothing quite like Halloween to inspire creative writing.  Our class took advantage of this spooky season to generate some narrative stories.

First, the students learned how to "hook their reader" by incorporating "sound" as part of their entertaining beginnings.  Using this haunted house image as inspiration, students quickly brainstormed different sounds that could be associated with this picture.  Various sounds and ideas such as "Squeeaak! The front door slowly opened" or "Creak! The stairs made loud noises as I walked up tot he door" and "Ohhhhh! Ahhh! I heard the moaning of ghosts from inside the home." became the opening sentences of student narratives. 

Sharing the creature

Next on the Narrative Writing Diamond after Entertaining Beginnings is "Elaborative Detail." This technique asks the writer to stop the action and describe in 'detail' a character, setting or object using the 5 senses.  To aid in this process the students first brainstormed the types of creatures which might appear at this house on Halloween.   This would fit nicely with our theme of Halloween.  However, it had to be something more special than just drawing a creature.

In comes Wonderopolis and a quick lesson on Totem Poles.  Students each fashioned a Halloween creature to use as part of their writing project, which would then be placed with their classmates' creatures to create a Halloween Totem Pole. We modeled how to write an Elaborative Detail segment and then students had the opportunity to add to their Spooky stories. 

It was exciting watching students' creatures and stories come to life!  Here is part of Michaela's first draft:  Squeak! A little mouse ran by just as I looked up and saw an old run down house.  As we came closer to the old house the scarier it seemed.  My friend said "You go ring the doorbell while I run!" As I was walking up the steps to the unlevel porch, I yelled to my friend "I think I just saw a ghost in one of the dark windows!" I was about to ring the doorbell, but I spotted a black and dark brown creature staring down at me.  It was the size of three apples put together. The creature had a long, shiny wing and bright, round eyes. 



Students:  What was your favorite part of the writing lesson?

Others:  What creatures can you see in our totem poles?

 

A Homemade Horned Toad

 

 

 

Kate holding our homemade "horned toad"

Before reading "The Horned Toad Prince" many of the students did not know the horned toad is really a lizard (including me!).  While the story which is a "Trickster Tale," based on the story about the "Frog Prince, doesn't mention this fact, the students did some extra research. 

The students discovered the horned toad is about 4 inches long and has the weight of a quarter.  It was a bit hard to imagine so we found a ruler about 4 inches long and taped a quarter to it.  The students were able to better visualize what this interesting little creature. 

After listening to the story and reading it together, the students created a Tall Tale using vocabulary from the story.  It was fun to read as the lesson included instructions to add a hyperbole or two.

Generating number as well as geometric patterns was a focus in math this week.  During math we are trying to incorporate centers using the    

Shaylyn doing At Your Desk Center

M A T C H acronym.  M stands for "Math Facts" - students at this center practice their math facts by going on XtraMath or using worksheets.  A means "At Your Seat". Students work on individual activities which include review topics or topics being studied. Students at the T center work with me on the current topic or a review lesson.  C stands for Center Games.  The Scott Foresman program came with Games that can be played for each lesson.  H is the "hands on" center.  This week the students used pattern blocks and created patterns and their partner had to predict the 15th block in the pattern.

Of course we rounded out the week with the class's favorite "Chicken Fat Friday" (to be explained in a later post!) 

Parents:  What did your child come home excited about this week?
Students:  What did you enjoy working on this week? Please leave a comment below! 

We Proudly Recite the Pledge of Allegiance

Each day the students at our school (like many other children across the country) recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of our day.  Not quite sure the students fully understood words like: pledge, allegiance, republic, nation, indivisible, liberty, and justice, I decided I would review the meanings of those words.

After reviewing the meanings and participating in a "Reader's Theater" about the pledge, the students in our class have a new found appreciation when speaking those words each day.  They respectfully recite the Pledge now with greater understanding.

This video by former comedian, Red Skelton, had the students sit up and take notice.  He mentioned two things that really got the kids wondering.  After listening to it, can you guess what the kids questioned?

At the end of the week the class presented the Reader's Theater about the Pledge of Allegiance at the school assembly.  It was our hope that all the other students would become more competent with the meaning behind The Pledge.

Even though there is still controversy about saying "The Pledge" in schools, our students proudly recite it each day.

Students:  Which word in the Pledge do you think is the most important and why?