News and Notes 10/17

News and Notes

From Fourth Grade

Values

When we think of values from a philosophical stand point, we think of what holds significance for us.  I'm not sure of the history of the term "place value," but I do know that these concepts hold great significance for our whole system of mathematics.  This week the fourth graders spent some time reviewing and analyzing place values.  We talked about patterns we observed (the repetition of "ones, tens, hundreds," and the base-ten system).  We also learned to watch out for small, but important, pitfalls of place value.  We found the importance of the commas and how to watch out for zeros in large numbers.  The fourth grade mathematicians are so keen to move forward and work with larger numbers, but before we can do that, we first have to make sure we all know place value and can work within the confines of this important piece of our base-ten number system.

Fix Up and Fancy Up

Fourth grade writers have been hard at work with week.  They have transitioned into the role of editor.  They worked on editing their own stories, working with a peer to edit, and finally had a "teacher edit" where they presented their final draft.  The editing and revising step in the writing process is so important, but also requires a great deal of focus and effort.  Editing for punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and indentation take some very careful reading of stories.  Then onto these editing components, we added revision for content.  We focused on three of the main writing skills we have addressed so far this year: sticking to a main idea, adding descriptive language, and using strong and precise verbs.  The fourth grade writers took to the role of editor very well.  It isn't an easy job, but we now have a full class of fourth graders who are able to do it!

I Can...

"Why do we have to do this?"  "I can't do it!"  "I don't want to do this!"  These three are fairly common refrains in a typical fourth grade classroom.  Students, and maybe sometimes their teachers too, find it difficult to always be intrinsically motivated to do the work set before us.  The solution to this problem of lack of motivation or understanding of the end goal?  Reminding ourselves of the goal and phrasing it in a way that shows what we can do.  This year at Simonds School there is a new practice we are putting in place.  At the beginning of each lesson, students can look to the board and find an "I can..." statement.  This statement, based on the standards and objectives for the lesson, tells the students what they will be able to do as a result of the lesson.  In these small statements students are given a clear and concise idea of what the main objective is, as well as a sense of affirmation that this new skill or concept will be something that they truly can attain.  Although the system hasn't completely broken all of our bad habits and lack of motivation, it has certainly gone a long way to help us see our goals and work harder toward meeting them!