News and Notes 1/9

News and Notes

From Fourth Grade

Engineering Process

Ask.  Imagine.  Plan.  Create.  Improve.  These are the steps of the engineering design process that the fourth grade engineers have been using this week.  The task given was to create a pencil holder.  The materials available were various types of paper, tape, staples, and glue.  The fourth graders worked in engineering teams and followed the steps of the design process.  We worked through more than just engineering and science skills in this activity.  We also focused on cooperative learning and brainstormed how to work collaboratively with different people.  In the end, the fourth grade engineering teams created models of their designs and also made plans for how they will break the manufacturing process into steps.  Next week we will turn these single models into a larger scale manufacturing challenge as the fourth graders create their own assembly lines.  Science, math, engineering, cooperative learning, and a bit of imagination all come together for one fun and hands-on fourth grade learning adventure!

Arguing...Respectfully

At Simonds School we have three major school rules: be safe, be respectful, be responsible for learning.  Even the youngest of students is able to recite these rules within the first few weeks of school.  The fourth graders could easily restate these rules in their sleep!  So this week when they were told they were going to learn how to argue, red flags of warning went up that they would be breaking the "be respectful" school rule.  However, after some clarification, we learned that we were in fact going to learn a very important writing and speaking skill: the ability to form and defend an opinion statement.  This week the fourth graders started work on a simple prompt to begin their work in persuasive and argument writing: What is the best school activity?  Why do you think so?  As is our habit, we started working through the steps of the writing process beginning with brainstorming.  We narrowed down our brainstormed list to one activity and then each writer carefully crafted a strong opinion statement that will serve as the "topic sentence" for our persuasive paragraphs.  Next week we will focus on forming supporting sentences that will use facts to defend our opinions.  In the next couple of weeks we will work together to sharpen our writing and speaking skills of persuasion, with the understanding that we will use these skills in an academic setting, and will, of course, remember to argue respectfully!

Self-Monitoring

Fourth grade is a special year for so many reasons.  One amazing aspect of our development is the awareness of ourselves as learners that begins to flourish in fourth grade.  This week we talked about being "self-monitored" readers.  We discussed how we should be asking ourselves questions as we read to make sure that we are really understanding what it is that we are reading.  What an exciting time of learning when we transition from learning to read to reading to learn!  This is a life-long pursuit and it's so fun to be able to be here for the fourth graders from the outset!  With each book they read, as they develop their self-monitoring skills, they will grow and learn in unprecedented ways.  How exciting it is to be a part of this community of fourth grade readers!