This is one of our 3rd/4th grade team's beautiful whale bulletin boards. Our class and Ms. Cannon's class will be sharing more whale art (look for a life-size image of a blue whale!) and whale research at a special Wednesday morning assembly on December 2nd. We hope some of you can come!

Writing Project 2010

We've started Writing Project 2010: 20 lines a day for 10 days, each piece scored based on its author's editing prowess. Students are working with editing tools, including a list of 150 high frequency words, a list of "confusable" words, and our Write On Track handbooks. This is my first time doing a unit like this with fourth graders, and it will be interesting to see how such attention to editing affects our writing overall.

Today's topic was "Friends" and students wrote personal narratives, descriptions, and even fictional scenes. I'm looking forward to reading (and scoring) them.

Smartboard response tools

Today Debbie Lee, Matt Goldman, and I attended our second Smartboard training. We learned how to use the Smartboard response "clickers." When in use, this feature allows each student to use a remote "clicker" to enter answers to questions. The data can be shared right away and also stored to analyze later. Matt and Debbie and I talked about potential uses for this new tool, as well as inherent limitations and possible drawbacks. If any of you have experience using these clickers, or similar ones, I'd be interested in knowing more about how they work in different contexts.

quote of the day: historic sources

Yesterday we returned to our study of "the First Thanksgiving." We reviewed what we'd learned from Edward Winslow's letter (a primary source, since he was there). We discussed the importance of gathering more information from other sources. Using the plimoth.org website noted in a previous post, we learned about Wampanoag ways of life across the four seasons. After looking at images and hearing descriptions of traditional Wampanoag activities, Waseya looked up and asked, "But…how do they get all this information?" We recorded her question so that we can return to it, and in this way we can continue to learn about how cultural practices are passed on and how historians work with various sources.

quote of the day: revision

At the end of writing workshop today, Owen said, "I used to think my essay was perfect, but now I'm taking a bunch of pieces out and putting them in different places. Now I'm thinking my essay is getting better and better than before." I smiled and shared this with the class. Many kids said, "Yeah, me too!" I was delighted to see them appreciating the satisfaction of revision.