Winter Break Bash!!!!

What a day we had on Friday to celebrate our last day of 2015!!   Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who pitched in to make our Winter Break Party run so smoothly (those that worked behind the scenes and those that helped during)--especially with my being less energetic and spirited as I would have hoped to be.   What a TEAM effort!!!!   The kiddos loved their celebrations!!  

After enjoying Lunch Bunch (yay to the district for fixing our speakers this month, making Lunch Bunch a possibility again!), we headed down to the Angel Tree assembly.  To our surprise, the teachers mimicked our celebration and participated in Minute to Win It games as well!!!   I couldn't let down Team Wilkinson, so I channeled some hidden strength and beat Mr. Beatty, Mr. Treacy and Mrs. Hanke in "Christmas Ball". 

Check out the collection of pics below from our day...

Happiest of holidays to each of you this holiday season...may you be blessed with time together and many memories!!    I can't wait to hear how everyone spent their break :)

-Ms. Wilkinson 

Does this sweater make me look...

Happy Holidays from this (ugly sweater wearing) Team!!    

The show must go on...

Huge thanks to Rex today for taking over for me...I can't wait to see how this story ends (and I knew if we skipped Read Aloud today, I may not make it to the end!)!!  

Kudos to Team Wilkinson for their awesome display of good listening habits :)

WOW Weather!!!

When can you say that on December 11 it was perfectly acceptable to wear this to recess?!?

We are LOVING this weather and soaking it up at recess today!!!   

Battle of the Books!!!!

Today Mrs. Dallaire and Mrs. Seitz  formally introduced us to the "Battle of the Books" books!!!   Our school wide competition will be in February; with the district competition in late March at Crestwood Elementary.   Students that are interested in being on a clasroom team should read at least 8 books from the list in preparation for the test that will help select the team.  Students need to know both the title of the book and its author for the competition.  

Below is the book list and each student received a bookmark that will help them keep track of the books they have read (and give them reminders about titles and authors)!!   

Happy reading team!!!

(...and no pressure, but Kenwood Station will seek to defend its 2015 BoB title at the 4th grade level!!) 

Unknown Numbers - Thursday 12/2/2015

Here are the lesson and practice problems for Thursday small groups.  Your job:

-Copy GQ and date

-Take notes (HINT: write the RULES, there are 2)

-Listen as many times as you need...as you work the problems in your notebook and need help, simply rewind :)

Study Guide help - Estimation

Here are our rules for estimating quotients...reminder, test Friday!!

Happy Thanksgiving all!!

Happy Thanksgiving Team!!!    Wishing you all a safe and enjoyable break :)

In case they express differently, here's their reaction when I asked who was ready to clean their rooms, do dishes and hang out with family for 5 days:

Long Division Review

Hey Kiddos!!!

Need a quick refresher on our long division strategy?!?   Here it is!!!

One step that I skipped over was estimating my quotient.  We'll review this practice in class.  Estimation is a great first step because it lets us know if our quotient is reasonable.

(p.s.  Apologies for the sniffles...apparently we really do share everything in Team Wilkinson!!)

Family Journal by:Sadie

Dear daddy and summer
thanks for visiting the blog today we have had a great week on team Wilkinson so let me tell you about it.
         In math we have started a new unite its division it is kind of easy but kind of hard for me. So you might know how to do it don't you? it is really fun to learn. you should try it. it is really fun
         In literacy we are reading I survived the Japanese tsunami,2011 it is a very interesting book. You should really read it. we are already on chapter 4. the begin was kind of sad but it is really cool.
         In science we are learning about fast earth changes. like land slides and volcanoes. it was really fun.
I hope you enjoyed my family journal and all the stuff we have learned this week on team Wilkinson have a great weekend see you next week on team Wilkinson.

                                                                                                                     love,                  
                                                                                                                              Sadie

Family Journal by: Logan R

Dear Mom and Dad,
                     Thank you for visiting the blog we've been learning a lot of new and cool things
this week and I am here to tell you about them. For greeting we saw the golden spoon award it went to another class in the other grades but it's still super fun to go to it starts on Mondays sometimes.
                      In math we've been learning estimation and super verbs do you know about that
or do you not because I can tell you about it. A super verb is a word like this Explain, Justify, and Prove. And I remember that you don't really don't know how to do Partial Quotients I will teach you how here's how you do it. Ex.                    
                                                             260 divided by 9 you would multiply anything under that
                                                                                   number like 180 - 260 170- 90= 80- 72= 8
                                                              anything you multiplied add it up and that's the answer
                      
                      In literacy we learned how the setting matters like it can change you like your
mood and the characters actions also it changes the plot. The best book we've read that we have to do the setting is cloudy with chance of meatballs. And I am going to tell you about a little about writing
to in writing we've been writing about story's about sentences. And also we've been reading about a tsunami book Its "a I survived" series its a series about people that survived super super bad  things
                      In science we've been learning about landslides I now that they are caused by
rain and if your next to a hill it can happen. We've also been learning about volcanoes lately they are super cool. And I am going to talk about my favorite volcanoes my favorite one is a composite one.
                         Great news!  Since I typed my journal this week, you don't have to worry about signing my red folder!! :)
                                          
                                                                                                  Sincerely,
                                                                                                    Logan 

Kahoot!!

Ms. Wilkinson's math group is synergizing today and creating review Kahoots! for our division unit.   Students are writing their own questions, determining answers and assigning alternate answers to create their assessment.   

We even had time to play Charlotte & Anna Cate's Kahoot:

Crystal Ball - Math Extension

Kiddos - Here is the link to your Crystal Ball.  Remember to track the data you are using and finding :)   See you at 1:35pm!

Our Mission...

What a great day today!!!   We synergized this morning to complete the Writing Process and created our class mission statement.  We were also introduced to TodaysMeet, where we can give compliments to classroom leaders as we see them!  Check out the mission we will strive to achieve the throughout the school year:

Team Wilkinson Mission Statement

2015-2016

 

Team Wilkinson believes we are responsible leaders who follow the 7 Habits all day long.  Our main priority is working as a team and giving our best effort.  We are always prepared for our learning as creative problem solvers, writers, inventors and engineers.  We are an honest, hard-working, and respectful family.  We are all friends in Team Wilkinson.

 

Our goal is to maintain our strong character and high expectations, while setting an example for our younger Tigers.   

I infer...

Ask your child about making inferences using artwork...such CREATIVE minds and hard workers!!  

Today, we discussed using adjectives to make our writing more descriptive. Then, we graffitti'd our table to capture our thinking before we crafted our inference.

Water Weathering and Erosion

On Friday, we explored the slow change water has on landscapes.   The slow drip eventually weathered the original land formation (represented by birdseed) and eroded into an entirely different looking landscape.  

Thanks!!!

Thank you to Mr Stogner, our WatchDOGS volunteer on Friday!!   Not only did our boys appreciate the time he took in helping us solve our reading mystery; but he was quite entertaining at lunch, helped us practice division strategies and even showed us how a broom works most efficiently!!

Thank you!!!! 

RRW Guidance with Mrs. Moore!!

Leader of the Week

Today, at our first Monday Morning Huddle, Mya was honored for being the Leader of the Week in 4th grade!!!     Mya displays her habits regularly by Putting First Things First and taking care of her responsibilities and then always asking how she can lend a hand to others, including teachers.  She is a kind hearted student who shows respect towards all learners and the fourth grade is very proud of her for her work this school year.

Congrats Mya!!!! 

(And high five to Logan, who played photographer this afternoon...well done kiddo!!)

Parent Teacher Conference Info!!

Please sign up for Fall Conferences!

Here's how it works in 3 easy steps:
1. Click this link to go to our invitation page on VolunteerSpot: http://vols.pt/mgXr8N

2. Enter your email address (You will NOT need to register an account on VolunteerSpot)
3. Sign up! Choose your spot - VolunteerSpot will send you an automated confirmation and reminders. Easy!

Note: VolunteerSpot does not share your email address with anyone. If you prefer not to use your email address, please contact me and I can sign you up manually.

Just a bit of Vitamin D to keep us going :)

This beautiful weather this week reminds me of last Friday, when we took advantage of some awesome weather and took our work outside!!   A great way to kick off our Fall Break and reward Team Wilkinson for strong stamina during our math test!!!

Hope your Fall Break is treating you all well...see you on Monday morning!!

My favorite part...

...of our morning is Fluency!!  Team Wilkinson has recently taken over, all on their own, and leads their own choral reading practice. Great leaders!!

Rock Cycle

Have you heard about our fun science model this morning?   Ask your child how we used Ms. Wilkinson's favorite thing (sweet treats!) to model the rock cycle!!   Have them use their vocabulary to explain what eat picture represents.

p.s.  Several mentioned showing this model at home, all you need are 3 different colored Starbursts!!

Unit 3 Vocab - Math

Our mathematicians are working very hard on their "Number Talks"...the conversations we have to share our thinking and processing during problem solving.  Here are some important vocabulary words your child can practice at home:

multiples - the pattern of products 

factor - any number, when multiplied by another, that results in a product

composite - a number with more than one factor pair 

prime - a number that has only 2 factors 

composite - a number that has more than 2 factors 

multiples - the sequence of products of any number 

multiples* - can be found using skip counting  (*this is the strategy, not the definition*)

composite - a number that can be represented using more than 2 arrays 

array - a visual representation of a multiplication number sentence 

product - the answer to a multiplication problem

Models and the Earth

Today our scientists learned that scientists use models to represent their research, thinking and understanding. We built models of the Earth's layers...please ask your child what each color represents and how we created this model; including what we captured in our Notebooks.