eBooks

Those teacher workshop days are monumentally important, even the days when the teachers want to be home on Winter Break. While Winter Break started for students on Thursday December 22, teachers came to school for various meetings, trainings, and work. One of our trainings was about two opportunities to connect students to eBooks.

This week, Mrs. Vickers was able to hook up our students to her app, Open eBooks. It is a library that allows students to check out (download) ten books at a time through a connection to the New York Public Library. There are so many titles that we have IN our libraries, new and old favorites.

Meanwhile, Ms. Leom, with the help of her new afternoon high school helper, Lauryn, helped set students in both classes up with Epic books. For educators, the access to the eBooks are free. Here students can access thousands of titles and topics. Again, all "real" books in electronic format. This e-book option, available on-line and in an app has audio opportunities, quizzes, and more. Ms. Leom or Mr. Grenigner can log on and see who is just "flipping pages" (the term used) or reading. It tells the number of books and amount of time spent reading. This is the eBooks that Ms. Leom is using most this week, so it is what she is most familiar with for the time being. There is a free 30-day trial for families who would like to visit Epic! and experience the magic. Please contact Ms. Leom if you are interested. She would need to input a parent email to link the account, so students could read the same book at school and home.

The BEST part of these new apps, all students want to do, is to sit around and read. Really. It is music to a reading teacher's ears.

Annoying

This week, Ms. Leom's Olweus (bully prevention) class meeting was about those times you are annoyed. She tapped a pencil on the table to make her point. We brainstormed some ideas of how we can be our own advocate.

Sometimes, when people are annoying, it isn't about "you" at all. Sometimes they have their own conversations or song beats in their head that just tap their way outside their heads and into our space. Sometimes we can be less sensitive and use our words to communicate.

How does this fit into bully prevention? When you stand up to bullying, you need to find your voice. It is best to practice and use your voice on the daily matters, so you can be better prepared when it is a bigger event. Also, many of our students in fourth grade think that many things that happen to them and around them are about them, when often the original event isn't related or connected to "them". When you can view the overall event and how it isn't related to you, it is easier to walk away. We are building conversations and community.

Pourquoi?

The genre we are studying is Pourquoi Tales. Pourquoi is the French word for "why". After studying the features and reading some examples, students read a longer example of "Why Thunder Chases Lightning".

Students read the texts independently. They took notes about the setting and point of view on a sticky note. Then we came together for a group discussion about the other features of a Pourquoi Tale. During our group discussion, students had times to "turn and talk" with a neighbor and compare their notes.

Pourquoi (why)? Because we are developing our reading skills.

Kids

Kids need to be kids. On Wednesday, the temperatures were too cold to be outside before school. We had testing all morning. So Ms. Leom took her class into the hallways to MOVE.

Then, we found "GOLD". Shhh ... there was an empty gym, so we stepped in and ran a couple of laps. It was joyful to hear the footfalls and hear the chatter of kids being kids.

It was an inside Recess day too with the colder temperatures. SO eXcItEd that we were able to stretch our legs and voices and be kids!

StudentVUE

This week, Ms. Leom started the process of helping students get connected to StudentVue. Parents use ParentVUE to access on-line grading and information. StudentVUE is a similar access.

From this week on, Mr. Grenigner and Ms. Leom no longer need to print out daily missing work. Students can check their grades daily and see their missing work. Students can also use their passwords to access from home. As soon as we work through the glitches, it will be part of our daily routine.

OPLA's

I googled OPLAs, so I could write down what the letters stand for to share. The top result of my google search, a blog entry I wrote two years ago about OPLAs that says, I don't know what they mean. On longer days at school, among staff, we joke they are the "Oompa Loompa" Tests, referring to Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory characters. Basically, it is the practice test for the MCAs (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment).

Thankfully, we have Milaca Curriculum Director, Mr. Wedin to help us set put the test and troubleshoot any technological glitches.

Mr. Greninger and Ms. Leom's classes were ready to take the Math version on Monday. The unplanned evacuation moved the test to Tuesday. On Wednesday, we took the Reading version.

Participating in any Minnesota State-wide testing is highly regulated with training and protocols to make sure every student has a fair and equitable experience. This is students in Ms. Leom's class opening their computers and beginning to load the site. Everything that follows you will need to ask your fourth grader to tell you more!

Puzzling

The last week of January is National Puzzle Week. In Ms. Leom's classes, we celebrated this week by practicing our United States and capitals.