In the Mailbox

Our first postcards arrived!! It is SO EXCITING!!

Ms. Leom's Class's first post cards

Ms. Leom received cards from Iowa, Hawaii, Arizona, Alaska, Washington, Georgia, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

Mr. Greninger's Class's first post cards

Mr. Greninger received cards from Maine and Colorado.

Last year we found there were some state favorites, states we had many cards from. We LOVED this!! People shared different facts and details, offering a new opportunity to learn something with each card!

Our excitement when we discovered the postcards this morning!

Students often want to bring home their postcards to show their families who sent what card. We discourage bringing cards home. The cards only count if they are IN the classroom. Parents are welcome to visit and peak at our collections when they come into school. We will send all the cards home later in the year with the student they were sent to in the classroom.

Thank you for ALL your efforts to make this happen! It is an exciting learning opportunity for ALL of our students, and we couldn't do it without the support of our families and friends!! Students are filling in their own maps in class. The maps will be kept in our Homework Folders, so families can peek at our progress and the states we have collected.

(map Ms. Leom had on the board so we could fill in on our own individual maps)

Ms. Arens has nearly thirty postcards!! Keep them coming!! It isn't about how many, it is at least one from each state ... and sometimes that is the hardest part of the contest!

BML Unit 3

This week we started the third unit of Benchmark Literacy. Our Comprehension Strategy is Make Inferences and our Metacognitive Strategy is Visualize.

We started our learning by visualizing what was happening in the following poster and making inferences:

On Tuesday, Ms. Leom read an article from the St. Cloud Times. She read it on Sunday afternoon. It is by local author, Douglas Woods, about Red Squirrels. As she read, she invited the class to visualize. We had many smiles and giggles as students imagined the squirrel running across the floor and the squirrel dropping pine cones on his head!

Our lesson on Tuesday had us using visualizing and making inferences as we read, "A Trip to the Archives". We were able to talk about character traits too.

At the end of the lesson, we discussed why we are learning about making inferences.

"We make inferences, because it helps us understand what we read. It helps us understand:
* what characters feel * character traits * what the characters are doing and * more!

We will also read about "Etna Blowing Its Top" and "Preparing Food Safely" as we develop our visualizing and making inferences skills.

Postcard Race

The GREAT FOURTH GRADE UNITED STATES POSTCARD RACE IS ON!!!

Rules:
The object of the game is for each class to acquire one postcard from ALL 50 states in the United States before the other classes. Each class will work as one team! The way to acquire a state is simple. Call, write, fax, or e-mail as many people as you can from different states and ask them to send a postcard from their state to your class at Milaca Elementary School. When we receive a postcard, the entire class will color in the state on the map of the United States. The FIRST class to acquire all 50 states will be the winner!

What to do:
1. Communicate (call, write, fax, text, or email) with friends, relatives, acquaintances, or business associates from a state that YOU, YOUR PARENT, RELATIVE, or FRIEND know. Ask if they would like the participate in the "4th Grade United States Postcard Race". (Remember, use your manners).

2. Ask participants to address the postcard to YOUR CHILD in his/her homeroom class with Mr. Greninger or Ms. Leom's name.

3.) Possible information to write ont he postcard includes: interesting facts about their state, where they live, and/or the capital of their state. It would be great if the postcard picture represented the state in some way.

4. Remember: All postcards MUST BE POSTMARKED from that state and be delivered directly to school! All postcards must be personalized. Students will present the postcards tot he class by reading them aloud to the class as they arrive. Postcards, brochures, or other information sent in envelopes does not count!

Postcards should be addressed to:

Milaca Elementary School
(Your Child's Name)
C/O (Homeroom Teacher's Name)
500 HWY. 23 W
Milaca, MN 56353

Thank you so much for your participation! We are excited for the race to commence!

Outside

Although it was a reward day today and our students were able to choose from three movies: "Little Rascals" (the "new" version, which they called the "old" version), "G Force" and "Air Buds"  - the baseball one, most of the fourth grade class also found some extra time to appreciate the beautiful October temperatures.

Ms. Leom's class poses for a class picture.

Really enjoying ALL of these special moments with this group of fourth graders!!

Fluency

This week, we are focusing on fluency in class. Students are learning about using a "small pause" when we read ellipses, periods, commas, questions marks, colons, semi-colons, exclamation points, hyphens ...

We have used echo reading (Ms. Leom reads a sentence and the class reads a sentence), choral reading (we all read together as one voice), and partner reading (take turns reading with a peer).

The pictures are all jumbled up ... some showing Ms. Leom's class, some Mr. Greninger's class, some from our practice on Tuesday in Flex, some from our practice on Wednesday in Core ...

We were readers this week. We are readers every week. It is exciting to HEAR the progress as students are reading!

Students were encouraged to read to younger siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, neighbors, pets, stuffed animals, and even their adults over the weekend to show off their progress.

So exciting!!

Our Guest

Elissa Brente from Visions For Learning was a guest teacher in Ms. Leom's classroom today for Mr. Greninger's class. Milaca Curriculum Director Amy Notch, sixth grade teacher Mrs. Udstuen, fifth grade teacher Mr. Follmuth, and Ms. Leom were all observers as Ms. Brente modeled a lesson using Benchmark Literacy this morning. It isn't enough that we "show up" and "just teach". We WANT to be effective. We WANT to be providing a top-notch education for our students. We are thrilled with this opportunity for coaching and improving our teaching skills.

Note the lesson goal is written on the board.

Writing

Whenever you start something new, you have to start with "baby steps". You just take a small piece at a time, and start with what you think you know. (Also work in "pencil", so if you need to erase, you can!)

When I started Benchmark Literacy, I just started with the Core Lessons. Each week, I pick a new goal to add. One week, I added the Word Work. Another week, I added the technology, pulling the posters up on the Smart Board or being able to post the paper students are using to learn on the board. I "tweak" and improve my previous skills each week. Another week, I started the Writing.

This doesn't mean that students were missing out on "technology" or "writing", I just was using what I knew and what I had used previously to teach fourth graders. There was writing in the daily work, for Student of the Week, the "Constructed Written Response", and the "Write to Sources" within the Reading Core lesson. There is a whole other LEVEL of writing that uses the writing process (prewriting, rough draft, editing and revising, final draft, publishing), the six traits (ideas, organization, word choice, voice, conventions, and sentence fluency), and teaches students to write specific genres. The writing also has mini lessons for Grammar that the students immediately use IN their writing (not just a worksheet that is out of context from the writing).

To start the Benchmark Literacy Writing, we start with the "first 30 days". This is setting up the writing workshop, the procedures, practicing, and setting up the expectations.

The BEST part of this 30 day process ... our students are itching to write and share their stories. Music to a teacher's ears!!

Coming soon ... your