Reflex Math is Back!

"Students will demonstrate fluency of multiplication and related division facts with ease"...................that is one of our benchmarks in mathematics. This means that students can recall, with automaticity, answers to basic multiplication and division facts (0-12). The exciting news is that Reflex Math is back- an engaging, online resource tool for our students that builds this fluency in fun, engaging ways. All Wild Adventurers now have their 4th grade accounts set up- all they have to do is log-on and let the fluency building begin! After designing their own personal "Avatar" (mini-me), they will participate in a fluency typing test, receive a math mini-lesson, and then engage in timed, fluency building practice with their multiplication and/or division facts. This online program scaffolds to each individual child's needs, offering re-teaching and additional practice with facts often missed by your child until mastery is achieved. This program also offers reward incentives, as students earn coins and points which can be redeemed in the "store" for Avatar "flair"- new hats, sunglasses, jackets, and other cool stuff to keep them motivated. Best of all, teachers and parents can track student progress and run reports to document progress. It is recommended that students participate in Reflex Math fluency building 3-4 times each week. Each session lasts approximately 20 minutes. Our students will be logging in and participating in Reflex learning activities while at school, but it is also helpful if they can spend time learning from this valuable resource at home too. Mrs. Phillips will give each student his/her new username and password for Reflex when we return to school after Labor Day! Happy Fluency Building!!

Reading Bingo!!!

Who doesn't enjoy a good game of Bingo every once in a while?  

Photo Credit: Darwin Bell via Compfight cc 

The only problem with Bingo is that it's a game of luck.  And just as you can have days when your luck is really good, you can also have days when your luck is really BAD.  So, winning is out of your hands.  

But that's not the case with Reading Bingo!  Your success is completely in your hands!  You are in charge of your life as a reader, so it's all up to you!

As you've seen already, Reading Bingo is a little different from traditional Bingo, and many of you have questions about the "rules of the game".  I'll do my best in this post to help clear up any confusion, but if you still have questions after reading this, please feel free to leave a comment.  I'll reply to your comment here so that others can see the answer, too.  (Usually when one person has a question, someone else is wondering the same thing and just hasn't asked yet!)

Is Reading Bingo required?

Yes.  Reading at least six books per nine weeks is required for fourth graders.  However, it is up to the reader if they want to try to achieve a Bingo by reading five books in a straight line or not.  (Remember, the sixth book can be anywhere else on the card.)  In order to receive the prize, you have to "read a Bingo" (complete a whole row, column, or diagonal).  

Why do we have to read six books each nine weeks?

Each year, readers throughout Chets Creek are challenged to meet a reading volume goal.  Because readers naturally read different types and difficulty of books as they grow and change, the goal changes based on their grade level.  We call this reading incentive program at Chets Creek "Readers to Leaders".  The fourth grade goal is to read 25 chapter books each year.  In order to make the goal easier to manage and pace, we've divided that into six books per quarter.  (We count all the miscellaneous magazines, articles, short stories, picture books, and more that we read in class all year as the 25th chapter book.)  Meeting this quarterly goal is how readers earn their Readers to Leaders award.  

How do I receive credit for reading a book?

After a reader completes a book, they should refer to the back side of their blue Reading Bingo instruction page.  The back side lists MANY different choices for responding to a book.  Choices range from sitting down one-on-one with me in class to have a conversation about the book, to writing a short summary,  illustrating a new book jacket, acting out a scene from the book, recommending the book to their class with an informal book talk, or even to a variety of digital projects.  Really, the possibilities are endless!  Readers can select the "You're the Boss!" option and present any idea they're interested in pursuing to Mrs. Nash.  If it's doable, we'll try it!

Do I have to respond to every book I read?

Readers must respond to any book they read in order to get credit on their Bingo cards for reading the book.  Six books is the minimum requirement.  Some readers are challenging themselves to reach a "Double Bingo" or even a Blackout!  Other readers just want to meet the Bingo goal and then read for the love of reading without responding after their sixth book.  These are all acceptable goals and choices.  

Will this be graded?

Since independent reading is such a large part of our work in reading workshop, yes.  Reading Bingo is graded.  Students receive a grade based on the percent of the six book goal they complete.  This is a small portion of their ELA grade.

When is Bingo due?

On the front of the blue instruction page, you will see a series of dates.  These dates are pacing checks.  With the exception of the final due date, these are not hard and fast deadlines.  Since students are graded on percent completed of the six book goal, grades for Bingo are not entered into the gradebook until the final due date.  (For this quarter, the final due date is October 24th.)  The pacing checks leading up until that point are merely checkpoints intended to help readers stay on pace to meet the final goal.  With that said, readers who fall significantly behind in their reading rarely catch up to meet the final goal, so please do monitor these dates. 

How can I support my reader in this process?

You can support your reader at home in a variety of ways.  

• Provide a good 30 minutes or so in their evenings (Monday through Friday) of uninterrupted, devoted reading time.  
• Whenever life gets hectic (sports schedules, dance classes, special projects, family needs), be sure to encourage reading on Saturdays and Sundays to make up for the lack of time on other days.  Reading can be a great downtime activity for everyone in the family!  
• Make a habit of asking your child how they're doing on book completion.  Some readers have bad habits of frequently abandoning books before completion.  These readers have difficulty reaching the six book goal.
• Help them track the titles of the books they've completed on their blue Bingo sheet and their actual Bingo card.  If I find that they've written a book's title in a square on their bingo card, it's much easier to help them correct their card if they also have them written on their blue pacing guide.
• Encourage your reader to choose good fit books for them.  If your reader usually reads books that over 200 pages in length within a few days, and you find them returning to series books from years gone by so they can read more books faster, remind them that reading books that are TOO easy is not what reading is all about.  (Remember what makes reading the best and the worst?)  At the same time, if they're stuck in a book for days and days, are making very slow progress as they're reading, or appear to be reading the same page forever, perhaps this book is too challenging.  Ask them to read a page out loud and do the "five finger check" to see if it is a good fit for them.  Students should be able to read a whole page of text without missing more than 3 words on the page.  
• If they've been itching to read the next book in a series they love, but that book is 400 pages long and you're worried they won't have time to finish it, be careful not to discourage them!  Rather, remind them to request a conference with me (using our conference sign-up notebook in the classroom) so we can discuss making this work for them as a reader.  
• Encourage your child to read one book at a time.  They should be reading a chapter book that they bring to and from school each day, just like grown-up readers do.  Once they finish reading for the night, be sure they put the book straight into their backpacks so they'll have it all day at school the next day.  

This is a lot of information to soak in, but I'm sure many of you still have questions.  Remember to leave your questions in a comment on this post so other families and students can learn from your wonderings, too.  

Students, what questions do you still have?  How are you doing in your personal game of Reading Bingo?  Are you enjoying it so far?  

Write the Rainbow

Photo Credit: Micky** via Compfight cc

Grab your pencils, fetch your notebooks, and get ready to WRITE!

Writers, there's only one thing I love more than writing, and that's a good writing CHALLENGE!  "What's a writing challenge?" you say.  Well, just as we set goals to help ourselves become better readers, we should set goals to become better writers.

One year, I set the goal to publish one piece of writing a day -- every single day -- for a month.  I did this by participating in a challenge called NaBloPoMo, which stands for National Blog Posting Month.  It was TOUGH.  There were plenty of days within that month when I was exhausted.  I felt like I had nothing to write about.  Many nights I sat at my computer in the hours approaching midnight, nodding and dozing off in the middle of a sentence.  But, I didn't quit.  I stuck to it and reached my goal!

That's not the only challenge I've accepted.  I've also challenged myself (on multiple occasions) to write 750 words PER DAY for as many days in a row as possible.  I even belong to a special website that helps me count my words & track my progress!  This challenge is EXTREMELY difficult, but I keep trying to improve, over and over again.

For your first challenge, we'll start small.  This week, you'll receive a special label in your planner each day.  Complete all FIVE of the OPTIONAL writing assignments by next Tuesday, September 3rd, and you will be invited to an exclusive LUNCH BUNCH celebration in the classroom next week.

In order to participate, you need to:

• Write one full page of text on the given topic.
• Write in your writer's notebook. (Remember to head each page with the date and an "H" for "home".)
• Make each piece the best writing you can produce.  
• Write neatly enough that someone else can read your writing.  (Remember, these aren't published pieces, so they won't be perfect....but they need to be legible.)
• Submit all five completed pieces to me on Tuesday, September 3rd.  NO LATE ENTRIES WILL BE ACCEPTED.

Now I understand, writers, that sometimes we don't succeed the first time we try.  For that reason, you can also earn TEN Behavior Bucks for every completed piece of writing you submit on Tuesday the 3rd.  And I know all of you mathematicians are already thinking, "Cha-ching!"  And you're right!  That means FIFTY BEHAVIOR BUCKS if you complete them all!

So, what do you think?  Are you up for the challenge???

Sensory Safari

Our adventurers thoroughly enjoyed our incredible "WOW" school opening last week! Over the course of three days, students visited six different thematic environments (Africa, Europe, North America, Cats, Florida, and Birds) to view and explore a plethora of taxidermied animals in order to learn about their structural and behavior adaptations, instincts, roles in various food chains and webs, and more! Enjoy the slideshow of pictures which highlight some of the incredible animals that we saw on our adventures! Here is the Sensory Safari on PhotoPeach Students, leave a comment to share your favorite aspect (and why) of our Sensory Safari Adventure. Sign your post with your first name only!

Learning from a Favorite Author: Patricia Polacco

This week, we kicked off our writing workshop with a few lessons from one of our favorite authors, Patricia Polacco.  We began by reading an informational book she wrote, titled Firetalking.

In this book, Polacco tells us about her life, showing us how she gets ideas and inspiration from the people, pets, places, experiences, and stories from her real world to create books for us to enjoy.  Her beloved pet cat, Tush, inspired the story Mrs. Katz and Tush.  Her mother's childhood memory of a meteor crashing into her front yard inspired the story Meteor.  The more we read her books, the more we learn about her.  Summers with her father and his love of horses inspired Mrs. Mack.  Her older brother Richie really is red-headed, as in My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother.  As writers, we can draw a link between her sources of inspirations and our own.  

If Patricia Polacco wrote about her cat Tush....then I could write about my pet, ____.

If Patricia Polacco wrote about her brother Richie....then I could write about my brother/sister.

If Patricia Polacco wrote about her mother's memory of a meteor...then I could write about my ____'s story of the time when they ____.

If Patricia Polacco wrote about her love of making pysanky eggs...then I could write about my hobby, ____.

But that's not all Polacco taught us.  In Applemando's Dreams, Applemando "dreams up" amazing ideas, to his friends' delight, until the elders of the village tell him these dreams are bad.  Once these negative voices are in his head, Applemando can no longer dream until his friends help him feel safe enough to try again.  Similarly, in Junkyard Wonders, the students of room 206 feel like they're not as good as the other students in the school.  In fact, they think they are junk!  

Even the best of writers have struggled with feelings of self-doubt at times.  Some writers might hear this voice of self-doubt so loudly that they, like Applemando, stop dreaming up stories and ideas to write about.  But good writers know that their ideas are worth writing.  We will never write something really good if we never START WRITING.  

In order to squash those negative voices in our minds, we've learned a few strategies.  First and foremost, we've given ourselves permission to write ANYTHING.  Any idea is good enough.  Just like Polacco said of her own art and stories in Firetalking, we might not get it right the first time.  We might need to try that story again and again.  But that's OK!  That's what good writers do!

Another strategy to overcoming those feelings of self-doubt is to use "thinking prompts" as we write.  For instance, perhaps when we sit down to write, the only idea in our head at the time is something we think doesn't sound "good enough".  We can begin our writing with the words, "One idea is..." and continue with the "not good enough" idea we're thinking.  Then, just let our minds keep rolling with it as we write.  We can follow this "not good enough" idea until we feel better ideas brewing.

One idea is pink Converse.  Pink Converse standing firmly in a row.  Pink Converse, navy Converse, fancy, new high tops and shiny, black ballet flats, all standing at attention, watching as they raise the flag.  Today was our first flag raising.  Our school gathered in the bus loop to hear Mrs. Phillips speak.  Flag raisings make our school special.  They're part of what it means to be Chets Creek.  I remember when I first came to Chets Creek..................

 Other thinking prompts we might try are:

• The words I'm hearing are....
• What I'm thinking right now....
• I could try to write about....

Beginning our writing with these phrases has a way of quietening those nasty voices whispering in our ear, "No, no, no.  You can't write about that.  That's not good enough."

We have more to learn from this amazing author, Patricia Polacco. Writers, as you continue in your writing life, be sure to remember these important lessons.  Every idea we have is good enough to try writing at least once.  In room 211, and everywhere else in our writing lives, we have permission to write ANYTHING!

Building Our Lives As Readers

Even though I'm a reading teacher, and I absolutely LOVE to read, I know that reading isn't always at its best.  Reading, quite frankly, can even be THE PITS at times!  As readers, it's important that we are aware of this, and identify what makes reading better or worse for us as individuals.  Once we've identified the problems, we can take steps to improve our lives as readers by fixing or avoiding these problems in the future.

In class this week, we found that many of us have similar pet peeves, or irritations, as readers.  For instance, reading can be rotten when...

• noise (brothers and sisters, dogs, classmates, radios, etc) disrupts our reading.
• we are uncomfortable. 
• we are too tired.
• we don't like the book we're reading.
• the book is too hard for us.

But, there are lots of times when we've loved reading!!  We all seemed to agree that reading is the best when...

• we can see the story in our mind (mind movie).
• we feel like the characters are real, perhaps even friends of ours!
• we can talk about the book we're reading with other people.
• we can read without interruptions.
• we can read the words with ease and speed.
• we are interested in the topic/genre/author.

Understanding and noticing the patterns in what makes reading a good or bad experience for us is the first step to improving our lives as readers.  If we know what ruins reading for us, we can take steps to correct or improve those things so reading at its best!

For instance, if we know that we cannot tune out noises easily and distractions make reading unenjoyable, then we can make it a priority to choose a place where we can read away from interruptions.  If we know that being forced to read a specific book puts a bad taste in our mouths, then we should make every effort to choose appropriate books for ourselves so no one else feels the need to choose for us.  If we know that reading books that are challenging frustrate us, then we must be certain that every book is a good fit for us when we read independently.

Good readers are in charge of their own lives as readers.  The first step to being this kind of good reader means being aware of ourselves as readers -- our preferences and our peeves.

Readers, what is something you've learned about yourself as a reader this week?  What do you need for reading to be at its best?  What are you doing to prevent reading from being at its worst?  

Leave a comment answering these questions.  I can't wait to hear from you!

How to Leave a Comment

There is nothing a writer loves more than readers!

In the world of blogging, that means one thing: COMMENTS!  Leaving a comment on a blog is like smiling and sighing to yourself when you finish a really great book, or breaking the silence with an out loud chuckle, just loudly enough so the others around you crane their necks to see the cover of your book, as you read.

But comments do more than just let us know you're reading.  Comments are a direct line to the authors, who, in this case, are your teachers!  If you have questions or noticings that you couldn't address in class, this is a great place to mention them.  Often times, you are not the only one with those thoughts buzzing around in your head.  We can then answer your question or address your concerns by leaving a reply comment here, writing a new post, or contacting your directly (email or conversation in class).

Now you might be wondering why you shouldn't just send us a note or call us directly instead of leaving a comment.  The great thing about commenting here is that EVERYONE can see your comment.  Many times, friends and classmates are able to answer questions quickly and clearly, and often, your thoughts and noticings can spark new ideas in their minds.  In this way, this blog helps us to extend our classroom conversations beyond the four walls of our actual classroom.  It allows us to continue the conversations we started in school.

Knowing why we love comments might not be enough to get readers commenting, though.  You also need to know HOW to leave a comment.  Follow this easy tutorial to get started!

1.  After reading a post, look for the footer in the gray box.  Click on the reddish words that tell how many comments are on the post.

2.  Once you've clicked on those words, this box will appear.  Type your comment in the white box.  Include your FIRST NAME in the body of your comment.  Be sure to read it over before you choose "Anonymous" from the drop down menu below the box.  After you're sure the comment is ready, click the "Submit" button. 

3.  This preview box will then appear.  You will need to read the blurry words and type what you see in the box, to prove you're not a virus programmed to leave spam comments on thousands of blogs.  In this comment box, the commenter would need to type "areenext 11" in the box.  Finally, click the "Publish" again.

4.  Ta-daaaa!!! If you see this highlighted message, "Your comment will be visible after approval," then you've done it all correctly!  Your comment is now in our inbox, waiting for us to give it the green light.  After we make read the comment, we'll post it for everyone to see.  

Now that we've got all that cleared up, what are you waiting for?  Try it out!  Leave us a comment right away! 

Welcome to Wild Adventures in 4th Grade!

Welcome to fourth grade at Chets Creek Elementary!

This year, we will use this site to keep students and their families informed about all of our academic units of study, classroom happenings, schoolwide events, and much more.  Before we get too far, we'd like to take a moment to show you a few features of our blog.

In order to ensure you don't miss any important information, take moment now to subscribe to our updates.  In the top box of the sidebar, type your email address in the box right below the heading, "Subscribe to Wild Adventures Here!"

A new window will open that looks like this:

Type the confirmation code in the box and click, "Complete Subscription Request."  Afterwards, this window will open.  

This box explains that you will receive an email from "Feedburner Email Subscriptions".  Your subscription is not complete until you open this email and click on the link within the body of the message.  

After you've clicked on this link, you will be taken to this page:

Congratulations!  NOW you will begin receiving all updates made to this blog emailed directly to you!