4th Grade Yes MA'AM

4th Grade Yes MA'AM

I had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Castetter's 4th grade classroom. Our lesson focused on Yes, MA'AM. To begin the lesson we talked about when we would use a YES, MA'AM response--when the question asked us to use evidence from the test to support our thinking. Our article was titled, "The Magic Button Box". After reading the article and question, we restated the question in our own words.

Next the students went back in the text and highlighted 2 details to support their claim.

                      

We then typed those into our response using sentence starters that the class had already brainstormed.

           

We ended our response with our closing sentence. We talked about using the phrases, "this proves" or "this is why" to start our last sentence and ending it with what we were proving. 

1st Grade Drawing Conclusions

1st Grade Drawing Conclusions

Today I had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Murphy's first grade classroom. We worked on drawing conclusions from stories (both in pictures and words). To begin the lesson, we talked about how readers draw conclusions, using clues from a story and our background knowledge. 

Next we looked at pictures to draw conclusions. The students used turn and talk and then told me what they saw in the picture and the knowledge they already knew to make there conclusion.

                                                            

The students saw that the feet were burnt. Their final conclusion was the person had stayed in the sun too long and did not put enough sunscreen on. 

See all the pictures we used to make conclusions: Drawing Conclusions

After that activity we used Google Classroom. Mrs. Murphy's students are just starting to learn to use Google Classroom and they did a GREAT job of reading the riddles, typing their answers, and turning them into me. 

                                        

To end our lesson on Drawing Conclusions, the students worked on Case Files which each had a different story that allowed the kiddos to work together and draw conclusions. At the end of the lesson, we had some groups share their story, there final conclusions, and the clues that led them to make their final conclusion. 

                                                                            

4th Grade Math Constructed Response

4th Grade Math Constructed Response

Today I had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Beavers's Classroom and use the ISTEP constructed response tool with her classrom. Our problem focused on finding area of an irregular figure and finding the perimeter with missing sides. 

We started the lesson by allowing the students 10 minutes to work on the problem on their own to simulate an ISTEP type environment. After the ten 10 minutes were up, we worked through the problem together and finishing typing there problems on the Test Nav Tool.  We first discussed the differences in part A and part B--Part A was asking for area, Part B was asking for perimeter. Students showed the 2 different ways they divided the figure to make two rectangles. We then discussed that we would have to change the dimensions of the original figure to fit just the rectangle we were finding the area of. Lastly, we practiced finding the perimeter, when all the sides are not given. We knew Mr. White needed a fence to keep the rabbits out. This lead to the discussion of how to find the missing sides. 

                       

We had a very teachable moment at the end of the 10 minutes of working on their own.

This 4th grade student had AWESOME work and an explanation.....on her paper. After the 10 minutes was up, I asked her if she got all of it typed in and she said no! I told her I was so proud of her answer, but I wanted to see her just type her answer. I used this whole class and said to just use the paper when you are solving the problems. When it comes to your explanation, use your computer and type in our answer, eliminating a step and saving yourself time.

                              

4th Grade Math Constructed Response

4th Grade Math Constructed Response

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Wagner's 4th Grade Classroom and review the ISTEP constructed response tool with her class. We started the lesson by allowing the students to click on the tools including the fraction key, improper fraction, etc. 

Our problem focused on using multiplication, division, adding and subtracting. 

As we worked through the problem we talk about different strategies that could be used to solve the problem. We also talked about when entering a division problem you would always enter the dividend first and then the divisor so your work appeared correct on the screen. 

For part C, we talked about how we could get creative and if we were unsure on long division we could show our thinking using repeated addition, multiplication, or a "drawing".  At the end we reminded the students that there are so many different ways to solve a problem. We want them to choose the strategy they are most comfortable with!