Dawsons Doing Their Personal Best

Today was such a big day for us.  The kids got to share their “small moments” also known as “seed” stories with one another.  You could have heard a pin drop in the room as they listened intently to each one of their classmates read his or her story.  They are at different stages of the writing process with some still drafting, revising, and editing but each had a wonderful tale to tell about a moment in their lives.  It was so rewarding to hear their “voice” within each story as they read it aloud to us.  While we have had our celebration we are not done with this piece.  The kids will continue to work on it at different times during the year.

Our next genre in our writer’s workshop is persuasive essays so be on the lookout!

I came across this tonight when I was looking for interesting and fun activities to go along with our reading skills and strategies for the week.  See if you can read it!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be

in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Mallard duck swimming

Camouflage

Blending into surroundings

Looking for food

We finally got to take our nature walk today after a two week hiatus.  There were a pair of trumpet swans and some mallard ducks.  One mallard duck was particularly friendly and presented us with an up close look.  I think he really thought we were going to feed him some treats!  As we were leaving to go back to school he quacked at us (most likely complaining about the lack of treats).

Hope you all had a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving break.  Now it’s time for us all to get back to work.  We have a very busy week ahead of us.  We will be having our writing celebration on Wednesday, November 30th and sharing our personal narratives with one another.  I can’t wait to see all the hard work you have done.!  We will continue our work in decimals and metric measurement and finish up our unit of study of citizenship, immigration, and map skills.  In language arts we will be reading the story Marven of the Great North Woods, concentrating on telling the difference between fact and opinion, reviewing main idea, working with homophones, learning spelling patterns for the consonant blends ng, nk, ph, and wh., and study irregular plural nouns and singular possessive nouns.   So get your brains ready and eager to do some learning!

As part of an ongoing project from a FEF grant, 4th graders take a weekly walk around Shivericks Pond.  We look and listen for wildlife and  observe changes in the flora and fauna.  We take our sketchpads with us and stop and make sketches and written observations along the way.  We are getting really good at identifying the different bird calls.

Remember that we will not have school on Friday, November 11th so that we may all take some time to honor the veterans who have helped to preserve our freedom.  Enjoy your day!