Mrs. Wright's Fourth Grade Class
Updates, News and Photos of our awesome days at Baker Butler
Room C-11
Where the learning and magic happens..
Baker Butler Elementary
Our window..
This window is decorated each season with different clings. The students love it.
Third Quarter Updates!
My goal for the second half of the year is to be able to share the amazing learning going on in our classroom with the families of my students. I will be putting together this online newsletter every few weeks for you to see. We have done so many things in the first half of the year that I wish I could have shared with everyone. I have hundreds of photos of your students learning, growing and taking risks together. They have spread their learning through the school as they became circuit experts and trained ALL the second graders on how to build circuits. They have worked in cooperative groups and learned to synergize and play to their stregnths. They have formed a close knit community and have made new friends. This first newsletter will share some of the things from the first half of the year as well and the current things they are working on.
The third quarter of school is well underway and we have been very busy! In reading we are working our way through an awesome novel (Holes) and practicing fiction comprehension as we read. We are also beginning new novels or continuing on with current novels in our small reading groups. Each group is reading a novel on their instructional level and practicing skills and fluency along the way. In writing we are focusing on our speeches and letter writing this nine weeks. We began reading response journals last quarter and the students are becoming very skilled at writing about what they are reading independently. Its a great way to communicate with me about books! My favorite topic! In math we are becoming experts on fractions and decimals. We are working our way through a science unit on weather and electricity as well. In Virginia Studies we will focus on Jamestown for the second half of the quarter.
The third quarter of school is well underway and we have been very busy! In reading we are working our way through an awesome novel (Holes) and practicing fiction comprehension as we read. We are also beginning new novels or continuing on with current novels in our small reading groups. Each group is reading a novel on their instructional level and practicing skills and fluency along the way. In writing we are focusing on our speeches and letter writing this nine weeks. We began reading response journals last quarter and the students are becoming very skilled at writing about what they are reading independently. Its a great way to communicate with me about books! My favorite topic! In math we are becoming experts on fractions and decimals. We are working our way through a science unit on weather and electricity as well. In Virginia Studies we will focus on Jamestown for the second half of the quarter.
A peek at our first half of the school year...
First Week of School!
Making new friends and seeing old ones again!
Enjoying time in our classroom!
Buddies!
Reading and Writing together!
Mindfulness and Movement!
Learning about each other!
Cooperative group learning!
Rule making and tough decisions!
Working Hard!
Time learning with friends
Celebrating International Dot Day with some art!
Dot Day Art
Mya writes in her journal
A very cool science experiment!
Measuring paper airplane distances
Jeffrey was a grade level finalist!
Noah was a finalist as well!
Camp Albemarle field trip!
Fun at camp!
Sign Language at Camp Albemarle!
Sebastian being a "maker" and extending his thinking!
We LOVE "read to self" time!
Comfort and reading!
Teaching first graders to stack cups is a BIG job!
Cup stacking teamwork!
Lana is an awesome cup stacker!
The blue group chooses their next novel as a group
Noah and Jurnnie working hard to be circuit experts!
Girl time on the way to the UVA basketball game!
Circuit building with second grade!
Lighting up lights!
Leading the second graders
It was so exciting to see Santa on the reindeer cam!
Waving to Santa!
A sweet decorated Miya!
It was a very Happy Holiday in room C-11!
These sweet children LOVED their classroom elf so much!
Twinkle rewarded the children for their kindness and sweet spirits!
Searching for gifts and treats from their elf "Twinkle"
Noah has some incredible Christmas spirit!
Our gift Jamie
Now its a new year!
We returned to school in 2016 ready to hit the books! However, the weather seemed to have other plans. Between work days, days off and snow days it felt like the third quarter took forever to begin! We finally seemed to dive in deeper once the snow was over! In reading we jumped into a new fiction novel that the kids are loving! All fiction skills are being reviewed and practiced through this novel. The students are also reading novels on their instructional levels in guided reading groups. They are also each reading a novel of their choice as their "read to self" book. We are writing about what we are reading each week in our reading response notebooks. We are also writing speeches which will be presented on February 24th. Things are busy in our language arts block!
Holes!
The students answer questions and search for text evidence!
Reading for evidence and supporting our answers with the text!
An example of a great letter in a reading response journal!
Technology in the classroom!
Quiet places to learn, read and work!
A New and Exciting Project!
The students are so excited to begin our next big learning adventure! They are in cooperative groups and working together to plan a way to show their thinking through minecraft EDU! One group is building the setting of a novel and building in puzzles from the book. Another group is working on showing math concepts through a "math mansion" in minecraft. Our third group is building Virginia as it was when the first explorers arrived from England! There will be facts, quests and even a ship! We have almost finished our plans and will launch our virtual worlds next week! We are so lucky our school has access to minecraft EDU and we plan to use it to be examples to other schools and teachers who want to use the program for learning! Its very exciting!
One group plans their story setting and details!
Another group meets and discusses which materials will help them teach about early Virginia!
Quin helps the math group get ideas down and organize their mansion!
A little break from the books to celebrate love and friendship!
Our valentines party was great fun! We finished watching The Lorax, passed out cards, ate treats and enjoyed each other! Thank you to all the families who sent items in!
Jeffrey had a great box and lots of smiles!
Horeb celebrated happily!
Crystal shows off her box and treats!
Lovely Lana!
Evan checks out his mailbox!
Card passing and reading our mail!
Quin gets his fortune read!
Sebastian demonstrates the fortune fish!
Thank you so much for thinking of me! I felt SO loved!
Grades and hard work...
One last reminder....
Parent portal is now open for you to view the most recent report card, as well as the grades collected since quarter three began. Please remember that parent portal is open all quarter and you can monitor your student's grades daily. I will continue to send home all graded work as well as electronic grades in the blue Friday folder but parent portal gives you an inside view of your student's average. You can also see if assignments are missing and check in with your student regarding whats going on in class. As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. My goal is to send out a newsletter like this twice a month (so the next one wont be so long! Sorry about this!) so you can see the amazing things going on here at Baker Butler, but please also keep an eye on parent portal and remember- your student is an expert on what is happening in room C-11!
Parent portal is now open for you to view the most recent report card, as well as the grades collected since quarter three began. Please remember that parent portal is open all quarter and you can monitor your student's grades daily. I will continue to send home all graded work as well as electronic grades in the blue Friday folder but parent portal gives you an inside view of your student's average. You can also see if assignments are missing and check in with your student regarding whats going on in class. As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. My goal is to send out a newsletter like this twice a month (so the next one wont be so long! Sorry about this!) so you can see the amazing things going on here at Baker Butler, but please also keep an eye on parent portal and remember- your student is an expert on what is happening in room C-11!
Mrs. Ashley Wright
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the mean to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea" Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Email: AWright3@k12albemarle.org
Location: 2740 Proffit Road, Charlottesville, VA, United States
Phone: 434-974-7777
Weekly Homework!
Weekly homework is given out on Mondays and due by the next Monday. The students should also be reading nightly (out loud, reading to self, reading with you) and working on their speeches which are being sent home nightly until February 24th. Please help your student write, type and practice their speech so they are ready to present!
Event Information
Speech Presentations!
Come to room C-11 if you would like to watch your student present his or her speech. Please contact me if you need more information!
When?
Wednesday, Feb 24, 2016, 08:30 AM
Where?