Mr. McDougall's 4th Grade Blog: Thursday Highlights

Thursday, January 7, 2016

We started the day with quiet independent reading. The students moved around the room, checked out books, took AR tests, and the teachers read with selected students to monitor progress. Then we moved into our lesson today which was going over the Project Based Assessment Writing Prompt.
We read the prompt and talked about the three key requirements that it expects from the students. We agreed that we had already covered all of the requirements so this was a fair assessment of what they have been learning.
Then we went over the rubric which showed how the would be scored.
Our next step was to, as a group, fill out a pre-planning graphic organizer to put our basic ideas down on paper in order.
Finally, we co-wrote an extension, as a class, for The Year of Miss Agnes. The students saw in action how the planning page is just the skeleton of the idea. The actual extension is much longer and more detailed with descriptions, dialogue, and sequence linking words. It has a situation that needs to be solved. It has an ending that gives closure and solves the situation. Then the students went to work on their own planning page.

After going over the reading comprehension and math fact practice pages from homework, students moved to the front floor for Number Talks. We worked with numbers close to 100 and strategies for adding in their head. After that we did the daily number review which was a subtraction problem.
We started chapter 7 by reviewing the key vocabulary words for the unit. Then we watched Professor Burger give us a preview of the lesson. Finally, we did the interactive lesson with Rebekah Rabbit. Today's target was dividing with 2's. We practiced using the skip counting method of repeated addition to check. As a whole group we worked through the daily assignment.

Today was the social studies test. We let students work together and use their book to answer the questions from the test.

Homework:

Mr. McDougall's 4th Grade Blog