Weeks 3 & 4

We in 4th grade had a short week last week due to the Yom Kippur holiday and a field trip later in the week. Here are the highlights from the last two weeks!

1) Our Seesaw blogs have posts ready! We would love comments to further the literature conversation. Please connect with us so that we can comment on your posts!

Mrs. MacGibeny's 4A Homeroom Blog

Mrs. Lakatta's 4B Homeroom Blog

1) Students met with their Book Club groups members and began to discuss their first book. Book Club is a dedicated time where a group of students commit to read a set number of pages each night, staying together, then meeting during the school day in Language Arts class to discuss the book. At the beginning of each Book Club meeting, students are filling out this worksheet to help spark conversation.

To help our students plan, we are using this document to help each group guide their reading with their Book Club members. In addition, students are also selecting other shortlisted books to read on the side which they can read at their own pace.

2) Students discussed writers' tools in their books and made #BookSnaps focusing on our modified Newbery criterion: Did the author’s writing keep me interested with unique elements and interesting language? Below are some examples!

3) Using the class read aloud One Crazy Summer as our model, we directly taught and reviewed character development from the modified Newbery criteria. Students then chose one of the sisters from One Crazy Summer (Delphine, Vonetta, or Fern) and made a character trait web in Seesaw for that character. The goal is to now add character trait webs for characters in their Book Club books and discuss in Book Club, "Do the characters come to life in a believable way?' Examples of the Seesaw character trait webs from One Crazy Summer are below.

4) As a way to organize our Seesaw activities, teachers made folders for each of the books on our Newbery short list that are currently being read in Book Club. The hope is that we will have several pieces of Seesaw work that provide evidence supporting or questioning modified Newbery criteria. Screenshots are below as well.

5) We are planning to use our Makerspace to collaboratively design (and possibly build) mini replicas of the setting in Book Club groups.