Juicy Nibble

Here I am with Nathan after the Ladybug 5k. I finished in 24:15, which is a personal best for me. I saw Declan before the race, and he wished me good luck. I saw O'C out on the course, near the finish. Both he and his mom were yelling "There's Mrs. Williams!" That felt great!! Mrs. Bradley was the first teacher to finish the race, so make sure you say "congratulations, " when you see her.

A Big Bite

The past two weeks have been action packed in room 23. We have started our first interactive read aloud, Mr. Popper's Penguins, in reader's workshop. Our focus for this book is character traits, making predictions, questioning, and answering open response questions. As a class, we have read over 200 books so far this year! Thanks to Hayley, Alyssa, Declan and Thomas for donating books to our classroom library from the book fair!In writer's workshop, many of us are getting ready to publish our first personal narrative. Poetry Fridays continue to be very popular. We read, If Not For the Cat, by Jack Preltusky, and are working on writing haikus with a Halloween theme. Multiplication is all the rage in math, and students are working hard on mastering their math facts with speed and accuracy. We have been to the technology lab a few times to practice. Click here to visit the website we use for speed drills. In addition to visiting the tech lab for math, we made another visit this past week to begin our study of the heredity unit. Click here to visit the site we researched. Everyone did a great job on the maps and globes test and we have begun our study of Mexico! In Open circle we have focused on calm breathing and the school listening look. These are great skills that we all need to practice. Our morning yoga sets are going well; ask your child to show you the poses we have learned so far. On Monday we will celebrate Halloween with a day filled with Halloween themed activities, and we will race our Puff mobiles against the other fourth grade classes. Don't forget your "Party in a Bag." Monday will also be a special day because we will welcome Nick to our class. Everyone is excited to meet Nick and welcome him to our class. I hope to see you at the Ladybug 5k!
Mrs. Williams

Author Alert

Attention all Lunch Lady Fans! Jarrett Krosoczka will be appearing at the Wellesley Free Public Library next Thursday, October 27th at 4:00 This event will be sponsored by the Wellesley Book Store. Click here for more details.

Spotlight on...

The picture was taken this summer when Nathan played keyboards for Mr. Barrett's Rock Band Camp. The band is called The Skulls, and they rock! Their two most famous pieces are "Louie Louie" and "Wild Thing". Nathan has been playing piano for four years now, and is actually quite good. Mr. Barrett's band was his first exposure to rock n'roll!
Looking good, Nathan!

A Big Bite

It was a short and quick week in room 23. The children tell me that the days pass quickly and they enjoy how busy we are; there is little time to lose focus or get "bored." We have completed the launching unit in Reader's Workshop and will begin our first interactive read aloud this week. In writer's workshop, many of us are finished with the first draft of a "seed idea," and will begin another draft this week. Poetry Fridays continue to be a highlight of writer's workshop. Students are able to take the skills they are learning in writer's workshop and apply them to writing poetry. We have completed chapter 2 in math and will begin multiplication next week. On Monday, we will go to the tech lab for the first time to practice multiplication and division facts. Do you know how to find exact locations on a map given latitude and longitude degree points? The 4th graders in our class do! We played "Who will drive the bus and run the GPS," this week, and we all agree that Pat should be the driver! We used the microscope to view salt crystals and pond water samples. Kate's sample from the marsh behind her house had some of the most fascinating organisms. Thanks to Kate and her dad for obtaining such a great sample on such a rainy night! There will be a social studies and a science test this week; study guides were sent home last week. Monday is library, don't forget your book! We are continuing to make good progress with transitions and behavior at specials. I think we earned 4 parrots last week; great job everyone, keep it up! Thanks to everyone who brought in wipes to help keep our desks clean and germ free!
Mrs. Williams

Juicy Nibble

A fun time at the MOS in Boston today at the Pompeii exhibit. Arvind and Shoyaib were able to join me and my family. Here is Shoyaib with Liv and Luke and lots of body casts. Very cool!

Bookworm Buzz

Two great books to tell you about. Clementine and the Family Meeting, by Sara Pennypacker, is the latest installment in the Clementine series. I LOVED IT!!! As usual, Clementine has some interesting challenges to face, and she does it with the help of our family. The marvelous adventures of Clementine continue!

Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick, left me awestruck! I was able to make so many personal connections to this book; I couldn't put it down. The story is told side by side, 50 years apart, and involves the Deaf community. It reminded me so much of my work with American Sign Language and how important the Deaf culture is to American Society. The illustrations are outstanding! The story is so meaningful and I thank Brain Selznick for writing it. Take a minute to check it out! When we viewed the video, the students thought Mr. Selznick looked so young, but I am younger! They couldn't believe it. Oh well.

Spotlight On...

Here is a photo of Declan! He received his "3rd Degree brown belt w/stripe". The test took almost 3 hours and included running, board-breaking and multiple physical challenges. Awesome job Dec, you should be very proud!!!

A Big Bite

4th grade continues to be fun and full of new learning. We are wrapping up our launching unit in reader's workshop and everyone is doing a better job of choosing "just right," books. Our next step will be to start an interactive read aloud, I can't wait!! In writer's workshop we are working on "Discovery drafts," and continuing our year long study of poetry with Poetry Fridays. We have written bio poems and list poems and will be moving on to haiku. The chapter two math test will be this week. The puff mobiles are almost finished and we will be testing them this week. In social studies we have been working on map skills and we will be learning about exact location using latitude and longitude points. We completed two science experiments this week; we are testing soil samples to see which will grow grass seed best and we built terrariums to recreate mini ecosystems and to observe the water cycle. We also worked on non fiction writing by writing a lab report for the terrarium experiment. In Open Circle, students shared the fun facts that they had learned about each other in order to find out what we all have in common. It was a great activity and the students will repeat it for this week. In addition, we worked on "calm breathing," and realized how great it was that Open Circle coincides with all of our yoga work. Speaking of yoga, Rise and Shine Yoga will begin next week. Click here to sign up! Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Williams

Juicy Nibble

Family Field Trip!!!

Join Mrs. Williams and her family on Monday, October 10th, at 11:00 a.m. at the Museum of Science in Boston. We will be touring the Pompeii exhibit and using the audio tour to learn all about Pompeii. The cost for parking, museum admission, admission to the special Pompeii exhibit and the audio tour are the responsibility of each individual family. Also, parental supervision is required as this is a family trip, not a class trip. Hope to see you there!

A Juicy Nibble

Terrariums!! So much fun! Great job, gang!

Spotlight on...

Here is Taylor as she is scoring a goal for her soccer team. Way to go Tay, AWESOME JOB!!!!

A Big Bite

It was a short but productive week in room 23. Reader's Workshop is going well, and as a class we have read 106 books so far this year!Students should be reading at home, for 15 minutes a night. They should be reading the same book at home as they are reading in the workshop. In writer's workshop we continue to work on writing stamina. We will be focusing on "zooming in on one idea," when writing, and have begun to use this strategy by writing a list poem. In math, we are reviewing place value and reading and writing numbers into the billions. Everyone is doing a great job but would benefit from extra practice at home. On Friday we had an engineering presentation from Mr. Adams, the JFK Engineer in Residence. Students then worked in groups to create a schematic for their puff mobile. Cooperative group skills is one of the goals of this project. In Open Circle we played the stand up/sit down game to learn more about each other and to find out what we have in common. The Open Circle homework is to find out two things about a classmate that you didn't know before. Also, we will be building our terrariums this week, so everyone will need a jar. Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Williams