Teamwork Towers

During our Community unit, students have been learning about how working together can sometimes make tasks easier. In class students can help each other understand and follow directions.  Writing partners can help each other remember their stories after they have talked about them and are going to write them down. Students can help remind each other of the things they need when we are lining up to go somewhere. In this activity, Teamwork Towers, students attempted to build towers of sticks and tape. At first they tried independently. Students made comments such as "It keeps falling down!", "I need more hands!" and "I'm getting mad!" Then they tried collaboratively in their table groups. Students made very different comments such as "You hold and I'll tape.",  "It's getting taller!" and "Good job, team!" We reflected on the experience of working alone and in a team, through discussion and writing. Ask your child to tell you more about it.

4th Grade Reading Buddies

We meet with our 4th Grade Reading Buddies every 6 day rotation. We first got to know each other by chatting and discovering some of our similarities and differences. We found that many of us have things in common, such as number of siblings and food preferences. Our class and Mrs. Irish's class take turns hosting our buddy sessions. When it is our turn to host, we choose the books to share with our buddies. When it is their turn, they choose the books. Buddies are beginning to use "Book Talk", using some of the same language we use during Readers' Workshop in class. It was a treat to overhear recent buddy conversations...I caught tidbits such as "So what did you notice on this page?" and "Can you make a prediction?"