3/4F News for September 27, 2007

The Manoa Mountains are busy preparing their Math Adventure projects for presentation on Monday at 10:00 AM.  Each student will prepare a speech and poster with the problem and two different solutions to share with the class.  All planning sheets have been approved already. We look forward to some very interesting and challenging problems and solutions.

The class would like to thank BK for his donation of three birthday books to the classroom library.  They are from the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. The titles are Into the Wild, Fire and Ice, and Forest of Secrets.  Everyone will have the opportunity to read these great books.

CK celebrated her birthday yesterday by sharing strawberry baked mochi with the class. Everyone enjoyed the delicious treats!

Our work continues every day as we read and respond to Literature Circle Hawaiian legends by answering comprehension questions, doing a plot chart with pictures, and writing a report about the story. Discussions have been very lively and helpful. We also learned ten new vocabulary words, wrote sentences with the words, and drew pictures of their meanings in our notebooks. Yesterday we had a lesson on the uses of their, there, and they're in our writing.

Our reading continues to challenge us, and the Manoa Mountains are reading interesting books at their grade levels. Reading Log entries continue to be detailed and thorough. A few students have not completed all the different response choices yet but have begun to repeat some of them. All of the responses need to be done before any can be repeated.

Our math continues to be challenging, with data gathering, graph construction, and interpretation. New words like outliers, revision, and survey have become a part of our math vocabulary this month. I will be sending home the Unit 1 work on Friday for you to keep.  We are almost halfway through Unit 2, so the collection of finished papers is growing and we need to empty out our folders.

Writer's Workshop stories continue to be written daily, and many Manoa Mountains have completed several personal narratives, poems, memory pieces, and seed stories. They will begin editing their work with partners and will select a piece to publish and place in their portfolios.

Hawaiian Studies has been fascinating with many legends and discussions about the feats of Maui, the demigod. We have been questioning his outrageous feats of strength as we learn about his encounters with various challenges.

We have been practicing our recycling presentations for sharing with Mrs. Brooks' kindergarten class and Mrs. LeBlanc's first and second grade classes. Our presentations will be made in their classrooms next Friday afternoon.

Posted at 6:14 AM| Permalink

3/4-F News for September 21, 2007

The Manoa Mountains have been working hard to get their Math Adventure planning sheets approved so they can begin working on their projects. Most have received approval and can now be creative with their speeches and posters. We look forward to some outstanding presentations on Monday, October 1, at 10:00 AM. Of course, parents and grandparents are welcome to attend the presentations. Parking will be available in the circle in front of Wilcox Hall.

Posted at 6:03 AM| Permalink

3/4-F News for September 13, 2007

The Manoa Mountains did a great job of preparing their book report projects for presentation on Monday. The majority of the class chose to prepare dioramas, mobiles, scenes from the books, puppets, posters, a board game, a PowerPoint slide show book, or a DVD with photos from the book. The visual aids were very creative, and the speeches were very well done. Most of the class received four or five stars for their project evaluations and were proud of their ratings. Many thanks to all of the parents and grandparents who came for the presentations. The children appreciated having a nice audience in addition to their peers.

Everyone is now working on their planning sheet for the Math Adventure projects which will be presented on October 1. These need to be approved by me before the children may work on their posters. The planning sheets need to be ready by Monday because I will not be here on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Miss Leah Correia will be my substitute. I will be having cataract and astigmatism surgery on my right eye early Tuesday morning at Kuakini Hospital, and I have a post-op appointment with my doctor on Wednesday morning. I have waited four years to have this done, but I needed to wait for my cataract to be ripe enough for surgery.

I hope to see most of you at the Welcome Barbeque this Saturday. It is a great opportunity to meet the families of the Manoa Mountains and to enjoy some delicious food. The fifth grade parents are in charge of this event for the 'Ohana. Next year all of our fourth grade parents will move up to fifth grade and join in the fun of preparing for this event.

 
Our third graders have begun Unit 2 in their math program and will be working with surveys, data collection, graphs, and tables of information in the month ahead. They will gather data, create their own graphs, interpret graphs which we will study together, and practice using data from graphs and tables of information. They surveyed the class on "Favorite Places to Visit," tallied their results, and created pictographs yesterday.
   

Our Writer's Workshop projects have focused on "seed ideas" and most of the children have completed a rough draft of a poem or story. We will write about a favorite memory today. Using the work of Ralph Fletcher to help the students understand the different genres for writing, I have introduced them to samples of writing from other sources. They have responded well and created their own writing pieces. We have an editing guideline, which we will be using to edit and revise our work in the weeks ahead. This will help us to refine our writing and make needed revisions and improvements.

The Reading Log entries have been getting better and better. The Manoa Mountains have tried to include specific details in their work. I have appreciated the effort which they have applied to their assignments.

Cindy Kaita is following up on the "Moon Over Manoa" donations.  We are trying to achieve 100% participation by Manoa Mountain families. Your donations will help to purchase the items needed for the class baskets.  Thank you to every family for helping us to reach our goal!

Posted at 6:08 AM| Permalink

3/4-F News for September 6, 2007

The Manoa Mountains were well represented at the Open House with fifteen sets of parents or individual parents in attendance.  We had an informative evening about the daily life of a student in this class.  Project presentations were described. The first one is set for Monday, September 10, beginning at 10:00 AM.  These book reports will require a two-minute memorized speech and a creative visual aid to meet the project requirements.

The daily work continues with great effort from the students, and high quality work is being produced in all areas of the curriculum.  We have begun our vocabulary studies and are working with fifteen new words each week.  The students look up the definitions of the words, write original sentences with therm to show that they understand the word meanings, and draw pictures to show what the words mean.

In math class we are working on the Investigations activities and enjoying the challenge of problem-solving and playing games for fun.  A few students have taken their game pieces home to share their games with their families.  We have put finished work in binders and will select work samples for our portfolios from these binders.

Writer's Workshop stories and poems are being completed this week, and most of the Manoa Mountains have written several personal narratives, poems, or creative stories.  We will begin editing and revising the work next week as we strive to improve the content of our writing.

Our Reading Log entries have been detailed and interesting.  Most have selected responses that they enjoyed doing and will be able to complete the set of twenty-six different responses soon.  Then they can begin the choices all over again.

Our Hawaiian studies work has involved discussing Hawaiian culture and listing the questions to help us find out what we want to know.  Working in groups, the Manoa Mountains have generated over 250 questions to guide their inquiry research.  The data gathering will begin next week.

There is a lot of excitement about learning to play the ukuleles.  Students may borrow an instrument to practice at home.  However, it needs to be returned the following morning before school begins because they are used in the music classes every day.  The students have been informed about the rules for use of the ukuleles.

I have been reading aloud some Hawaiian legends every afternoon to familiarize the Manoa Mountains with the gods and goddesses of Hawaiian mythology and their relationships and struggles to keep peace.

I look forward to some creative book reports on Monday morning and invite you to come and join us for the presentations.

Posted at 7:22 AM| Permalink