Yuck! :(

Today, in the classroom, was just as nasty as outside. We had a few students that struggled big time! I'm sure it is a mixture of the change in schedule, upcoming tests and just a rainy Monday...at least I hope that's what it was. Even if it's only a couple of kiddos that are struggling, self-discipline and silent wait time from others is helpful. Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of the kiddos take the time I'm dealing with "issues" to chat or get off task which then causes more time to get everyone settled. An audience just creates a bigger problem...

We began with days 1 & 2 in M4T as well as worked on a couple of problems from the M4T test for Friday. Maybe by completing a few problems of the test each day, they will be more successful. We'll see! Then, we had a pretty long meeting. A lot of kiddos wanted to share about their weekends! After saying the Pledge, we worked on a practice English Language Arts writing prompt. Then, we used the scoring rubric to score each other's essays. What did your kiddo score out of 10? What do they need to focus on tomorrow when writing? Conventions? Focus and organization? Elaboration and Evidence? We had Music, lunch and indoor recess. Homework tonight is to get a good night's sleep, eat a healthy breakfast and come to school with a positive mindset. Treat these tests like the Super Bowl of 4th grade-you may get a gorgeous ring out of it but you'll still be playing for the team next season. You want to do your best work to show what you know but you won't be failing 4th grade and everyone will still love you afterwards! :) In Math Workshop, we took what we've learned about geometry so far to create a town map. Does your child's town have a theme? We concluded our day by practicing the Reading portion of the AIR test tomorrow. This format is different as some questions have different parts and others call for two answers to a question. Some kiddos finished early and were able to work on their Sea Turtle Rehabilitation letters.