Library Is Open!

Our Library is Open for Business!

Wow!  The past week has been a whirlwind in the world of fourth grade.  We have been so busy that I have not had a moment to come to our blog and update you on all that has been taking place.

Most of our time has been spent focusing on our classroom library.  We worked so hard to organize our books and determine the genre of those texts.  It was a lengthy process that took a lot of effort from the students.  They had to dive into those books and some days it literally felt like they were "diving" into them!  Books were all over the classroom, in piles or bins, just waiting to be looked at and sorted into a genre that fit.  In the end, each book has found its place.

Our newly organized library!

All of our non-fiction books have been organized into blue bins.  The non-fiction genres we created were biographies, Wisconsin texts, U.S. government, U.S. geography, U.S. history, People of the United States, Earth's surface, Physical Science, Math topics, Weird Wacky Facts, and Animals.

Non-Fiction bins with labels!

Our fiction books have been organized into grey bins.  The fiction genres we created were realistic fiction, historical fiction, famous fiction authors, sports fiction, animal fiction, mystery fiction, ghost fiction, fantasy fiction, comedy/humor, poetry, fiction picture books, and beginner chapter books. 

Fiction bins with labels!

On Friday we celebrated our hard work with a library party!!!  This was so much fun!!  This party was meant to kick off the opening of our classroom library.  Students could look at the bins they created, developed their checkout stick, and finally, enjoy cake and juice!  Mrs. Sullivan, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, and Mr. Geiger joined in our festivities.  

Happy Book Day Cake!!!

Boys celebrating!

More Celebrating!!!

The pride I have in their work is unbelievable!  I can not wait to watch them use our library this year!

Preparing Our Library

Yesterday we meet with Mrs. Johnson to begin preparing our library for opening.   Today we continued our exploration into our library by labeling our bins with more specific genres found in either fiction or non-fiction genres.

We learned yesterday that our non-fiction books were placed in blue bins while the fiction books were placed in the grey bins.  Two more color codes were added to our understanding.  These colors were purple and yellow.  The yellow codes indicate books written by the same author or are found in a series.  The purple codes indicate genre or type of book.  These codes are being used by other teachers who were and are involved in the literacy coaching process.  This is exciting because we are building common language across the district for identifying books in our classroom libraries. 

Library Anchor Chart

Next, Mrs. Johnson and I demonstrated how labels were created that included the appropriate color, a possible picture, and finally a typed label indicating fiction or nonfiction and a genre with a short description.  These labels will eventually be added to our bins.

Book Labels
Yellow - Author or Series
Purple - Genre or Topic

After adding these ideas to our anchor chart, students worked with partners to go through each bin in our library.  Their job was to decide which type of genre was represented by the books in the bin.  After discussing their books, they went up to one of our tables and chose the appropriate index card.

Looking At Labels

Wow!  I am so proud of them!  They did such a great job!  There dedication to working through their bins and making careful observations was fantastic!  They had wonderful comments to say, thought books should be placed in different bins for great reasons, and had wonderful suggestions for new labels.  We are not finished with our bin labeling, but have a great start!  It will be so exciting to open our library and really see students "using" it!

For more photos check our Reading and Writing Tab.

Happy Bloggin!

Hands-On Learning

Welcome!  I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!!  It was so beautiful out, I just can not believe summer is coming to an end!  On the other hand, it means more time with my students, getting to know each other and beginning our 4th grade learning!

We had a very busy day today!  We began the morning comparing differences between maps and globes.  The best way to do this was get out our globes and work with them.  The purpose was to compare continents and oceans on a map and globe.  We also located the equator and prime meridian and discussed how our Earth is divided into four different hemispheres.  I thought students did very well!  For a more detailed description view our Content Workshop page.

Our class studying globes and maps.

Giving a thumbs up because we know a location!

This afternoon we welcomed Mrs. Johnson back to our classroom.  Like this morning, diving into our maps and globes, we dove into our books.  We have not opened our classroom library this year because we have been working on procedures for coming in and out of the library.  Mrs. Johnson and I want students to have a really good understanding of the books in our library so by taking the time to build the excitement of reading those books, we find students are more invested in learning about them.

When Mrs. Johnson came in she asked the students to decide how our books were organized up to this point.  Currently they know we have fiction and nonfiction books.  After creating a definition for what we mean by fiction and non-fiction, we gave each student a bin of books to look through.  They had to decide if the bin was for fiction or non-fiction books and finally write down 5 books out of that bin they would be interested in reading.  Check out the Reading and Writing Workshop tab for more information!

Mrs. Johnson is creating our anchor chart for bin color.

Ohh...Look at this one!!!  Checking out the bins!

In other exciting classroom news, we now have three white cloud fish in our purple tank and a new blue guarmi in a new tank.  He was bought to be friends with our other fish, but they did not know how "to live above the line"! 

Happy Bloggin!

Using Our Blog

We had a very eventful day today!  Our morning began with Viola joining our class!  We now have everyone officially here and we can get off and running!  My other students were so welcoming and did a marvelous job of making her feel at home in our room.  I am very proud of them!  I can not tell you how excited I am to work with these twenty-five students!  I go home each day excited for the next and that is a wonderful feeling as a teacher!

After a busy morning of social studies, math, and interactive read-aloud we came into our room in the afternoon and went to the computer lab.  I wanted to show the students my classroom website and let them interact with it a bit.  Just like I thought, the Puzzles were a bit hit!  Students were on there busily putting together puzzles and searching for words in our word search activities.   It was also nice to see them check out how to look up their homework each night or how to find their class list or school supply list.  I really want to see them utilizing this resource at home!

Finally it was onto our blog!  I showed my students how they can make posts on our blog.  Wow!  I have some great comments to read!!  I told them they could now go home and show their parents how to post comments.  I hope they do this!  Parents, if you do get confused on what to do, please email me or call me and I can walk you through it! 

We did have a conversation on using our blog safely!   Cyberbullying and the use of social networks in negative ways is really big right now and that is not the type of environment I want to create for my students.  I discussed how important it is not write mean or hateful things on our page...or how we do not talk about other people in mean ways...or use our blog to invite people to parties or other events...or not to post silly things that do not relate to what we are learning...

I told them that I want to view posts on how they think they day went, or read their excitement about a project or activity they did, or read about what they are learning, or read comments regarding pictures they see posted.  I asked them to come to me personally if they had concerns or negative things to say.  They all agreed they could do this.  We all agreed we want our blog to be a safe environment, just like our classroom or our school.

Again, what a great group of kids!!!  They seem really excited to have the opportunity to use this site!!  I know I am!

Happy Bloggin!

Welcome 4th Graders!

Hello Fabulous Luther 4th!  Welcome to our class blog!  You are in the computer lab today to see how our webpage and classroom blog work.  I am so excited to share these pages with you because I think you will have a lot of fun participating on them!

I told you today how proud I am of you!  You have handled the changes to our classroom, all the other teachers working in our room, and all the new students to our class wonderfully!  I can not wait for our school year to continue!  I think we will have a lot of fun and we will learn a lot together!

I want to have you practice posting a comment on our blog!  I want you to see how easy it is!  So, I would like you to read the question below and then respond to it.

Happy Bloggin!

Question:  What have you liked about our classroom so far?

AHHH Homework!

Homework...the dreaded word!!!  Today my fourth graders swore I was trying to stress them out by giving homework...
  "But, Mrs. Bouvier, you haven't given homework yet!"
  "But, Mrs. Bouvier, we might have math homework from Mrs. Schuenke!"
  "But, Mrs. Bouvier, the Packers are playing tonight and you LOVE the Packers!!"

Well, what could I say!? I hadn't given homework yet....I knew Mrs. Schuenke may give math homework...and I do love the Packers..still,

   "You have homework!!"

Today was the very first day that the fourth graders realized that both 4th grade teachers will give homework...on the same day...and expect homework to be finished by the following morning.  I think they were a little overwhelmed!

I did inform them that I do talk with Mrs. Schuenke about homework and we try our hardest to not give them too much each night, though expectations are up to 40 minutes of homework by fourth grade.  I told them how every grade has some expectation of homework, just like almost every job you may hold has some sort of homework.  I shared with them how I have homework each night and they were very surprised by this.  I told them that each night I grade papers, look over and write lesson plans, or write on our webpage/blog to prepare for the next day.  I told them how Mr. Geiger, as my principal, expects this from me as a teacher.  They couldn't believe that I felt this was homework!  That caused them to ask "What would happen if your work wasn't done?"  We talked about how I would not be prepared to teach them each day and they would not learn to the best of their ability.  So we talked about what happens if homework isn't done...what are acceptable and unacceptable excuses and what are the possible consequences when homework is not finished....the biggest being it affects their ability to learn and do well in school.

This lead to me think about how you could help them at home.  Talk with your child about homework and the importance of it.  Share with them your homework experiences or how you may have "homework" at your job you are expected to do.  Create a special place at home where homework can be worked on.  Maybe include a cozy lamp and seat or have a special desk with "homework supplies" like extra paper, pencils, erasers, and colored pencils.  Set a certain time after school that homework will be worked on.  Stick to this time, if possible each day, including weekends.  The structure and habit of doing homework at home will become routine, just like we have structure and routine in our classroom.  Completing homework and feeling proud to do it will come easier with ideas like this in place!  Fianlly, check over your students work.  If it is done well, to the best of their ability, sign their assignment notebook as a way to show me you have looked at it.  This shows your student that you value the work they do too...and we are team in their learning!

If you have questions about homework, please contact me!  You can always view homework assignments by visiting my staff webpage and clicking on "My Homework".

Happy Blogging!

Welcome Mrs. Johnson!

This afternoon was very exciting for our classroom!  Today Mrs. Johnson, a 3rd grade teacher at Purdy and our District's 3-5 Literacy Coach came to our classroom for the very first time!  The students and I have been waiting for her visit since last Thursday.  Students were very excited to meet her, learn about her, and also learn why she will be working in our classroom this year!

We were excited to hear about her family, friends, and especially her dog Bella.  We also were very interested in her hobbies and many of us realized we had similar likes as her!  Some of the student's even recognized former teachers or summer school teachers who are also Mrs. Johnson's very good friends. 

Mrs. Johnson plans on visiting our classroom often.  As a literacy coach she is here to help all the student's learn how to become better readers and writers.  She is also help here to guide me through the process of becoming an even better teacher of reading and writing.  She told the class how a coach is someone who helps you, who teaches you knew things, but also encourages you when you feel down or frustrated.  What a great way to think about teaching!!  This is truly what we are doing ~ coaching everyone through the learning process!  This is going to be a very exciting process for us all!

Mrs. Johnson is listening to a student connection!

 

Mrs. Johnson sharing what it means to be a literacy coach.

Mrs. Johnson listening to another student share.

One of the best parts of the day was discussing how important reading and writing is....it is so important I put the classroom library right in the very center of the room.  I told the student's how I wanted to "think outside the box" in creating very best learning environment for them.  One of my student's raised their hand and said, "It's not thinking outside the box...it is thinking outside the books!!"  Mrs. Johnson and I thought this was a great connection and I had to write it on the board!  I am delighted to have this opportunity and I know the student's will benefit from it!

A portion of our classroom library.

A wonderful quote to make our day!

Another portion of our classroom library!