Author Ralph Fletcher Visits N.M.E.S.

On Thursday, November 5th, author Mr. Ralph Fletcher joined the fourth graders at N.M.E.S.  Because we read his memoir, Marshfield Dreams, the students knew a lot about Mr. Fletcher’s life and were very excited to meet him in person.  Several students created posters and were able to greet him as soon as he arrived.

During the presentation, Mr. Fletcher shared several poems with us, and he also told us about some of his other books.  He shared some personal stories with us, and he told us that many of these stories inspire him when writing.  Fig Pudding, which he categorized as autobiographic fiction, is somewhat based on his life but also somewhat made up.  We learned quite a funny story about his sister that inspired him to write the chapter, “The Headless Chicks.”   

Mr. Ralph Fletcher shared his writer’s notebook with us, and he showed us a rough draft of Hello, Harvest Moon.  We were able to see the changes the illustrator made before the book was published. 

Several of us found his three tips at the end of the presentation to be memorable.  His three pieces of advice were:

1.  Get a writer’s notebook and write something every day.  To be good at anything, we have to do it often.

2.  Read.  Good writers are good readers, and the more you read, the better your writing will get.

3.  Don’t forget to be a kid.

Below are some of our reactions to our assembly with Mr. Ralph Fletcher:

• “It was funny how he was talking about his family.”
• “I am now inspired to write a story.”
• “I was surprised that he remembered all that stuff that happened awhile ago.”
• “I thought Ralph Fletcher’s presentation was pretty interesting because I got to hear stuff about him that I never knew before.”
• “I think his advice will help us to become better writers.”

If you’d like to learn more about Ralph Fletcher, his website is: http://ralphfletcher.com/

Stephen's Field Visit

On Thursday, we joined our little friends in Ms. Hager's class to take our first field trip of the year to Stephen's Field.  While enjoying the unseasonably warm day, students had the opportunity to explore the beach and tide pools.  They were given the challenge of finding 5 living and 5 non-living things.  Students found clams, crabs, shells, rocks, and mussels amongst many other things.  The fourth graders were great role-models for their little friends, and we look forward to spending more time with them and visiting Stephen's Field again this year.

Update From the Students in Room 37

Mr. and Mrs. Fish

Mr. and Mrs. Fish came to our school on Tuesday, September 29th.  Those are not their real names; they made up those names. We learned a lot about the ocean to kick off our ocean study this year.  Mr. and Mrs. Fish showed us the ocean food chain, and they also brought costumes to the assembly to show the food chain. The costumes were worn by volunteers, and Mr. Fish tired to move up the food chain (and he survived).  They also told lots of fishy jokes before they sailed away.  We’re excited to dive into more ocean studies this year.

Mark the Beekeeper

Mark the beekeeper came to our classroom to visit fourth grade students on Friday, October 1st. We learned about different types of bees and what they do.  He showed us honey and we got to taste it.  Some of us enjoyed it, but some of us didn't think it tasted very good.  He brought his whole suit and the bees’ home to the school, but there weren't any bees in it. The smoker smelled like lavender. He passed around the racks the bees keep their honey in, and some had no honey in them while other ones did.  It surprised us that the racks with honey were much heavier than the empty racks because they didn’t look like they would be much heavier.  That’s the buzz about our visit with Mark the beekeeper.

Growth Mindset

Dear Families,

As I mentioned at Open House, one of my goals for the year is to help students develop and/or strengthen a growth mindset.  We have done many activities to help us learn about growth mindset and the language of growth mindset, and we’ll continue to do many more throughout the year.  Some of the activities we’ve done include:

• viewing Brain Jump with Ned the Neuron 
• categorizing phrases that show a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset (I give up vs. I’ll use some of the strategies I’ve learned).
• working in small groups to create phrases we can say in place of phrases such as: “This is too hard,” “I can’t do this,” “I give up,” and “I don’t understand.”  
• reading The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Mark Pett.

Students worked in small groups to define growth mindset.  They decided that:

• “A growth mindset is a positive thought that you think about your work.”
• “Growth mindset is being determined.”
• “Growth mindset is feeling confident in yourself and trying your best.”
• “When you challenge your brain, your brain will have positive thoughts, and with all of that you will get smarter.”  

I’ve enjoyed our lessons together explicitly teaching your children about growth mindset, and I’m looking forward to incorporating this work throughout our days together.  Two articles were available to families at Open House that shared more information about growth mindset.  If you’d like a copy of these articles, please let me know and I’d be happy to send them home.

Have a fabulous weekend,

Mrs. Houston

Welcome!

Dear Students and Families,

Welcome to our class website and blog!  On the tabs above you'll find information about the happenings in our 4th grade classroom.  The tabs for each subject area will be updated as we begin new units of study, typically around the beginning of each month.  You'll also find other information such as our class schedule, homework expectations, and links to other websites you'll want to visit.   In addition, I'll post updates throughout the month on the class blog.  I look forward to sharing the stories of our classroom with you on our blog.

~Mrs. Houston