Aftercare at Knollwood School by Thomas

Aftercare is a place you can stay if your parents have to work. Miss Rose and Mr. Russoniello run Aftercare.

When we're all done with homework, we go to the APR (that means All Purpose Room). You can bring water, snacks, and money for the vending machine.

It's placed at Knollwood School in Fair Haven, New Jersey, from 3 to 6pm. It's in room 107 on the first floor of the building.

Gym at Knollwood School by Caroline

Running, throwing, catching...they're all part of one special: Gym. At Gym currently, we are in our basketball unit. In this unit we are dribbling, passing, shooting, and hustling.

If it is a very nice day out, we might go outside and play Capture the Flag. It's when there are two sides of the field and each side has a jail and a ball box. Everyone starts with four balls. To win you need to have all eight balls in your ball box.

Gym is really exciting. We go to it every Tuesday from 2:00 to 3:00.

Recess at Knollwood School by Thomas

Recess at Knollwood School is one of the best periods of the day. It is fun when it's raining and fun when it's sunny. Some of the things you can do on an indoor day are Cup Stacking, Art Room, and games.

Some of the things you can do on an outdoor day are Capture the Flag, soccer, football, basketball, and going out to lunch.

(Note from the teachers: the photos above were chosen by Thomas and show Sportsman's Field, the location of outdoor recess.)

Math Olympiad by Cate

Today, the day after Thanksgiving break, some 4th and 5th graders showed up at room 206 for Math Olympiad! It's great for people who love and are very interested in math. So if you want to go, I bet you're going to be great!

What We Do in Running Club by Cece

Running Club is on Mondays from 3:00 to 4:00 after school. What you do is you run to Meadow Ridge and around the figure eight. Then you run back to Knollwood. I suggest that you bring a water bottle because you get thirsty (but they do give you Gatorade at the end). Everyone goes at different paces, so you can find someone who goes the same pace as you and run with them. You can also walk if you get tired. If you like running and think that you want to do this, then you can sign up next year.

Tin Foil, Sink or Float by Mac

In science, Room 101 has been making tin foil boats.

First, we cut tin foil and shaped it into a boat.

Next, we filled up a bucket with water and tested the boats to see if they float.

Then, we put marbles in the boats to see how many marbles the boat could hold without sinking. I found that my "4x4" boat could hold 10 marbles before sinking.

(Note from the teachers: in the video above, Mac demonstrates how the tin foil boats were tested and explains the effect that surface area has on an object's buoyancy.)

Digging Deep in Our Reading: A Look at Some Charts

Perhaps the most important purpose for the charts we create with students during mini-lessons is that they become a tool for students to independently try the strategies that have been taught. An important part of the reading unit we've just finished (a unit that focused on characters and in which we also learned how to negotiate reading  and talking about a book with a partner) has been digging deep through writing, talking, and thinking about our reading.

Picture this: a mosquito skims the surface of McCarter Pond, maybe causing a little ripple in the water but, really, making no impact. Then, there's a duck that goes completely into the water, splashing around, even diving deep, down to the bottom, to try and find some food.

Earlier this fall, we related this image to our reading. We have a choice. We can choose to be mosquito readers, skimming the surface of our books, going quickly from page to page or book to book, not pausing to think deeply about our reading. Readers who read like mosquitoes aren't changed by their reading. Or we could read like ducks, digging deep into our books by stopping to think, talk, and write about our reading. In this way, we'd read in a way that allows books to change us, to give us new ideas.

Thinking, talking, and writing deeply isn't an easy task. Simply: it's hard. It's easier to stick to the plot of the story, missing the chance to really have ideas. What's harder (and, therefore, as fourth graders in our room know, has bigger pay-off for a reader) is to really dig deep, thinking about our ideas and supporting them with textual evidence.

We've been learning when to stop, think, write, and talk about our reading and also how to do this most effectively. We'd like to share the charts we've been using in class so that it may support talking about reading in a deeper way at home. Our readers have had a lot of practice borrowing phrases off of the chart and using them as they think, write, and talk more deeply about their reading; we are sure they'd be happy to teach you how to use the charts.

The first chart is a chart that helps readers know when it often pays off to do some writing about their reading. The column on the left lists (some of) these different times; the column on the right gives a vision for different ways the writing about reading at that stopping point could go.

The second chart is from our character unit and shows some of the strategies taught during mini-lessons. Under each strategy are a few post-its that students have been using as they've done their own writing and talking about reading.

Hope this helps you dig deeper in your talk with your child about his or her reading. Now, we're on to nonfiction reading!