Published Book Reviews

Room 101 has recently published book reviews on our class book review blog, Room 101's Must Reads. You can read our book reviews here: http://fourthgrade101bookreviews.blogspot.com.

We chose to review books that we have strong opinions about and knew well (i.e. in addition to having read all of the book we chose, we also had some writing about our reading in our reader's notebook that we used to begin to gather our ideas about the book). During this unit, we studied mentor texts (published book reviews), paying particular attention to the structure and language used in the book reviews. We learned that, in addition to the reviewer's general opinion, book reviews often include a partial summary, thoughts on the author's craft, quotes from the book, and a recommendation for the type of reader who will enjoy the book. 

Having just finished our Touch Typing class, we took the opportunity to type our published pieces for the first time this year. The class worked in the computer lab for one writing workshop period, typing in a document through their Google Drive accounts. Typing in Google Drive allowed students to finish publishing at home. 

We hope our reviews help you find your next book!

Published Personal Essays Around Fair Haven

We're excited to share that our personal essays have been hung around town! Thanks to Sal, Ellie, Maddie, and their families for helping to hang these pieces.

Each hanging piece also has a QR code in front of it. The QR codes are the black and white images that can be scanned with a smartphone (there are free apps to scan them). Once the QR code is scanned, you'll be sent to a link that will allow you to listen to the class read our six word essays.

Here's a breakdown of whose pieces are where:

Tavolo - Patrick, Harry, Sophie, Jack M., Sal, Megan, Harris, Lily, Lucas, Christina M., Maisy, Braiden, Quinn, Chrisina U., and James

Fairwinds - Ellie, Caroline, and Connor

River Road Books - Maddie, Jack S., Maia, and Marcus

We're so thankful to these Fair Haven businesses for allowing us the space to share our writing!

How to Do Traditional and Extended Multiplication by Caroline

Why traditional and extended multiplication are important

Traditional and extended multiplication are important because you need to do them at random times. So for example, when you're at a grocery store and maybe you need to multiply the prices. It would be weird just standing at the register and not knowing what traditional and extended multiplication are. So for example: 5 bananas in each bag and you're getting 30 bags, so: 30 * 5 = 150.

Another example is if you have a job, you also need to know it at random times. So for example, if you wanted to know how many workers there would be in 2 days and there were 15 workers each day, you would have to know 15 * 2 = 30.

Traditional and extended multiplication are important.

In the videos below, Caroline demonstrates how to use the traditional algorithm to multiply by one and two digit multipliers.

Hershey Mass Production

We're currently studying the Northeast region in social studies. One of our essential questions is, "Why did our nation's first factories start here?" We learned that the water and people in the Northeast region influenced factories being built here. Many factories were built near rivers and used the water to power their factories. In addition, the Northeast's population provided people power for the factories.

We "stopped" at the Hershey Factory to learn about mass production. Students worked in groups of three and specialized in one job: wrap cutter, candy placer, or candy wrapper. For three minutes, students worked in an assembly line to (re)wrap Hershey Kisses. Groups wrapped between 8 and 15 pieces of candy during this time.

After the activity, we thought a little about what it would be like to work in a factory, specializing in one job, for a 40 hour work week. Many students recognized it may not be as exciting to do the same job for eight hours a day as it was to do it for three minutes in class.

The video below includes some photos and video of our mass production.

Hershey Mass Production from kate mills on Vimeo.

Six Word Essays

We recently published our personal essays. As part of our publishing, we wrote six word essays, inspired by Ernest Hemingway's six word memoir. Though six words may not sound difficult to write, this work required writers to synthesize weeks of essay work.

Please enjoy the video of our class reading our six word essays.

Assemblies by Sal

Lately we've had some really cool assemblies. One was where someone told us about fire safety, and one was where this guy came in and did something really cool!! Basically, he came in and took four chairs from the audience and four people and put the chairs so they faced north, south, east, and west. The kids sat down in the chairs, then he took away the chairs!

One of them was where a policeman came in and told us about bike safety, which I guess was cool...

So, yeah. We've had a whole bunch of other ones, too! So I hope you liked this!

Room 101's Math Class by Braiden

Lately in math we have been learning how to multiply 2 digit multipliers and 1 digit multipliers. We have practiced doing them with the traditional algorithm.

We have done something called hot calls. What we do is Mrs. Mills or Mrs. Barnett write a rounded fact and everyone does it in their head. Then Mrs. Mills or Mrs. Barnett calls on anybody (you don't raise your hand). Then, the person answers it. Next, the class agrees or disagrees. Finally, we do the next problem. Hot calls are normally in the mini-lesson.

A mini-lesson is what we do every day in math after our math message. In the mini-lesson we learn about what we will practice. After that we do a sheet or math journal page to practice what we learned. And that is room 101's math!

 Doing the math message before the mini-lesson.

 Doing partner work in the mini-lesson.

Doing a sheet after the mini-lesson.

The photos above were taken and captioned by Braiden.