Mr. Blanc's Class

Inquiry  Our new inquiry unit has the central idea that community values influence leaders and impact decision making. We had great classroom discussions about values and rules that people have in their homes. We also studied the Oregon Bottle Bill from 1971 and analyzed what problems led to the bill, what the solutions to the problems were, and how values impacted the decisions the leaders made. Next week we will be visited by Louise Wilmes. She is the American Indian Education Teacher on Special Assignment in our district. She will be talking to the students about the values of Native Americans and how decisions are made within their sovereign communities.   Math Next week we will continue our study of fractions by learning how to convert back and forth between improper and mixed numbers. We'll also add begin adding and subtracting mixed numbers. This will lead us to adding a mixed number and an improper fraction. Reading Each student has set a goal for a number o...

The field trip to the Capitol Building was a success. The highlights for me were getting a chance to see three bills passed in the Senate and spending time with Governor Brown! Ask your student to tell you about their experience. Enjoy the pics!

Update There will be no school on Monday, 2/20 in observance of President's Day. Field Trip Our field trip to the state capitol building will be on Tuesday, 2/21. We will be taking a tour of the capitol building and then we will get to meet with Governor Brown for a little bit! Please make sure your student arrives at school on time the morning of the trip. If you are chaperoning we would like you to arrive at the school by 8:45. This will give us time to review expectations and place students in their groups. Reading  Students are expected to read a minimum of 2 hours outside of school each week. They should be recording their out of school reading on a reading log and turning it in each Tuesday. Check in with your student on how they are doing with their reading log. Idiom of the week : see eye to eye Math Students will be coming home with their scored mid module fractions test on Friday, 2/17. Go over the test with your student and see if there is anything they nee...

 Reading As a 4th grader, it is very important to read a high volume of books. There is nothing that improves a reader better than time spent reading. Studies have shown that at this age students should be reading about a book a week. Many of the students thought this sounded impossible, but when we added up the number of minutes they read each week in school (40 min x 5 days = 200 min), and the minimum number of minutes they are expected to read outside of school each week (120 min) , they should all be reading at least 320 minutes a week. Reading fluency varies for each person, but studies show that a 4th grader reading a book at their just right level, should read about 3/4 of a page a minute. This means that they should be able to read around 240 pages a week, if they do the minimal amount of expected reading. I challenged the class to read an average of one book a week for the next seven weeks. That would mean that as a class of 22 students, we need to read a total of 154...

Updates First off, please let your child know that we will reschedule our "read in" reward party. We'll have a class discussion to figure out when the best time to reschedule will be.  Reading Students have had the expectation of reading at home for two hours each   week . As things got going we started getting worse a nd worse at recording those hours. As a class we are making a renewed commitment to document our reading at home. Students were given reading logs on Tuesday. They are expected to record the reading they do at home, a minimum of two hours. In addition, the student who reads the most will go on the Wall of Fame. The reading logs will be handed out on Tuesday and returned the following Tuesday.  Vocab The new vocabulary words were sent home Tuesday. Students will be tested on those words next Tuesday.  Idiom of the Week: sit on the fence Migration  The final drafts of our migration papers will be due Friday, 2/10. We will b...