Anchor Charts

Anchor chart catch up!

Earlier this year we started talking about using commas (a topic that is one of the hardest for students to truly master in 4th grade).  To introduce commas I handed our index cards with different sentences on them that NEEDED commas.  Students worked in their teams to decide where the comma was needed AND what the "rule" was for that comma. Together we found pretty much every "rule" about commas.  I was impressed!

Students added their commas with crayon so they would stand out!

Here is another anchor chart when we started REALLY digging into paragraphing with the 4th graders.  Since writing is our MAJOR focus this year, paragraphing is a key piece to master.  This anchor chart helped students decide when they needed to change paragraphs and one is the most frequently referenced chart in our class.

Anchor Charts: Reading, Nouns, Summarizing

This post is a catch-up post from throughout the year - enjoy!

We started the year by talking about different types of nouns - 4th graders did a great job remembering that nouns are people, places, things and were surprised to learn that IDEAS was the other category.  It is pretty tricky so we didn't try to add many ideas to that category.

Today we started elapsed time in math.  Elapsed time is that subject that continues to trick students throughout the year.  I wanted to make an anchor chart that helped students learn the trick to calculate time with the hours first, then the minutes!  The t-chart method really seemed to help give a visual!

This is a classic Pinterest-inspired activity I love doing at the beginning of the year.  I post these giant posters around the room with various questions.  Students are given time to walk around the room in a gallery walk (silent, writing answers on post-it notes) and then we talk about the general results.  It's always a lot of fun and very informative of what students will let you know in this anonymous situation.

We started learning about historical fiction and I used this anchor chart based on one I saw on Life in 4B and felt like it fit perfectly with what I needed!  We used the mentor text, Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson to identify the real information in the story as well as the pieces that are imaginary (the fictional pieces).

We then used Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt to identify the parts of a plot (title, setting [both time and place], main characters, problem and solution).  Students then took that plot chart and wrote a summary of the story.  This was the story that we did together as a class.  The students then wrote their own summary of The Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polacco

Genre Poster

This is a poster we created at the beginning of the year as we reviewed what types of genres we were familiar with.  I leave this up all year for a reference chart for students to remember different types of books and identify what books they are reading!

Long Division is Easy!

In fourth grade we make the official dive into long division and boy, there are a LOT of steps!  I was inspired by the fantastic teacher blog Runde's Room and her math journal ideas.  I used her template and created an anchor chart for our learning.  The kids really seem to enjoy it and actually use it more than most of our anchor charts - seems like that is a success! 

 

The acronym for remembering the steps is Does McDonalds Serve Burgers - Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down, and repeat!  I also added some division words to help students who struggle with story problems and deciding if it's asking to divide or not.  :)