This Week in Fourth Grade....

I hope everyone is enjoying the extra long weekend!  Just a reminder students do not have school on Tuesday, October 10th.  

Last week a link was sent out so that parents could sign up for Parent Teacher Conferences.  Conferences will take place next Wednesday, October 18th from 12:30-2:30 and 6:30-8:00 and on Thursday (10/19) morning from 9:00-10:50 and from 12:30-2:45 in the afternoon.  Student DO have school on Thursday, but Mrs. Leger and I will be holding conferences during the morning so that we can accommodate all families.

Math Workshop

We worked on rounding and started a review of the standard algorithm for addition.  In fourth grade, students do need to learn the standard algorithm for both addition and subtraction.  We found out quickly that there were many different ways that students were comfortable with solving addition problems.  As fourth graders we need to find strategies that help us to be accurate and efficient.  We discovered that the standard algorithm does both.  Students will be able to use the other addition strategies to check their work.  

Writing Workshop

We are almost published authors!  The kids worked really hard to finish up their first personal narrative of fourth grade!  Ask your child what he/she learned about paragraphing.  We spent a lot of time focusing on creating paragraphs in our stories.  This makes it easier for the reader to follow along.  This week the kids will share their hard work with their classmates!  Feel free to have your child show you his/her story on Google Docs.

Characters!

This week we have jumped into thinking more deeply about the characters in our books.  We have been learning vocabulary that will help us describe their traits and strategies for growing ideas about characters.  We have learned that we can learn a lot about characters by looking closely at what they say, think and do.  After collecting these details we can grow ideas about what is going on within a character by asking ourselves WHY?  Why do they say the things they do?  Why are they acting a certain way?  Why are the thinking the thoughts they are?

Our classes have also done a lot of cooperative learning this week.  They have been pushing each others' thinking and have engaged in some really interesting conversations!  Below are some pictures of everyone hard at work.

Reading at Home

Student are still expected to read at home every single day for 20 minutes.  I have begun to encourage students to bring the same book back and forth to school every day.  Whatever they are reading at home, they should also be reading at school.  This helps students to keep moving through books and to be able to focus on only one book instead of two.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be checking in with families to find out how the reading is going and how I can continue to support you.  If you need any support in the meantime, please let me know!

We are looking forward to seeing the kids on Wednesday!  Have a great week!

Jaime and Jen