This Week in Fourth Grade....

Hopefully you enjoyed the first full weekend of December!  It is crazy to think that we are 1/3 of the way through the school year!  

                             Character Change

This week we honed our abilities to identify how characters change in texts and began learning the language needed to discuss and write about these changes.  We will wrap up character change next week and move onto developing defensible ideas about texts with reasons and evidence.  We will debate these ideas with each other to really emphasize the need for evidence.

                     

Immigration Journal

We are wrapping up our immigration unit in social studies with a collaborative project!  The students are taking on the perspective of an immigrant who is traveling from Russia to Ellis Island in the late 1800's.  Using the information we have learned in this unit, each team has to write a journal entry about a different portion of the journey through the eyes of the immigrant.  Throughout the project students will be practicing other ELA skills including utilizing research to write a fictional account (historical fiction), and using similes and metaphors to enhance the craft of our writing.  Below are some photos of teams researching and planning their journals. 

Math Workshop

We had a very successful week practicing the Area Model for multiplication.  Each of the math groups were able to get a lot of practice in a small group, with partners, and independently.  As we worked through these problems last week, I was finding that most kids understood the concept of the area model, but many of their mistakes came with multiplication fact errors.  This week we will focus on slowing down and checking our work before moving onto another problem.  


This week small groups will also be working collaboratively on word problems.  Each student will have a chance to participate in the problem solving process.  The kids will be encouraged to discuss what they are thinking in terms of solving these 2 and (sometimes) 3 step multiplication word problems.



Writing Workshop

Many of the students were starting to set goals for themselves as writers last week.  We were using the Mid-Unit Assessment that was given to help us determine what kids still need to work on when writing a literary essay.  The students will be working with other classmates that have the same goal.  As part of working towards our goals, we will be able to learn from our classmates that already have a grasp and use them as mentor texts.  

Students were also introduced to our Literary Essay final project last week, called Beyond the Cover.  The essays will be based on a picture book and will be published online in Google Classroom for classmates and parents to see!  I can't wait to see how they come out!


Just a reminder that Wednesday, December 6th is a half-day of school.  Have a great week!

Jaime and Jen