This Week in Fourth Grade....

Social Studies

This week in social studies students reviewed land-form vocabulary and began to research where to find specific land-forms within the United States.  They then located these places on a map.  In doing this activity they are familiarizing themselves with the geography of the United States and are beginning to learn how to research information, a skill that we will focus on more and more the second half of the year.  Included are some pictures of students hard at work!

Math Workshop

We enjoyed the start of our new Geometry unit this week!  There is a lot of vocabulary in this unit.  We practiced moving and creating the different vocabulary words with our bodies to help us remember the words.  Ask your child to show you what a line, point, line segment, and ray look like and how they would describe each!  It is fun to use movement to get to learn some of the vocabulary in this unit….it really does help it to “stick!”

Reader's Workshop

The discussions taking place about books this week in Reader's Workshop were incredible!  We read Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and discussed the patterns, details that mattered and potential themes in the text.  We agreed and disagreed with one another and requested and provided further evidence.  Students also considered symbolism in the text and connected it to other books they have read.  As you can see, the thinking they are doing is becoming much much deeper as we progress further into the year!

NEW HOMEWORK THIS WEEK!

Last week the students got a chance to practice going through the writing process each morning for morning work through a paragraphing project. This week this will become an at home project. This new homework focuses on brainstorming ideas around a prompt/topic, writing a complete paragraph, editing, and finally writing a final draft. The final draft will be completed on Google Classroom (on on white lined paper if the internet is not available).

Students will have a page to complete each night, however, they can complete more than one page a night. The final draft is due by Friday!

Writer’s Workshop

This week we continued to work on writing our realistic fiction stories.  Each student has a writing goal that they are going to work on over the next few weeks. These goals will give them a purpose and focus for writing.  Through lots of practice the kids will eventually meet their goal and then be able to set a new goal for themselves.

Science

We continued our unit on Sound.  We started to make observations on how we could tell if a tuning fork was vibrating.  The kids could tell that the tuning fork was vibrating through a bunch of different experiments.  Ask your child how he/she was able to tell that the tuning fork was actually vibrating.  This week we will start to focus on pitch and what happens to sound depending on the length of an object.  Lots of hands-on learning to look forward to!

     

 

Just a reminder.....Wednesday is a 1/2 day!  Dismissal is at 11:40 a.m. Have a great week!

Jen and Jaime

This week in 4th grade....

Hopefully you had a great weekend!  We are hoping for an uneventful week of weather! 

Math Workshop

The kids took the Module 3 Assessment on Friday.  Many of the students showed great perseverance working through the division problems on the assessment.  Students were encouraged to check their division work for accuracy. It was impressive to see students try a problem again when they realized their first answer was wrong!

Your child will be coming home with his/her Module 3 Math Assessment on Tuesday.  Please sign and return the last page after you have had a chance to look at it.

This week we start our unit on Geometry.  This is usually a great "break" from all of the multiplication and division that we have been doing.  It gives the kids chance to use a different part of their brain as they manipulate shapes and use protractors to measure angles.


New Math Menu Homework- 

This week your child will get the Math Menu packet for the next three weeks.  If your child misplaces their packet, they can use the one on the blog or use the copy on  Google Classroom.

Math Menu Week of January 22nd

Reader's Workshop

This week in Reader's Workshop we will begin to compare and contrast themes across two different texts.  We will focus on the language that people use when comparing and contrasting and will use this to discuss and write about the themes we are encountering.

Last week students completed winter DRA testing.  This assessment provides information about students' reading levels and what they need moving forward.  While this is not the only way I assess students, it does provide valuable information to determine instruction moving forward, especially during RTI.  Please send me an email if you would like me to share the results with you.  

Have a great week!

Jaime and Jen

This week in 4th grade....

Happy Monday!  Hopefully everyone was able to enjoy the long weekend.  It will be another short week with lots of learning planned!  

Writer’s Workshop

We spent the beginning of last week finishing up the Literary Essay End of Unit Assessment.  This week your child will be bringing home a scored rubric along with directions on how you can see all of the progress your child made throughout this unit.  Be on the lookout for this information by midweek!

It was an exciting day when the kids found out that our next writing unit would be Realistic Fiction!  We talked about how authors need to come up with many ideas before they actually write.  We learned some strategies for coming up with ideas such as the “what if” strategy and the “mix and match story elements” strategy.  Ask your child what strategy was working the best for him/her.

Reader's Workshop

This past week we wrapped up inferring theme and further honed our skills of writing about our reading.  Next week we will jump into comparing and contrasting texts.  We will learn about the language we can use to help us compare and contrast and learn how to write about these ideas.

Students are still expected to read for 20 minutes every night.  I tried to check in with as many families as I could at some point over the fall to see how this was going and how I might support families.  I will start checking in again this week.  Please let me know if your child has hit a rut!

Book orders are due by Wednesday.  Our online ordering code is H3M9C.  This is a great time of year to cozy up with a good book!

Math Workshop

We will be wrapping up Module 3 this week.  Last week we continued to work on division, but started to think about what remainders mean in a word problem.  This takes a lot of practice, but I was already starting to see that the kids were really trying to think through the problems to help them answer the questions in word problems.  We will (hopefully) be assessing this Module by the end of the week and then will be moving onto Geometry!

Science

We continued along with our Sound unit in science.  The kids were so thrilled to learn another method for communicating which was Morse Code.  I am sure many of them came home speaking to you with a lot of “dits” and “dahs.”  It is so exciting to see the enthusiasm around this lesson.  The kids had fun creating words in Morse Code and then trying to have a partner decipher what they were saying.  This week we will be comparing Morse Code to the “code” that whales speak.

Social Studies

We started a new unit last week on Mapping the United States.  It is a short unit that will review map skills and land-forms and will prepare students to learn about the regions of the United States.  We got hands-on with globes and began exploring the Northern and Southern Hemisphere and using latitude to locate different places.  Included are some pictures of students doing just that!

                  

Thank you to the families that sent in tissues, disinfectant wipes, and paper towels. It is greatly appreciated!  Have a great week!

~ Jaime and Jen

This Week in 4th Grade....

We enjoyed the first 2 days of 2018 and then the snow obviously had other plans! We are looking forward to the first full week of 2018!

Reader's Workshop

This week we will continue to learn how to identify themes in texts.  We worked on this before vacation and will expand this learning to comparing and contrasting themes across texts over the next several weeks.  As an example here are some common themes students encounter when reading:

We will also continue to practice writing about our thinking involving texts and including evidence to support our thinking.  Mrs. Lewis built the foundation for this during her Writer's Workshop literary essay unit and we will reinforce this learning during reader's workshop and RTI now.  

New Reading Response Assignment Coming This Week!

Students will be coming home with a new reading response assignment this week.  During the fall students wrote about character traits for the characters they were reading.  Now students will be focusing on details that stand out in the text and writing about the inferences they are making based on those details.  A resource will be attached to the assignment and students will be doing a practice one tomorrow and bringing that home for reference as well.  Please let me know if you have any questions!  

Math Workshop

We will continue our study of division in math workshop.  Last week we started to think about what happens when numbers do not divide evenly.  We introduced remainders.  This week we will start to apply our learning of division in word problems and start to think about what happens to the remainder in a division problem.  This can be a very tricky concept for fourth graders, so anytime that you can point out real world problems with remainders that will help your child begin to apply this idea in their everyday life!

I will also be introducing the “Side Dish” portion of the Math Menu homework.  I am looking forward to seeing what the kids set as goals for themselves based on last week’s Main Dish homework.

Writing Workshop

Last week we started our end of unit literary essay assessment and will finish this week….thanks to the snow!  Then we will be moving onto our Fictional Narrative unit.  During this unit, the students will be able to take what they learned back at the beginning of fourth grade from the personal narratives that they wrote and begin to apply it to this genre of writing.  I am looking forward to seeing the creativity in these narrative stories!

Science

We began our second science unit last week on Sound.  We introduced the topic of sound by thinking about how marine animals communicate using sound.  This week the kids will be focusing on the sounds different marine animals use to communicate and how they are similar and different.  Last week we focused on the pitch, volume, duration, and texture of the animal sounds.  It was fun to be able to describe the exact sound that we were hearing!  

We are still looking for donations of Clorox wipes and tissues! We hope you have a great week!

Jen and Jaime

Jen and Jaime

Happy 2018!

We hope everyone had a great holiday!  We are excited to see the kids and get back to our routines! 



New Math Homework 

Starting this week there will be a new math homework called Math Menu.  I am attaching a copy of the new homework here.

Math Menu Homework

This homework will be slightly different from the previous fluency packets.  On Mondays (or the first day of the school week), I will explain the Math Menu "choices" for homework that week.  Each student will be able to choose the math project that he/she would like to complete.  You will notice that the packet covers several weeks of homework.  This gives students a chance to plan ahead or begin projects earlier if they know that they will be busy. (Projects can only be handed in for the current week, however, but can be saved for when they are due.)

This week will be the only week without a "choice" as the kids will reflect on their math learning in 2017 and set math goals for 2018. 

The homework will be due on Fridays.

Looking for...

Hopefully we will start 2018 with lots of healthy kids and adults, however, to help it stay that way we are looking for donations of the following:

• clorox wipes
• tissues
• hand sanitizer

Thank you in advance for any donation that you can make!  Looking forward to a healthy 2018!!

Have a great week!

Jen and Jaime