This Week in Fourth Grade

One More Week!

The excitement is building as we get closer and closer to the holidays and winter break.  We still have a lot to learn this week but will also take some time to celebrate together as a community.  Students will be participating in a school-wide sing-a-long at the end of the week.  We will also have mystery readers in and create an art project that will require us to all work as a team to complete.

Holiday Shoppe


Students will be going to the Holiday Shoppe on Wednesday or Thursday this week.  One team of students will be going on Wednesday and the other team will go on Thursday.  If your child is bringing in money for the shoppe, please make sure he/she has it by Wednesday!

Character Change

We continued to learn how to infer character change in the books we are reading.  This week, we focused on writing about how characters change.  Students looked at an exemplar and marked it up, noting what the student had done that they could also try in their own writing.  Students then took these techniques and applied them to their own writing.  Below is the exemplar and some students working together on the assignment.

Authors At Work...

The kid have been putting a lot of effort into finishing up their version of "Those Wacky Shoes."  We spent some of the writing time last week editing our writing to make sure that it is ready to publish.  This week the kids will be working on creating a slideshow of their story as a way to present it.

Also, be on the lookout later this week for a "joyful" holiday surprise that the kids will be bringing home.

Christmas Tree Relay

Our morning meetings in the gym continued on Thursday with a Christmas Tree Relay.  Students took turns standing in as Christmas trees as other students rushed to decorate them.  We discussed how to cheer for our team, even if it doesn't look like we are going to win.  We're pretty sure Thursday mornings are one the most popular mornings in our community!

This Week in Fourth Grade

Calling All Mystery Readers!

A notice was sent home on Friday asking for Mystery Readers to join us on Friday, December 21st.  We have attached the information below.

Mystery Reader Information

Can You Help?

We are looking for a volunteer to help us put up some new bulletin boards in our hallway.  If you are available for an hour this week to help out, please let us know.  


Mean Words

This past week students participated in an activity where they shared unkind words about a doll that Mrs. Leger had brought in.  Each time a student shared an insult, he or she would squirt some toothpaste out of a tube.  At the end, students were asked to put the toothpaste back into the tube.  After many unsuccessful attempts, students came to the conclusion that it couldn't be done.  The connection was then made that the toothpaste is like their words: once those words are out of their mouth, they can never be taken back.  The damage is done.  Some brave students then shared some of the damage that has been done to them when unkind words have been said to them in the past.  It was a powerful message to everyone.

The next day, students learned some strategies that they could use if someone ever does say something unkind to them.  We will continue with these lesson next week by focusing on bystanders and how they can feel empowered as well.
we began discussing how students can respond if someone is ever being mean to them.


Character Change

Students continue to think about how characters change in books.  They learned to use a story arch to track this change and partnered up to read numerous picture books and track the characters' changes in these books.  Below is the story arch students are using and pictures of students hard at work.

Math Workshop


Last week we started multiplying 2 digit by 1 digit numbers.  To help all students understand what multiplying these numbers looks like, we used base ten blocks and the area model.  We spent the week solving these problems with base ten blocks, drawing a picture to represent our thinking, and turning the pictures into number representations.  Once students were comfortable with representing their thinking with the blocks they started to realize that it wasn't very efficient.  Students were making sense of their learning and making connections throughout the week, and it was amazing to see their thinking and understanding evolve throughout the week.  

     Representing our thinking
with base ten blocks.

We became more
efficient with
drawing the base ten blocks.

Numbers were the
most efficient.

On Friday we were able to apply our learning with a Math on the Move activity.  Students completed a number of exercises for 15 seconds, and then had to determine the number of exercises they would be able to complete in one minute. They were excited to be able to see math in action!