This Week in Fourth Grade....

Read Across America Day!

We celebrated Read Across America Day on Wednesday this week.  We were a little late due to NAEP Testing and the snow day.  Officer Chad joined us and read Fox in Socks which certainly knocked our socks off!  Thank you so much for joining us Officer Chad!

Writing Workshop
     This week the kids will be finishing up a writing piece from a different character's point of view based on a narrative writing prompt.  They have spent the last few days drafting and focusing on point of view. 
     We will then be moving on to informational writing.  This type of writing is great because it incorporates what the kids have been learning in Reader's Workshop with Mrs. Leger and apply it as a writer.  Students will be choosing a topic to become an expert on.  They will be able to become an expert on whales, dolphins, or sharks.  As they begin to become experts on one of these animals they will create a Google Site which will be their very own website full of all of the information that they have learned. Information will be sent out as these become published over the next few weeks!

Math Workshop
We continued our fraction work last week.  We spent a lot of time discussing equivalent fractions.  Students worked to build an understanding of what equivalent fractions are and how they can use manipulatives to prove equivalence.  Some students began to build on this understanding to create a "rule" or way of finding equivalent fractions when they don't have fraction tiles available.  It's great to see the progress in their learning over the past week.

This week we will start to show fractions on a number line.  We will also be able to use the number line to compare fractions.

Science
Both the green and the blue team got to experiment with mirrors in science last week.  It was amazing to see the excitement around such a simple object.  The kids learned a few new tricks with these mirrors as well.  This week we will begin to explore how mirrors and light interact with each other.

Reader's Workshop
 Students continued to learn non-fiction reading strategies this week with a focus on inferring the main idea and supporting details.  They learned that non-fiction is full of information and it can be overwhelming!  Identifying the main idea and supporting details can help us keep this information organized in our minds and remember it better.  We also practiced taking notes in an organized way.  To practice, students read books about dolphins, sharks or whales.  They will use the information they learned with Mrs. Lewis in Writer's Workshop next week.

Social Studies
Students took what they learned during Reader's Workshop and applied it during Social Studies this past week while reading about The Southeast region of the United States.  We will continue to read and learn about the Southeast this week.  After students are "experts" they will create presentations using a website called Prezi that is similar to Powerpoint (but way more fun!).

We have been talking a lot about how as the year progresses, students will be required to take their learning from one subject and apply it in another subject more and more.  The learning that is taking place in Reader's Workshop, Writer's Workshop and Social Studies are perfect examples of this.  Below are pictures of partnerships working together to apply their reading learning during social studies.