This Week in Fourth Grade....

Report Cards

Report cards will go home on Friday.  Please sign the envelope and send back to school with your child.

Book Orders


Book orders are due tomorrow.  The code for online ordering is H3M9C.

Reader's Workshop


Last week, students learned about different types of non-fiction text structures and how we can organize our notes according to the way the text is structured.  This week, students will learn how to write about their comprehension for a non-fiction text.

In addition to the non-fiction learning we are doing, students have also been learning comprehension strategies for poetry.  We have been reading poems by Nikki Grimes from a book entitled, My Man Blue.  The individual poems come together to tell the story of the relationship that grows between a young boy who is "the man of the house" and his tough-looking, kind-hearted mentor.

Writing Workshop

We started with our new writing genre last week....research!  The kids were able to choose the topic that they were most interested in.  They had the choice of sharks, whales, or dolphins.   The kids are going be creating their very own website chock full of all of the great facts that they learn over the next few weeks.  They will begin to build their website over the next month or so and then it will go "live."  More information to follow!

Math Workshop

Last week the kids worked on the Trimester 2 assessment that is administered district wide.  This was based on the work that we have done throughout the second trimester.  I am able to see the relative strengths of the class as a whole.  I am also able to take the data from this assessment and find areas that were a general weakness for most kids.  We will be able to focus on these topics over the next few weeks as a review at the start of math during our discussion time.

Since there is never enough time in the day, you will receive an email soon regarding additional work to be sent home with your child so that he/she can practice areas of individual weakness. To any parent that requests this additional practice, I will send it home by mid-week. 

This week we will be moving onto comparing fractions on a number line.  We will start by spending some time comparing fractions to benchmark numbers such as 0, 1/2, and 1.  We will then take that learning and start to compare other fractions.  

Social Studies

Students continued to learn about the Southeast Region this past week.  Next week, partnerships will be assigned a more specific topic in the Southeast Region to research and present using Prezi.  Students will be able to apply what they have been learning during Reader's Workshop during this project!