This Week In Fourth Grade

Off To A Great Start!

We had a fantastic start to the school year last week!  We spent time getting to know one another, our classrooms, and the expectations for the school year.  

Tell Us About Your Child....

Last week, we sent an email with a link to a questionnaire for your to tell us about your child.  Thank you to the parents that have already completed it.  If you haven't had a chance to yet, I am attaching the link below.  This questionnaire helps us to get a better understanding of your child.  Thank you for your help with this!

Tell Us About Your Child link

We Can Learn Anything!

This year we will focus on having a Growth Mindset or a "can do" attitude.  To get us thinking about this, we watched a video that shows how each of us has the ability to learn anything as long as we put in the effort and don't give up.  Here is a link to the video that we watched...

https://www.khanacademy.org/coach-res/reference-for-coaches/how-to/v/you-can-learn-anything

We also learned that our brains have millions of neurons that get stronger with practice.  We emphasized that our neurons can be weak when we first learn something new and that as we practice new concepts and skills, they will get stronger!

Keeping this in mind, students each chose a motto to live by this year.  They began to illustrate these last week and will finish them this week.  Once they are finished, they will be hanging around the building.  Keep an eye out during Open House!

Book Tasting

We dove into reading this past week by having a book tasting at "Leger's Lunch Spot."  It was a fabulous way to get books into students' hands and to give them a chance to try out genres that they may not have leaned toward in the past.  All students left with a book they are ready and rearing to read and a list of books that they are looking forward to reading in the next few weeks.  We also reviewed how students look for good books and how they make sure that they are choosing just right books.  

This week we will discuss expectations for reading at home and some information will come home about "reading in the edges."  Please let me know if your child ever reports that they are having difficulty finding a good book to read!

Wish List

Thank you so much for the donations of cleaning supplies and other much needed items!  Mrs. Leger has an Amazon Wish List with some additional items needed for our community.  If you are interested in making a donation, the link is below.

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2PX9TBZ14UZQ9?ref_=wl_share  

SeeSaw

Students were introduced to a new way to communicate their hard work and successes with you at home.  Information will be coming home this week about SeeSaw.  Please take a moment to read the notice and sign-up.  Students are excited to share with you this year!

Math Workshop

We started our math time last week with a number talk called "Which One Doesn't Belong."  We will start math this way each day.  Number talks are a fun way to have a discussion about math and learn from one another.  We focused on sharing our opinion and backing it up with a reason.  Students then learned about how to agree, disagree, or add on to the thinking of a classmate.  We used Accountable Talk sentence frames to help with this.  Here is an example of a number talk we did last week.  Ask your child which one he/she thought "didn't belong."

Which One Doesn't Belong?

Accountable Talk sentence frames