This Week in Fourth Grade....

Closing Ceremony
Each day before the bell rings, we come back together as a community to celebrate kids we saw going above and beyond to be an outstanding community member that day.  Ask your child about the actions of themselves and/or a classmate that got a "shout out" each day!  It is a nice way to end the day on a positive note!  

Writing Workshop
We started writing our "brave" realistic fiction stories last week.  Students worked on creating a plan for their story by thinking of a time that they were brave.  We made these story ideas fictional by changing either the character in the story and/or by changing the event. Ask your child about how their story shows that a character is brave.

Science
The blue team has spent the past few weeks in science learning about sound. Students have learned about how animals use sound to communicate.  We have also practiced using specific vocabulary to describe the sounds that animals make.  Students worked hard at creating a "What's My Code?" flip book that teaches the reader about animal communication.  The green team will switch from social studies to science this week.  The blue team will move to social studies.

Reader's Workshop

Students are learning how to make inferences about the characters they are reading about.  We learned to look for repetitions in what characters say, think, and do.  We also learned that authors typically do not write anything on accident, which means every detail matters!  As you read with your child this week, ask them what the author seems to be repeating about their character and what that repetition makes them think.

Social Studies
The green team has spent the past few weeks in social studies learning about maps.  They have gotten to know the map of the United States better and have built up their vocabulary with words like, equator, northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, and lines on longitude and latitude.  On Friday students played a game that helped them practice their newfound knowledge of latitude and longitude lines.