Monday, October 5, 2015

October 2015

Wow that first month went by quickly!  We are well underway in fourth grade! Here's is what we've been up to and what's around the bend.

Reminder: Planners need to be signed Monday thru Thursday to indicate completed homework and reading.
Children must read for 30 minutes a day during the week and hopefully on the weekends as well, although I know weekends can be hectic.
Friday folders need to be emptied, signed and returned each Monday.





Writers hard at work!
Reading:  We have been working on how to summarize a text.  We read the story The Secret Moose as a whole fourth grade and reviewed narrative elements.  Students have an in depth understanding of setting and character descriptions and will continue to further their understanding of this throughout the year.  In guided reading groups, we have been working on pulling the most important idea out of each chapter we read in order to form a summary of non-fiction texts.  Students are reading short leveled readers that correspond to their reading level.  They complete pre-reading activities such as formulating questions and predictions, they are expanding their vocabulary by charting new words and are also practicing their fluency by doing timed readings with one another.  We are currently reading the book Something Upstairs by Avi, who wrote the book based on a historic house on the east side of Providence.  The kids are loving this story and everyday they are asking to read more and more of it.  They are learning about their state's history through this story and hearing some excellent descriptive language, which ties in perfectly with our writing.  

Charting similarities and differences in our classroom.
Writing:  This week we will be working on reviewing constructed response format and practicing how to incorporate details from the text into our reading responses.  We have also been working on building our writer's notebook ideas to begin our first narrative.  The student's writing binders are made up of two parts: their writing and a resource section in the back, which consists of word walls, editing and revising checklists and models of good writing.  They are currently working on a personal narrative in which they are trying to create a great hook or lead to capture their reader's interest and are also adding "showing not telling" details to describe characters, settings and problems.






Measuring how high the ball bounces

Math:  We have completed chapter one in our math books, which was all about place value, comparing numbers and rounding numbers up to the millions.  We are currently finishing up chapter 2 which includes estimating sums and differences, and adding and subtracting large numbers with and without regrouping.  We will be moving on to understanding factors and multiples and generating and analyzing patterns after this.

Getting to know each other the first week of school
Math Facts:  It is imperative that students know their math facts as it will make other concepts  taught in fourth grade math that much easier to learn.  Each Friday we take a fast fact timed test.  It begins with addition and subtraction and moves on to multiplication.  Congratulations to our first few rounds of students who have passed and moved on to the next level!

Recording results during skittles experiment
S.S.  We have been working on studying the seven continents and the oceans.  Students have had some practice with latitude and longitude, hemispheres, and directions, as well as creating their own globes.  We will be moving on to studying land forms and climates of our country and then narrow our geography down by regions of the United States.  Each region will have a states and capitals map test that accompanies it throughout the year.


How does temperature affect bounce?
Science: A few weeks ago we went through our first scientific method together by doing an experiment.  Students worked together to investigate which tennis ball bounced the highest:  a room temperature ball, a refrigerated ball and a frozen ball.  Our results for the most part indicated the room temperature ball bounced the highest. We also practiced our scientific skills by demonstrating how acid rain erodes earth materials by dropping vinegar onto skittles to show how it wears away the layers of candy.  This week we will be introducing our new science kits which includes all things energy: electricity, magnetism, transfer of energy and sound waves.  The new science kits are phenomenal and will offer students many hands on opportunities to understand the world in which we live.  I am very excited to dive into this with them!
Watching our weathered skittles




Cup stacking with elastic bands was a lot harder than it looked!




Team building week one: stacking cups without our hands


Scientists at work observing and recording



Scientists observing carefully
Almost lunchtime!





Questions, questions, questions...

These questions made us think a bit!




Saving Sam Team Building Activity

Getting Sam, the worm, into his gummy saver life jacket and back  in his boat using paper clips only.

It was quite the challenge, but we had great success learning to work as a team!









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