December/January Update

Welcome to 2017!  I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season!  

We are back in action in 4th grade.  Here is what we have been up to and what we are up to next.

Reading  We have been reading all types of different texts in 4th grade.  We finished our read aloud A Series of Unfortunate Events and watched the movie as well.  The students were surprised at how different the book and the movie were.  During guided reading groups, all students had the opportunity to read a novel on tape for their level. Students read Shiloh, Because of Winn Dixie and Stone Fox and we just finished those novels last week.  We will be choosing new ones soon.  During our meeting times in guided reading, we are reading and discussing leveled readers of mostly non-fiction content.  Students have read about therapy animals, civil rights, the government, weather and much more!  We usually focus on a skill like main idea and details, or fact and opinion as well as practice new vocabulary.

Writing   Our first trimester consisted of narrative writing and we did a lot of story telling, both real and made up.  Our second trimester will focus on opinion writing.  Students are learning how to present their opinion, while backing it up with facts and examples.  Students are learning how to appropriately write an introduction and conclusion for this type of writing.  Opinion writing is highly organized and students will have lots of practice with graphic organizers to keep their ideas in order.

Math-  We have tackled double digit multiplication and long division since our last blog update.  It has been tough, but the students really stepped up to the challenge.  Now, the even more difficult task of fractions begins.  Students still need constant practice with their multiplication facts in order to be successful with fractions.  Fractions rely heavily on the knowledge of factors and multiples, as students begin to find common denominators and fraction equivalents.  It is going to be difficult in the beginning, but eventually they will start to understand fractions as a bigger picture.  It will be followed by decimal notation, which then relies heavily on their fraction knowledge.

S.S.- We have spent the past month and half studying the land and climate, the plants and animals, and the people and products of the Northeast.  Students are learning how to create a website using Google Sites to showcase their research about a particular Northeast state.  They will then present their website to the class.

Science- We finished our land forms and erosion unit quite a while ago and took a little bit of time to review matter.  The students learned about properties of matter, observed how temperature affects molecule movement, learned how to measure mass and volume and observed matter changing from one state to another.  We are currently ready to begin our unit on energy and will explore electricity, magnetism and force and motion.




Reminders: 
1.) No School Monday January 16th- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
2.) No School Monday and Tuesday February 20 & 21 - Winter Break