Weekly Update

Math: Topic 4 began this week with the exploration of mental math. Students practiced a variety of strategies to add and subtract mentally. On Wednesday we used rounding to estimate sums and differences, and today students looked carefully at strategies for adding larger numbers accurately. 

Reader's Workshop: We continued our launching unit in Reader's Workshop by studying the format of graphic novels and how to adjust our reading when we choose to read these types of books. We also reviewed the reading strategy of inferring and asking questions (we will be working more with these strategies next week). 

Writer's Workshop: This week students learned strategies for generating small moment story ideas. Students explored strong emotions such as worried, embarrassed, and hope to help identify true events for story writing. On Thursday we practiced rehearsing a story idea (walking in to school on the first day) being sure to tell the story step-by-step with exact details. We also continued our word study this week by focusing in on sentences. We explored sentence fragments and identified the subject and predicate of a sentence. 

Science: We kicked off science this week with our Engineers in Residence! Two engineers (one a former Kennedy ladybug!) visited 4th grade to introduce the Engineering Design Process and to tell us about what engineers do on a daily basis. Students have been assigned their first engineering task of the year: to design a wind powered Puff Mobile. Students had a chance to apply their cooperative group skills that we reviewed and practiced last week in a new group task. After identifying the problem, brainstorming ideas, and detailed planning, groups began to build their Puff Mobiles on Friday afternoon. As students are building and testing their vehicles they are finding that some of their ideas did not work as well as they planned. Students are keeping track of the problems that arise and they solutions that they develop; a critical component of the Engineering Design Process. 

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Social Studies: We began our first social studies unit on Maps and Globes. Students learned about the globe this week, as well as latitude and longitude.

Upcoming Important Dates:

Topic 4 assessment Friday September 29th 

Scholastic Orders Due Friday October 6th

No School Columbus Day Monday October 9th 

Open House Thursday October 5th 6:30pm-8:00pm

Weekly Update

Reader's Workshop

Students are doing a great job with Reader’s Workshop routines.

In Reader's Workshop students learned how to use their writing journals to record their thinking about their reading through letter writing. The focus of this week's minilesson was narrative story elements. Students reviewed plot, setting, characters, conflict, and theme. Students will gain a deeper understanding of each of these elements throughout the year through interactive read-alouds. We also took a deeper look at plot, by using Story Mountains to track the events in the story "Dog Breath" by Dav Pilkey. In collaborative groups students determined which event was the "turning point" of the story.

 Another minilesson this week focused on characters. We discussed the character Camilla in A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon this to help us learn about characters. We focused on her actions, words, and feelings to help us determine who she is as a person (character traits). Students worked on providing evidence for traits they felt fit her character. We also used this book to think about the author’s message or theme. Students did a great job thinking about the lesson David Shannon wanted us to learn as readers.

Math

We have officially completed our first math topic (Topic 3 place value). Topic 3 assessments will come home early next week. This week students learned and practiced strategies for preparing for a math assessment. Also, students continued to practice math workshop routines by trying a few place value games, working on their place value detectives project, and signing up for Xtra.org math fact practice (flyers when home today).

Writer's Workshop

We officially began writer's workshop this week with a special guest. Len Cabral came and share stories with us as we kicked out our year of writing. Our first lesson in writer's workshop this week focused on generating narrative story ideas. Students thought of strong emotions like guilt and excitement to help generate a large list of ideas. We also talked about how important people, places, and things can be a sources for our story ideas as well. Some of our next lessons focused on making sure our ideas are "seed" ideas not "watermelon" ideas so that we can zoom in on them with detail and tell the story step-by-step (just like Len Cabral did).

  

On Creative Arts Friday students engaged in an activity to practice working in groups. After the marshmallow challenge last week, students developed a list of important things to remember when working groups to use in future projects.

Constitution Day

We celebrated Constitution Day today (actual date 9/17) as a grade by taking a "virtual" field trip to the capital to learn more about what the Constitution is and why it is so important to us. We also developed a class Constitution earlier this week, by first looking back at the question students answered on the first day of school and developing a short list of rules that we will need to follow. 

Weekly Update

We have had a busy yet exciting second week of school here in RM 21! Students have continued to participate in activities to get to know their classmates and 4th grade peers. On Tuesday students worked together in teams to Save Sam the gummy worm! (see pictures below). We also began our week with a 4th grade community meeting on Tuesday morning.

Math: We have started our first math topic (Topic 3) on place value. This week students learned all about math workshop in 4th grade. In this topic students have extended their current knowledge of place value to write larger numbers in standard, expanded, and word form. We also discussed the relationship between each place value and how this relationship can help us compare and order numbers. 

Reader's Workshop: This week students were introduced to and practiced the 4 stages of reader's workshop; housekeeping, reading mini lesson, zone, and share. During housekeeping students learned how to find and check out books from the classroom library. Students will be using their reading journals to write letters back and fourth with Mrs. Williams discussing their thoughts about the books they are reading and reflecting on themselves as a strategic reader. Zone, or independent reading time, has been the favorite of the reader's workshop routines this week. 

Writer's Workshop: Students created a small moment writing sample on Wednesday and Thursday. They have also worked to develop their hopes and dreams for 4th grade. Students first began to develop their ideas by creating a map of last years classroom and reflecting on challenges and proud moments from 3rd grade. Students have drafted and are working to publish their hopes and dreams for this year!

Our week ended today with our first Creative Art's Friday. Each Friday students will travel to each 4th grade classroom to participate in Poetry Workshop, Technology, PBL (Project Based Learning), and Art. This week in PBL students completed the Marshmallow Challenge. Small groups worked to build a spaghetti tower with a marshmallow on top. We reflected on the challenges and necessary skills for working in small groups to accomplish a task. (see pictures below)

Important Dates for Next Week:

Wednesday 9/13 Curriculum Afternoon 3:00

Thursday 9/14 Picture Day

Dance Party Friday - 4th graders get moving before beginning the day!