4th grade hopes all families had a nice and relaxing Thanksgiving break! The Clermont family had an exciting break, as our new son, Jett, came into the world on November 26th!
Literacy - We began a new read aloud book, The Lemonade War. We continue to discuss important elements of literacy and making connections throughout the novel. Students each were assigned individual book reports on chapter books either at or above their grade level. We practiced identifying common themes in short stories and had our first Reader's Theater workshop! Book reports will be finished by Dec 2nd (grades close!) and we did some comprehension and fluency work in our literacy binders. Writing - We continue to work on weekly spelling. We are trying to ditch boring words in our writing and developed an "other ways to say 'said'" to help spruce up our dialogue. We also established rules for using dialogue to help 4th graders use correct punctuation while writing. We will continue to work on writing mechanics, including using a variety of transition words and powerful word choices. We are finishing up our Narrative Unit with one final writing piece before we move onto opinion writing! Math - We continued doing our daily math fact fluency drills. We began Unit 3 in which we introduced identifying equivalent fractions. We prepared a fractions card game to help practice. We also devised ways to label fractions on a number line, add and subtract fractions with like denominators, and compare fractions with like and unlike denominators. As you can see, Unit 3 is all about fractions! We will spend a significant amount of time practicing this important, but sometimes difficult, math skill. Science - Our continued our next Unit, Earth Movements! We finished our collaborative Google Slides presentations about landforms of the Earth. Students worked simultaneously (in groups of 3) to prepare a Google Slides presentation about their landforms. We will be moving on to cover plate tectonics, natural disasters, and more! MicroSociety - We had our first marketplace on November 29th! What a success! Micro Citizens reported to work, or if it was their day off, they were free to roam the marketplace and spend their hard-earned Micro Bucks at all the various ventures!
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Literacy - We completed a book vs movie comparison of our novel unit study title, The Indian in the Cupboard. We began our individual Chapter Book Reports and a new read aloud book, titled, The Lemonade War. We started work on identifying themes in stories, and began a Reader's Theater workshop!
Writing - We continue to work on weekly spelling. We are finishing up our timeline pieces and practicing some new writing strategies. Students have been tasked with adding dialogue to stories as well as using new leads to introduce their stories. There are several strategies we focused on to help "Hook the Reader" like adding a question, a quote, or jumping right into the action! Math - We continued doing our daily math fact fluency drills. We finished Unit 2 and I was happy to see outstanding progress for many 4th graders! We began Unit 3 with a focus on creating equivalent fractions and putting fractions on a number line. We prepared a fractions match game which we will try out next week. Science - Our continued our next Unit, Earth Movements! We finished our Google Drawings of the inner layers of the Earth and introduced the next chapter about landmarks. Students were then assigned a landmark (mountain, plateaus, etc) and worked in groups of 3 on a collaborative Google Slides presentation to "teach" the rest of the students about their landmark. Technology and collaboration - huge 21st century skills! MicroSociety - Business licenses and bank loans have been handed in. Ventures and agencies have been meeting to prepare for our first Marketplace on November 29th Literacy - We finished our group novel study of The Indian in the Cupboard. The students loved our novel unit study! We will finish the study with a novel and movie comparison on Monday, when our hard work will be rewarded with a showing of The Indian in the Cupboard movie! Students will compare and contrast the settings, characters, and plot between the movie and novel. We will begin reading groups shortly. We continue our daily independent reading.
Writing - We continue to work on weekly spelling. We completed our "Which Witch is Which?" descriptive writing project. The students loved the guessing game we played on Halloween. We then created timelines of our lives from which we chose a topic to be the basis of our next narrative piece. Now that students have individualized writing goals, I will look to see how they incorporate these goals into their timeline writing piece. Math - We continued doing our daily math fact fluency drills. We discussed classifying angles by their properties into right, acute, and obtuse categories. We then expanded that knowledge by moving into classifying quadrilateral shapes. We played a few classification games to help reinforce knowledge of the various properties. Finally, we ended the week moving into line and shape symmetry. Science - Our began our next Unit, Earth Movements! We began by discussing what know about the planet, and what are some curiosities we had about planet Earth. We discussed how Earth used to be one large land mass and plate tectonics moved the continents around. We started to dissect Earth's layers and began using a new tool in our Google kit, called Google Drawings, to make an illustration of the layers of the Earth. MicroSociety - Report to work! All ventures are staffed and began meeting during MicroSociety time to create schedules for employees, develop mission statements, and begin to list materials needed for a successful venture. Employees will meet with their ventures for about 2 more weeks to prepare before marketplace opens! |
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April 2018
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