Spirit Day !

17-18 Video

Monday

This morning in writing the students finished up their literary essays on theme. The rest of this week our writing will be focused on shorter pieces of writing to review what is necessary in narrative, opinion, and informative/explanatory pieces. In reading we continued "The Land of Stories" and thought about our main characters' problems thus far. This week we will begin to connect the fantasy/fairy tale aspects to typical mythological archetypes through the analysis of characters wants and motivations. In math this week we will begin our final unit; Patterns & Measurement. This afternoon in science the students worked in small groups to simulate collisions with their vehicles. They made observations related to energy, force, and elastic/ inelastic collisions! They're doing a wonderful job with this new unit!

Homework: Input/ Output math worksheet.

Reminders: Science field trip to WashU on Friday! Please turn in forms and money if you have not already.

Strings tomorrow ( A day)

NEXT WEEK we will MAP test on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Our field trip to Powell Hall will be next Wednesday the 9th.

Updates

In writing we are working hard on our last literary essay for the year which will focus on the theme of a book. Students have written their outline/ rough draft and will finalize their essays this week. 

In reading we finished "A Voice From the Border" and read our Author's Note today to learn the historical aspects of the book. We focused on many skills when reading this aloud; Identifying and analyzing character perspective, problem & solution, setting, mood, and theme. We will begin a new book this week as well as starting to enter our final reading unit, Mythology.  

In math we are finishing our Geometry unit this week (Topics 15 & 16). The test is tomorrow (Tuesday) and we will begin our final unit of patterns and measurement next. The students have been working on identifying and drawing quadrilaterals, triangles, and finding lines of symmetry.

In science we've been loving our new Collisions unit. We have learned about types of energy and focused on where we find potential energy versus kinetic energy. The students are working closely with tablets to display and showcase their learning.

Homework: STUDY for the math test tomorrow-- study guide due tomorrow (pages 861-864)

Reminders: Library Tomorrow (B Day), Strings Thursday (D Day), NO SCHOOL Friday.

MAP testing for 4th grade will be the week of May 7th.

We have two field trips coming up!! Please send in the science (WashU) forms and money ASAP. This field trip is on Friday, May 4.

Our music field trip is on Wednesday, May 9th.

Abilities Awareness

Last week we had abilities awareness week at school. We heard from many wonderful organizations to learn about different abilities.

Updates for April

April in Fourth Grade is an exciting time! We have lots of fun things we are working on in new units (Math & Science) and many new things we are able to try in our current Reading and Writing units. In writing we are still working on literary essays. The students have worked very hard to improve the structure and complexity of their writing. They are now choosing between multiple books to write an essay about theme. In reading we are almost finished with "A Voice from the Border". The students are keeping up with their daily questions and are involved in many discussions involving the mood of the story, character change, and sub-plots within the text. This week the students are also starting new book groups & partnerships that will allow them more independence and collaboration in their reading. In math we are working on geometry; our focus this week will be on classifying triangles and quadrilaterals. We will end this unit next week. In science we began a new unit "Energy: Collisions"! We are actually piloting this unit for the district and are able to use lots of technology and new equipment in our experiments. So far we have explored how energy is created, what it is, and types of energy found/ transferred.