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.