A few important reminders:
We visited our 2nd grade buddy room last Friday. It was a blast! We made parachutes and helped our buddies reflect on air resistance. We will visit our buddies every other Friday (when we don't have Theater). This time helps students practice responsibility, patience and friendship! Election Mini-Unit This week we will begin a mini-unit on the presidential election. Students will learn vocabulary related to elections, reflect on what qualities they would value in a president, and practice researching and evaluating sources. Students will choose one candidate to research, collect notes on and produce a candidate profile for this presidential candidate. The goal of this project is for them to produce a profile that is: factual, accurate and professional which other voters could use as a reliable source to learn about a candidate. Note: I am aware that not all news on this election is G-rated. Students will not be accessing any sources other than the ones I provide them links for. There will be no free surfing the internet for information. Writing This week students will finish revising, editing and publishing a writing piece of their choice. These pieces will live in our class library so students can share their work. It is very exciting to see the work that they began in their notebook transformed into final pieces, which they should be very proud of. Reading Reading this week will partly support our election project, as we practice reading non-fiction texts and taking notes as we read. We also continue to work on identifying parts of speech and forming complete sentences. Upcoming in reading: After our four day weekend I will be introducing our book commercial project in which students will choose a new fiction book to read. They will use this book to demonstrate their understanding of story elements, summarizing and responding personally to reading. This project will be done mostly in class and will be presented to the class in December.
0 Comments
In our current unit, which focuses on place value, particularly decimals to the thousandths, we have worked on multiplying and dividing by powers of 10, using exponents to represent powers of 10, metric units, and naming numbers using standard, expanded, word, and unit form.
This week we will work on rounding decimals in Engage NY, Module 1, Lessons 7 and 8, and on adding and subtracting decimals in Lessons 9 and 10. I will also introduce students to Front Row, which is an app that will allow students to practice math fact fluency and which I can track over time. Most students have accuracy with their basic multiplication and division facts but are needing more speed in order to access more challenging math in the future. We want to build strength in these facts before middle school. A note about Google Classroom: If you are getting daily updates from Google Classroom there is an option to switch it to weekly updates which might crowd your inbox less. I will post helpful videos as well as other resources we might use in class along with announcements about homework on Google Classroom. The exit tickets that students submit are in class assignments, occasionally students may miss turning one in, but I can have them complete it in class at a later date. Reading
This week in reading students will continue reading Finding the Titanic as we work on identifying the main ideas of the chapters in the story. In non-fiction texts fourth graders need to be able to identify the main idea and supporting details in short passages, paragraphs, chapters and books. Main idea is often related to an author's point of view which we focused on last week. Students are also beginning small reading groups this week. These groups allow students to work on reading skills fitting to their needs as well as explore new texts and genres they might otherwise not have encountered. Writing This week students will be selecting a draft from their writing notebook. Throughout the next two weeks students will work to finish this draft, revise it, edit it and publish a final copy. The final copy will be made it to construction paper covered books for our class library. Reading their own work and each other's work as a book can be really exciting for students. The revising part of this project can be challenging for students. Change is hard. It may help to ask your student about their draft and what changes they are thinking about making. Dead Word Eulogy Last week students chose the word they will put to rest with our dead word eulogy project. Many students chose "bad" and "good". Students came up with very creative synonyms for their dead words. This week students will brainstorm events from the "life" of their word. This project can be worked on at home so there is not as much class time devoted to these tasks. I will remind students that they can work on it at home as well. Science This is the last week we will be working on structures and functions of life. Students will do some experimenting with the Bess Beetles this week as we work on comparing structures of life across different species. Election Mini-Unit In honor of the 2016 presidential election, and the unique opportunity that presidential election years offer for learning, I have planned an election mini unit. I plan to start this unit next week (October 24th) and wrap it up the week of the election. The goal of this unit is for students to practice researching and evaluating sources. Ultimately, students will produce comparative candidate profiles which will have the goal of being being factual, accurate and professional. The candidate profiles are meant to communicate information that could inform voters about the candidates. I realize this election year is more heated than in past years, however I have fond memories of researching presidential candidates in grade school as a way of learning about the election process and the qualities of a president. If you don't want your student to participate in the unit, please let me know early this week so I can plan alternative activities. I also want assure you that I have structured our learning in such a way as to promote understanding and not divisiveness. Conferences Please remember to sign up for a conference time on either October 28th or the 30th. Students will not have school these days, nor on Nov. 1st. The PickaTime system will open this Wednesday, the 19th, for signing up. Unfortunately, we don't have time slots for parents to sign up to talk with their students math teacher, so if you have questions for them contact them by phone or e-mail. Science In science this week we get to meet our Bess Beetles which will help us think about the structures and functions of insects in comparison to humans and other animals. Students have in class assignments related to the Bess Beetles this week, but no homework. Students can adopt a Bess Beetle at the end of our studies, so just be aware that they may ask! Reading: Point of View Interpreting the point of view of an author, characters and readers is an important 4th grade reading standard. Students will also be able to identify 1st, 2nd and 3rd person points of view. This week will particularly focus on Author's point of view. An Author's Point of view can be inferred from: Word Choice, Focus/Topic, Author's Opinion, Author's Purpose for writing. Homework: reading homework is to read 30 minutes each night. This is starred in our Agenda Notebook each afternoon. Non-Fiction Writing This week we will look at examples of non-fiction writing as we brainstorm non-fiction topics and styles we are interested in writing about this year. After this week students' writing notebooks will be bursting with seeds of potential writing projects and they will begin selecting pieces to grow into formal published pieces of writing. Dead Word Eulogy This week students will begin a project that has been a tradition for 4th graders at Hoover in recent years. We will work on improving our voice and word choice as writers through the "Dead Word Eulogy" Project. Students will write a Eulogy to a word that will no longer be used in our writing. This project will also help them to understand the importance of synonyms and how to use them to improve word choice in writing. The sheet below has the full information about the project and that sheet will also go home with students on Tuesday. This project can be worked on in class and for homework. This project is due on November 7th. Number Corner
This Month our Number Corner activities are about decimal fractions. Ask your student about tenths and hundredths, as well as their equivalent fractions and visual representations. Hoover Happenings
|
What's in the blog?
|