It is hard to believe that we are already five weeks into the school year. The fourth grade learning marathon has begun and your children are going the distance (if you are a fan of the band Cake start singing here). In only five weeks it is amazing to me all that your Fourth Brainers have accomplished. Please read on for a glimpse into all that we have been working on in room 215.
Readers started off the year learning many routines and procedures for making our reading time as productive as possible. We all anxiously awaited the September 8th opening of our classroom library. When the day finally arrived the book tubs were uncovered and with their reading wish lists in hand students excitedly searched through all the stories and informational texts that live in room 215.
Since our library has been open we've been working to choose books that are "just right" by carefully book shopping. Our lesson on choosing "just right" books left quite an impression since it involved Mrs. Dugan eating CANDY! Once students find their books they are expected to "dig in" and work to identify and understand the Elements of Story: Characters, Setting, Plot, Movement through Time and Change. These five elements that make up story structure. This work was modeled with our first read aloud, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.
While fluency is still an important part of reading we are doing our best to reframe how we view books that are "just right." It is not enough to be able read most of the words and retell what is happening. Readers in fourth grade work to analyze a text and develop their own connections and ideas about story. You can imagine us in class exploring these story elements in independent reading, read aloud conversations, and eventually, to support our writing. (This is great to talk with your reader about.)
At home students should be reading each night for at least 30 minutes and about 3-4 nights a week they are expected to complete a Reading Log entry. If you are trying to expand your child's personal library, remember Scholastic orders are due on Thursday, September 15. As we mentioned at Back-to-School night, Scholastic offers 10,000 bonus points if we have $300 in orders. This only happens at the beginning of the year. We use those points to add resources to our classroom library. Orders can be placed at Scholastic.com with the class code P8LD4. You may order from any of their bookclubs. We have made recommendations of books that tie in with our curriculum or have been favorites in previous years. Happy reading!
Mathematicians are finishing up our first unit on Factors, Multiples, and Multiplicative Comparison. We launched this unit of study by hunting for arrays on the Trinity campus. Students in room 215 went in search of sets of items arranged in equal rows and columns. Our work has continued to include investigations of prime and composite numbers, multiple and factor relationships, and story problems that represent multiplication combinations. There has been a strong focus on multiplicative comparison (sounds scarier than it is) problems like:
Mr. Thorton wrote 8 math assessments. Ms. Fresina wrote 3 times as many math assessments as Mr. Thorton. How many math assessments did Ms. Fresina write?
Students practiced writing and solving their own multiplicative comparison stories which have been compiled into a class book.
Our math units are not complete without engaging learning games. In this unit students played Factor Pairs which helped them identify multiplication "combinations they know" with automatically and "combinations they are working on" which they solve using other strategies like using arrays, drawings, building with cubes, multiplication charts, starting with other combinations, adding up, etc. We also played the game Multiple Turn Over which helps students see the relationship between factors and multiples along with helping them identify composite numbers (having more than two factors) and prime numbers (having only two factors, 1 and itself).
All of our Investigations games will be available to practice on the online component of Math Investigations, PearsonRealize. Look for online math information coming home soon! Remember, the Family Letters for this unit can be found in your child's binder among the other math pages from our unit.
In addition, students have just received September's DynaMath magazine and Problems of the Day. These questions offer opportunities for students to push themselves to complete more challenging work and practice perseverance using their math schema and reasoning abilities. DynaMath is written for 3-5 graders so it is common for students to encounter review concepts and concepts they have not been exposed to yet. I request that Dynamath Problems of the Day be worked on in class only since it is not work students can always do independently. We will continue to complete a different twenty question Problems of the Day each month with an extended due date so students can also practice managing their own time and pacing their work.
We also used a few minutes of math to learn a simple and fun game called 100. This game would be fun for the whole family and your fourth grader can teach it to you!
Since our library has been open we've been working to choose books that are "just right" by carefully book shopping. Our lesson on choosing "just right" books left quite an impression since it involved Mrs. Dugan eating CANDY! Once students find their books they are expected to "dig in" and work to identify and understand the Elements of Story: Characters, Setting, Plot, Movement through Time and Change. These five elements that make up story structure. This work was modeled with our first read aloud, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.
While fluency is still an important part of reading we are doing our best to reframe how we view books that are "just right." It is not enough to be able read most of the words and retell what is happening. Readers in fourth grade work to analyze a text and develop their own connections and ideas about story. You can imagine us in class exploring these story elements in independent reading, read aloud conversations, and eventually, to support our writing. (This is great to talk with your reader about.)
At home students should be reading each night for at least 30 minutes and about 3-4 nights a week they are expected to complete a Reading Log entry. If you are trying to expand your child's personal library, remember Scholastic orders are due on Thursday, September 15. As we mentioned at Back-to-School night, Scholastic offers 10,000 bonus points if we have $300 in orders. This only happens at the beginning of the year. We use those points to add resources to our classroom library. Orders can be placed at Scholastic.com with the class code P8LD4. You may order from any of their bookclubs. We have made recommendations of books that tie in with our curriculum or have been favorites in previous years. Happy reading!
Mathematicians are finishing up our first unit on Factors, Multiples, and Multiplicative Comparison. We launched this unit of study by hunting for arrays on the Trinity campus. Students in room 215 went in search of sets of items arranged in equal rows and columns. Our work has continued to include investigations of prime and composite numbers, multiple and factor relationships, and story problems that represent multiplication combinations. There has been a strong focus on multiplicative comparison (sounds scarier than it is) problems like:
Mr. Thorton wrote 8 math assessments. Ms. Fresina wrote 3 times as many math assessments as Mr. Thorton. How many math assessments did Ms. Fresina write?
Students practiced writing and solving their own multiplicative comparison stories which have been compiled into a class book.
Our math units are not complete without engaging learning games. In this unit students played Factor Pairs which helped them identify multiplication "combinations they know" with automatically and "combinations they are working on" which they solve using other strategies like using arrays, drawings, building with cubes, multiplication charts, starting with other combinations, adding up, etc. We also played the game Multiple Turn Over which helps students see the relationship between factors and multiples along with helping them identify composite numbers (having more than two factors) and prime numbers (having only two factors, 1 and itself).
All of our Investigations games will be available to practice on the online component of Math Investigations, PearsonRealize. Look for online math information coming home soon! Remember, the Family Letters for this unit can be found in your child's binder among the other math pages from our unit.
In addition, students have just received September's DynaMath magazine and Problems of the Day. These questions offer opportunities for students to push themselves to complete more challenging work and practice perseverance using their math schema and reasoning abilities. DynaMath is written for 3-5 graders so it is common for students to encounter review concepts and concepts they have not been exposed to yet. I request that Dynamath Problems of the Day be worked on in class only since it is not work students can always do independently. We will continue to complete a different twenty question Problems of the Day each month with an extended due date so students can also practice managing their own time and pacing their work.
We also used a few minutes of math to learn a simple and fun game called 100. This game would be fun for the whole family and your fourth grader can teach it to you!
Writers have launched their Writer's Notebook by exploring what writers write, what writers write about, and why writers write. Since the first week of school students have compiled "jot lists" with story ideas from their lives. We have also discussed the Writing Process and taken a piece, our Pet Peeve writing, through the process.
Currently we are finishing a shared writing piece about a classroom memory we all have. The Fourth Brainers chose to write about our "just right" book lesson (this is the one with the candy). We started by generating ideas together, then planning out the story's plot, and then we drafted the beginning together. Students are all writing their own endings. There has already been a since of excitement around our Writer's Workshops and we work to continue to foster the love of writing while working to build stamina and clearly articulate our ideas.
Scientists have reviewed the Engineering Design Process by building paper skyscrapers in teams. Last week we launched our unit on the Human Body by looking at the levels of organization in living things and creating factual posters representing the six organ systems in the human body that we will be studying this year. Check out this fun video we watched to launch our discussion on the human body systems: Amoeba Sisters Present: Human Body Systems.
Social Scientists in room 215 have explored what it means to be a Social Scientist through Social Studies Alive! lessons that look at the roles of economists, geographers, historians, and political scientists. Students brought in artifacts of each and shared them with their classmates. We are setting the stage for a long term project investigating our state through the lenses of a Social Scientist. Look for more details about the project this month.
Currently we are finishing a shared writing piece about a classroom memory we all have. The Fourth Brainers chose to write about our "just right" book lesson (this is the one with the candy). We started by generating ideas together, then planning out the story's plot, and then we drafted the beginning together. Students are all writing their own endings. There has already been a since of excitement around our Writer's Workshops and we work to continue to foster the love of writing while working to build stamina and clearly articulate our ideas.
Scientists have reviewed the Engineering Design Process by building paper skyscrapers in teams. Last week we launched our unit on the Human Body by looking at the levels of organization in living things and creating factual posters representing the six organ systems in the human body that we will be studying this year. Check out this fun video we watched to launch our discussion on the human body systems: Amoeba Sisters Present: Human Body Systems.
Social Scientists in room 215 have explored what it means to be a Social Scientist through Social Studies Alive! lessons that look at the roles of economists, geographers, historians, and political scientists. Students brought in artifacts of each and shared them with their classmates. We are setting the stage for a long term project investigating our state through the lenses of a Social Scientist. Look for more details about the project this month.
Thanks for reading!
- Mrs. Dugan
- Mrs. Dugan