edOctober 2015 has been a memorable and productive month. Let's recap all that we have been working on this month in room 215 and get a glimpse at what is to come....
Readers have been challenging themselves to develop a deep understanding of the characters in their books. Interpreting characters helps students get to the "heart" of the story. One way we can grow these ideas about a character by using patterns in the character's actions to form ideas. Students have been writing about their thinking in their Reader's Notebooks. Mrs. Rosenberg and I are proud of the growth students are making as readers and writers through this work. Take a peek at your child's Reading Log to see the thoughtful work they are doing.
In addition, we have been following Milo on his journey from Dictionopolis to Digitopolis in our class read aloud, Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth. Milo is proving to be a dynamic character and his story offers many opportunities for us to practice interpreting character. Another bonus is that the 4th grade musical will be The Phantom Tollbooth, so reading this story in class is helping prepare us for the big show.
This week, mathematicians are finishing up our unit on Factors, Multiples, and Arrays. Our math curriculum will spiral back to concepts in multiplication and division so continued practice with this concepts is necessary in and out of class.
Our math new unit is "Describing the Shape of the Data: Data Analysis and Probability" We are looking forward to all the enjoyable activities that will help us analyze and understand data in new ways. The 4th graders begin this work with complicated concepts with data and applying it to some fun data collections. See the new unit's communication letters here.
Students also want to continue to take their daily "math vitamin" by practicing for 10 minutes on XtraMath.org to build our fluency with math combinations. Furthermore, students have been working independently on October's DynaMath Problems of the Day which are due November 6th.
Writers and Wordsmiths have shared their first narrative writing piece and we are anxiously anticipating being the writing process again (a writer's work is never DONE). In October we also completed our first cycle of vocabulary words. This rigorous word work offered many opportunities for new learning and perseverance. Students now have a deeper understanding of eight new words and I can't wait to see how their growing vocabularies support their reading and writing lives. This week we began work on the following high frequency spelling words, also know as Elephant Words,:
enough
thought
brought
remembered
probably
though
business
neighbors
surprised
absolutely
In Social Studies students are going full steam ahead with our Investigation of North Carolina. We have all started our NC History Timelines and are going to being our Population Graphs using Google Sheets this week.
Scientists are well under way exploring through the lens of a geologist in our Rocks and Mineral Unit. We started the unit by collecting rock specimens in the Trinity Butterfly Garden. Next, students observed and recorded characteristics of their rocks. This work was a preview for the Rock Collection Project that we started this week. We are integrating technology and research skills using Don Peck's Rock Identification Key. To complete this project your children need to collect at least six rock specimens from nature. The rocks should be from different places and students have been charged with finding six rocks that are unique from one another. An empty egg carton is also needed for the project. Science this month was also a time to investigate the rock cycle and we did so with STARBURSTS! Look at the photo slideshow below with your child and ask them to identify and explain the Rock Cycle.
Lastly, fourth grade will walk to Children's Theater for "Coraline," a musical based on the novel Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Below, you'll find the small blurb and advisory from Children's Theater.
Be wise. Be brave. Be tricky. Bored by her colorless surroundings, Coraline goes exploring through a magic door and gets trapped in a strange, unsettling parallel world. Get scared out of your wits for Halloween with this creepy musical version of the popular fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman.
From Children's Theater of Charlotte: GROWN UP ADVISORY: It is important for us to let you know that this production WILL BE SCARY! And we want to give you this opportunity to make a more informed decision about attending the show with your family. This show will deal with dark themes, contains several scary and surprising moments where characters are in danger, and may be disturbing to some children (and maybe even the adults!). We recommend this show for ages 8 and above, but it’s important that you make the right choice for the young people in your party, regardless of age. If you have any concerns, please feel free tocontact us at 704-973-2828 to discuss the details of the show.
What a busy month it has been so far! Thank you for your continued support and please know that I am always here to answer your questions and communicate with you about what is happening in the school life of your Fourth Brainer!
Take care,
Stephanie
Be wise. Be brave. Be tricky. Bored by her colorless surroundings, Coraline goes exploring through a magic door and gets trapped in a strange, unsettling parallel world. Get scared out of your wits for Halloween with this creepy musical version of the popular fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman.
From Children's Theater of Charlotte: GROWN UP ADVISORY: It is important for us to let you know that this production WILL BE SCARY! And we want to give you this opportunity to make a more informed decision about attending the show with your family. This show will deal with dark themes, contains several scary and surprising moments where characters are in danger, and may be disturbing to some children (and maybe even the adults!). We recommend this show for ages 8 and above, but it’s important that you make the right choice for the young people in your party, regardless of age. If you have any concerns, please feel free tocontact us at 704-973-2828 to discuss the details of the show.
What a busy month it has been so far! Thank you for your continued support and please know that I am always here to answer your questions and communicate with you about what is happening in the school life of your Fourth Brainer!
Take care,
Stephanie