Weekly Newsletter Jan. 21 - 25

Grade 4KW

Weekly Newsletter

January 21 - January 25, 2019

The grade 4 camp was an enormous success! It was such a wonderful opportunity for me to get to know the students better. It was amazing to see how much the children grew over the two days. I am sure that your children , just like me, slept very well in their own beds on Friday night.

Language Arts

In Reading this week we are completing our units on realistic fiction. Students are completing reading their Book Club realistic fiction stories,  using thinkmarks to identify important & surprising parts. We are also examining key events and both expected and unexpected character traits as well as emerging themes.

In writing this week we are completing peer editing in CUPS (Capitalization, Usage, Punctuation & Spelling, as well as revising with ARMS (Add sentences and words, Remove unneeded sentences and words, Move a sentence or word placement and Substitute words or sentences for others). We have been both giving and receiving feedback from peers and teachers in order to get our realistic fiction stories to the publishing stage.

Math

This week we begin our unit on equivalent fractions. Students will complete the pre assessment so we can gather their current knowledge on fractions. They will then move on to show what fractions will look like when we model them during our class work. Students will begin to compare two fractions with different numerators and denominators.

Science

As we launch our science unit, students are introduced to the unit and to their roles as geologists exploring a fossil that was discovered in a rocky outcrop in Desert Rocks National Park. They learn that a geologist is a scientist who studies the materials and processes that form the solid part of Earth. They learn that rocks and fossils can provide clues about the way Earth changes over time. They reflect on what they understand and don’t understand, allowing them to prepare for learning new things. Students also learn about observations and inferences and make inferences about the found fossil and are introduced to some simulations.

Announcements

• January 25th: FREE Dress day -  If your child chooses to not wear their uniform they can make their 5 RM donation to one of the Red Hat.
• Camp Lost Property - There are some leftover items from camp that have been forgotten by students. Please remind your child to check the table in the grade four common area for lost or missing items.
• Water Bottles & Hats - Please check that your child comes to school with their water bottles and hats every morning. Recently, many students seem to be forgetting them at home.

Resources

Here is a video explaining a game called Race To 1 that you can create at home to help reinforce the concept of fractions. It is a game primarily for teaching addition and subtraction of fractions but it can be modified to simply build fractions and conceptual understanding.

Here is a website resource, The Math Learning Center, where students can build and manipulate fractions. Open the link and select fractions. When building fractions we encourage only using rectangles as it will reinforce what we are doing in the classroom.