September 4, 2014

We've definitely been busy this week in fourth grade, so hopefully everyone was able to rest over the long weekend! I enjoyed seeing so many people at Back to School Night last week. One thing I passed around then was a contact list that we will be sending home to students in the fourth grade that has families' phone numbers and emails. If you'd like your information be included on this list and were not at Back to School Night or forgot to sign it, please let me know before September 12.

We have our first math test tomorrow. It will cover place value, writing numbers in standard, expanded, and word form, comparing numbers, and finding patterns. Next week, we'll do a quick overview of multiplication and division using the third grade books, before starting our next unit on rounding, factors, and multiples.

We will also have a social studies test in about two weeks. Right now, I'm planning to have it on September 16, but this may change depending on how quickly we cover the material. For this test, students will need to know the regions and some of the major landforms in each one, the definitions of different landforms found in the United States, and the patterns of weather here (for example, people who east of a lake are more likely to have snow).

Students have been having a lot of fun in science! We're still talking about how the students are scientists and doing different experiments together. We had some visitors from the Nature Museum on Monday. The museum has given us all the great materials we've been using in science lately, so they came to see how the lessons were being taught. The students did a great job while they were there making claims about which brand of cookie has the most raisins. We're making parachutes now, and each group came up with their own question to test. Next week, we'll begin studying how to classify animals.

In writing, we've made word webs and beginning/middle/end books to help us organize ideas for stories. Students will be writing a paragraph using these next week, then revising and editing their work. In reading, we're continuing to practice our routines of read to self and read to someone, while learning different strategies to become better readers. We're learning how to write a reading letter, a letter students will write to me every other week throughout the year about a book they're reading. We'll talk about genres next week, and the week after that I hope to pass out our first guided reading novels.