Lighthouses! The class is very excited to begin constructing their lighthouses. The students are expected to build their lighthouse at school. We will start building lighthouses on Wednesday, November 19th from 2:00-3:00. Thursday, November 20th, we are building from 1:00-2:00. November 21, 24, and 25 we will be building from 2:00-3:00. We would love to have parent volunteers on those days. Please just show up during building time. If you cannot volunteer, but would like to help out with materials, we can always use extra craft supplies, hot glue gun sticks, and ‘C’ batteries. Thank you in advance for your support! In Michigan the weather is always surprising us. It is that time of year to start bringing winter gear to school each and every day! Students need to bring gloves, hats, coats, boots, and snow pants. Please label all gear with your child’s name or initials – this will help with losing items! Sometimes the weather changes a great deal from the time they leave the house to the time they go outside for recess and being prepared for anything is essential! Thank you for our stellar attendance at conferences. It was so nice to meet with all of you! Thank you also for all of your book donations from the book fair! The class is SO EXCITED for the new additions to our library! On the same lines, I'll plan one more Scholastic order before the holidays if you still need some literary gifts. :) A glimpse of what's happening in 302 until Thanksgiving break: Word Study - Students received new lists this week, with tests on Friday. We will review past concepts and parts of speech next week on our short week so there will not be a new list coming home. Writing - The class has been researching about their lighthouse. They've learned about cross-checking facts on different sources and about how research takes several different attempts: often something you learn while researching will spark a whole new branch of research on a subtopic you weren't aware of previously. The class is also putting together a research report to be displayed with their lighthouse model. Math - The class did a thinking routine today called Compass Points which explores their Worries, Excitements, Suggestions, and things you Need to know about Division. The unit started with 2 digit division with remainders which picks up right where they left off in 3rd grade. The class is exploring two methods of division, Place Value Sections method and Expanded Notation method, which related directly to two multiplication methods they learned in the last unit. Please visit the Divison page on our site for more examples of these methods. The class acknowledged that practice is necessary to get better at new math skills. Expect to see homework a bit more often in this unit, as each day builds on the last day's lesson and it's important not to forget! Reading - We're reading our second Andrew Clements novel of the year No Talking, and we're finding trends in Andrew Clements work especially with the characters he develops in his stories. This ties in nicely to the end of our character study. If you're reading with your child, ask them to talk about their characters and their character traits and then have them prove those theories with examples from the book. As a book continues, sometimes that theory changes as you learn more about that character. Our next unit is Nonfiction, which we'll begin after Thanksgiving. Science - The students tinkered with circuit materials and built different types of circuits. We worked to name what happened as they added another power source or another load to the circuit. As students build lighthouses they'll need to use what they know about circuits to solve any problems that arise. Social Studies - The class has been working with maps and different features of maps including finding points on a map with latitude and longitude. They explored specialty maps as well. With lighthouse construction taking place during our regularly scheduled social studies time, we'll continue our geography unit after Thanksgiving.
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Good afternoon! This week is conference week. A green slip is coming home with a reminder of your time, or you can check the sign up genius. We've set a date to start construction of lighthouses. As a reminder the 4th grade lighthouse project integrates reading, writing and science. It is a mini-research project as well as the culminating activity in our electricity unit. Students will begin building Wednesday, November 19. We will construct each day, November 19-25, from 2-3pm in the classroom. Parents are welcome to help construct on those days (using x-acto knives, hot gluing, cutting cardboard, problem solving). Students will choose their lighthouse this week and they will begin researching the lighthouse. They will also make a sketch and a list of items they may need to build a model of that lighthouse. More information will come home this week! Word Study: New lists this week. Tests on Friday Writing: We're starting our Opinion unit this week. During the unit students will be writing personal essays where they take a stand on something, give reasons for their stance, and support their reasons with evidence. This week during writing students will also do some lighthouse research. Math: We are wrapping up multiplication and heading into division. Warning: This is the toughest unit of the year. Long division involves many operations just to solve one problem! Fact fluency is essential, so keep working on those multiplication and division facts. Reading: We are wrapping up our character unit. Students are growing theories about their characters and supporting their theories with evidence from the text. This week students will also do some lighthouse research during reading. Science: Today we did some experiments involving static electricity. This week we'll dig deeper into current electricity and circuits in preparation for lighthouses. Social Studies: The class has been learning about physical maps and lines of latitude and longitude and how to use lines of latitude and longitude to find locations on maps. This week the class will explore different types of specialty maps, like elevation maps, population density maps and land use maps. |
AuthorCindy Kaump Archives
June 2017
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