Patricia PolaccoStudents explored a variety of works by Patricia Polacco through read- alouds, digital reading, partner reading, and solo reading this week. If you are not familiar with Polacco's books, I invite you to take a title recommendation from your child. Her stories are filled with relatable themes for children and adults. Ask your child to share with you! While reading, students were working to identify themes and used our signposts for fiction literature to help us better comprehend the reading. Following the reading, students practiced their summary writing skills and wrote about theme. We are working on not only identifying theme, but finding evidence in the text to support the themes. Ask your child to talk to you about this! Reflecting on FamilyFamily feathers turned out great and our class turkey (and his teeny sidekick) is proudly adorning our 4th grade hallway. Students used their feathers and an additional activity as prewriting for their family essays. We are working on essay structure in class, so we practiced this week after reflecting on what we appreciate so much about our families. Some students are still finishing up this week. Ask your child to share with you once his/her writing is complete. Students are posting this piece to Kidblog. Ask your child about how to organize an essay! We will be building on the structure above and our end goal is for students to write persuasive essays. We have many more steps to help us develop and improve our writing, but I am thrilled with what I am seeing in class so far. The stamina these kids are showing is impressive! Everybody CountsThank you to the moms who helped to bring the Everybody Counts program to Team 4W last week! I have included a series of pictures below to help with talking to your child about his/her learning.
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Below is a glimpse of the learning happening in 4W as well as two photo slideshows of our AWESOMELY "SCIENCEY" Halloween Party and last week's Fall Harvest Festival. ENJOY!MATH:We are working hard with decimals! Place value, comparing, addition and subtraction, problem solving, metric measurements and metric conversions have been keeping us busy. Most classes are wrapping up this study this week with final projects and summative assessments. Remember that IXL can be a great tool for helping your child at home! Our next unit will focus on multiplication of large numbers. SCIENCE/READING INFORMATIONAL TEXT:We have been exploring the processes that change the surface of the Earth and the landforms created as a result. Students were invited to begin this study with a min-inquiry as a part of their Workjobs two weeks ago . Various leveled resources were provided for students to uncover the answer to the question: What processes change the surface of the Earth? We began last week with small group sharing of what was uncovered during the inquiry process. Students worked together to report their new learning. Our teaching team (myself, Mrs. Uptegrove, Mrs. McAllister, and Mrs. Couch) worked throughout the last two weeks with small groups to read and discuss leveled readers connected to our science topic. Students worked on pre-reading strategies, opinion writing, cause and effect relationships, leaving thinking tracks, summarizing, vocabulary, and comparing and contrasting. I have been so impressed with the thoughtful work students are doing when it comes to reading and discussing our thinking! Learners practiced their close reading skills with a leveled reading of either erosion, glaciers, or frost wedging. Students shared their new learning in small groups and worked together to formulate an answer to our key question: How does water change Earth's surface? Students explored two hands-on stations last week as well. Learners created a model to better understand where our Earth's water can be found and in what relative amounts. Additionally, they had a chance to see how rocks and water can break down and wear away rock. Ask your child to share what he/she learned from these experiences! This week's Internet Workshop gave students a chance to view a short movie about weathering and erosion. Learners also made choices about details to explore further and used a feature within the film to do so. Next, students had time to explore a website that shares information about various landforms. Students will share their new learning in small groups next week. We did spend a bit of time with our Science textbook last week as well. I am trying to help my class understand that the text is just one resource, and that as learners it is important to use many resources to help us in our learning and understanding. I was getting the comment, "We never use our science book!" The truth is that we use it as well as many other resources. We will continue with our Earth Science unit until Thanksgiving! READING-LITERATUREThis quarter we are working on identifying themes in literature and supporting our claims with evidence from the text. Last week, I introduced this to students in small groups and next week we will embark on a study of literature by Patricia Polacco. Students will be asked to read three books from our collection and do some important thinking! Students will then work on writing summaries, writing theme paragraphs, and also identifying signposts in the story and sharing their thinking in writing. Throughout the week, our teaching team will also be meeting with small groups to close read leveled text and discuss theme. WRITINGLast week was ESSAY WRITING BOOTCAMP! Students will continue throughout the quarter to practice writing skills that help them to become proficient opinion essay writers. Next week, students will practice using the topic of family. Stay tuned for these pieces to be published on Kidblog just in time for Thanksgiving! HALLOWEEN PARTY!FALL HARVEST FESTIVALThank you, Parents! I enjoyed having the chance to meet with you to discuss your child's progress. Please feel free to contact me anytime with questions or concerns. I am happy to set up appointments as needed. Below I am including some links that may be helpful or interesting as you continue to help your child at home. Thank you for all you do to help your child grow in his/her love of learning and achieve success in school! FOR PRACTICING MATH FACTS:FOR PRACTICING MATH SKILLS:IXL (your child has a username and password in the front of his/her math spiral) SUMDOG (your child has a username and password in the front of his/her math spiral) FUN and INTERESTING!
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