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| Students worked hard to get text entered on their Region of Washington Glog this week |
It has been another terrific week in fourth grade. Here is our weekly classroom update:
Math – This week students practiced organizing and displaying data with tally charts and line plots. We also reviewed how to find the range, maximum, minimum, and median in data sets. Ask your child what data we used – the answer should be ‘at the top of their head’ :). Students reviewed the partial-sum algorithm to solve multi-digit addition problems and were introduced to the column-addition method which is similar to the traditional addition algorithm. Addition practice was coupled with subtraction practice of multi-digit numbers using the Trade First and Partial Differences methods. If you have questions about these methods, check out the online version of the Student Reference Book at http://www.everydaymathonline.com Next week, students will be assessed over the content from Unit 2 and we will move onto Unit 3: Multiplication and Division.
Reading – In Reading this week, we finished our first novel study, Horse’s Tale. Ask your child about Julie's Story (1960's, Seattle at the World Fair), Amone's Story (1970s--in a bilingual classroom), and Eduardo's story (1980s in Yakima just after Mt. St. Helens erupted). We've had some rich discussions about Washington history and about the regions of Washington.
Writing – We've been doing lots of writing! We've entered the revising/editing phase of our first unit, which is focused on writing Small Moments Personal Narrative stories. The pieces are turning out great and it's so good to see students using many of the strategies we've learned that make great personal narratives. In addition, we're working to finish up a fictional narrative prompt--a story about what would make the best birthday party ever. We'll be doing a few prompts like these through the year for assessment purposes and also to help students gear up for the experience of writing on the state MSP (Measurements of Student Progress).
Social Studies – Students continue to work on their Washington Region GLOGs. Many have their five paragraphs typed in, and we'll soon edit and put final touches on the project. We took the regions assessment earlier in the week. Also, students have been working on individual tasks related to our study of regions. Ask your student which ones he/she has worked on.
