Dear Families,
It’s been another terrific week packed with learning. I’ve
had a great time working with your students. Here are some highlights of what
we’ve been up to. Plus, I’ve included some probing questions to help you get
more information out of your fourth graders.
-Mr. Herzberg
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| Family Size. Our class' data is literally off the chart. We used these sticky notes to create a line plot and then found landmarks. |
Social Studies
- Students partner read the rest of Chapter 1 in our WA Adventure textbook about landforms and changing land
- Took a unit one open book test on this material
- We reviewed common landforms and took an Activote quiz on the topic
- Began expert groups--small group of students read, then highlighted and sketched important info about one of the five regions of WA
Math
- Finished Unit 2, students completed a study guide and are reviewing the material over the weekend before Monday’s test
- Studied landmarks like minimum, maximum, range, mode, and median
- Practiced finding the median and creating line & bar graphs
- Ask your student about how we gathered and used data regarding family size and head sizes
Writing
- Continued our exploration and study of personal narratives
- In addition to experimenting with a number of pieces in this genre, most students should now have two small moments seed idea stories written
- Learned this week about reliving the episode as you write about it, when/how to paragraph, zooming in on a part of your timeline, and letting the heart of your story guide the angle you take with it
- Students have now chosen one of their seed stories to revise and publish in the coming days. Ask your student about the one they chose. What’s the heart of it (what do they really want to show) and how are they doing this?
Reading
- Introduced word work this week
- We did a whole class word sort on our Activboard
- Learned/tried some different sorts including: writing sort, blind buddy sort, speed sort
- The idea behind these sorts is that they are a fun way for students to interact with word patterns. By doing this work they have to think analytically, and through our discussions, they will uncover word patterns that will help them become better spellers, readers and writers
- Talked more about/practiced the strategy of checking for understanding
- Finished our read aloud There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom
- Ask—what was your favorite part of the read aloud/why? What was Louis Sachar’s (the author’s) message? Give some examples of how the characters changed throughout the story. Also—what was your favorite word sort this week/why?
