Oh, How Time Flies!

Hello 4th grade parents!
Thanks for checking our December “newsletter”!  It has been a busy couple of months and time is sure flying fast. Keep up-to-date on what is going on in our classrooms by checking out below. Also take a look at the important dates for this month. As always, feel free to leave us a comment, bookmark us, and add us to your feeds.

Check out these important dates:
December
4-6: Predictive Testing (Math)
5: Photo Make-ups
5-7: Holiday Book Sale
11: New Extended Day begins
12: Pajama Day!
24 - Jan. 1: Winter Recess

Here’s what we’re working on in our classrooms:

Mathematics
We are moving forward in Investigations. Unit 2, Describing the Shape of the Data, has been wrapped up and we are now moving into our second multiplication unit, Multiple Towers and Division Stories. This unit contains four investigations. Students will revisit multiplication facts and increase their fluency as we begin breaking apart double-digit multiplication by place value. We ask you continue to help them practice their multiplication facts as much as possible. These facts will help them grasp the relationships within more difficult numbers as well as division concepts. If your child already knows his/her facts by heart, please challenge them to write about a strategy or pattern they notice in the day’s work.  We are stressing vocabulary and effective communication in class to help students speak (and write) like mathematician… and they can never have too much practice.

Reading, Writing & Social Studies “Mega-unit”!
After our Following Characters Into Meaning reading unit and our Realistic Fiction writing unit, we will embark upon an exciting integrated unit that combines non-fiction reading and writing with our next social studies unit, Three Worlds Meet: Natives/Explorers/Slaves. In this colossal unit, students will learn how to read expository, narrative non-fiction, and hybrid texts as research sources while learning the history of New York. Students will study the ways in which authors convey information, comparing various styles and their effectiveness. Using what they learn about good informational writing, they will choose a research focus and practice note taking from of a variety of sources. They will then use this research to create a non-fiction writing piece that gives them a foundation of structure and organization, quoting and paraphrasing from a source, using text features to tuck in more information, and incorporating content-specific vocabulary in their writing.

Our First Parent Newsletter!

Hello 4^th grade parents!

We are so excited to share our first blog “newsletter”!  We hope that you will check in often to see what is going on in our classrooms and to note important dates and events. Our 4^th grade parent blog newsletter will also contain images and videos of special events we celebrate as a grade. Please feel free to leave comments on our posts, bookmark us, and add us to your RSS feeds... if you know what that means.  

Our units are in full swing!  Take a look below to see what we’re working on:

Mathematics

The launch of Investigations is underway. Factors, Multiples, and Arrays, our first unit, contains three investigations sequenced to build a deep understanding of multiplication concepts. Your children will practice strategies that will build multiplication fact fluency while instilling flexibility in application. By manipulating visual models of multiplication, memorized multiplication facts make “more sense.” By breaking apart two-digit problems into familiar and comfortable “combinations,” students at a range of levels can utilize the same strategy and increase their confidence while building their number sense and knowledge of place value. This unit is the groundwork of several units focusing on multiplication. Investigations is a program that stresses strategic mathematical thinking. We learn so much from seeing your child’s work on the page. If your child is struggling with a homework sheet, please have him or her show all that they know on the page so we can best support them. If your mathematician would like an additional challenge, please have him or her “extend” the problems by showing multiple strategies and writing about what strategy is most efficient for solving the problem and why. Please also be on the look out for optional problem solving sheets for an additional challenge. 

Reading

Our first unit is Building a Reading Life. This unit lays the foundation of good habits required to succeed in 4^th grade Reading Workshop’s genre studies.  Children become familiar with choosing books “just right” for them, learn strategies to increase their stamina, and begin to craft quality writing about their reading. It is so important that students read daily in a spot with minimal distractions. Make sure to check in with your child’s reading log nightly. An accurate log reveals much about a reader and we learn a lot from the patterns we see on their reading logs. Although we encourage as much independent reading as possible, children are required to read 30 minutes everyday on their reading level. Mastering a reading level requires specific skills. To ensure rich reading, we ask you support us in making sure your child reads on their level as much as possible. During this unit, children should begin to use their reading response notebook as reading partner, using it reflect on their understanding of their books, to track their active reading. The more reading success your child has, the more prepared they will be to conquer the 3-day ELA exam in March.

Writing

Our 4^th grade writing cycle gives children time to collect, choose, draft, revise, and edit for grammar/conventions. We are amidst our first unit, Personal Narrative. In this familiar unit, children will begin to broaden their writers’ craft to develop meaningful pieces of writing focusing in on a small moment of their lives. It has been wonderful to read all of the rich experiences your children are using in their writing. Building upon the strategies they gained in third grade, children will begin to move through the writing cycle openly, revising their draft multiple times to push their writing to a higher level. We hope to build thoughtful, flexible writers who use a variety of deliberate detail in their writing that contribute to its meaning. It is our hope that children begin to develop their toolkit for better writing and build the writing stamina necessary to have success in future writing units, as well as weekly extended reading responses and day 3 of the ELA exam.

Social Studies

4^th grade social studies focuses on the history of the peoples who settled in the New World, the development of our New Nation, and the peoples who helped expand the United States of America. We hope to utilize our units in social studies to help instill solid research skills and lay the foundation of informational reading and writing early on. This will help better ensure success in future writing units and the ELA state exam. The 4^th grade is very excited to begin our first social studies unit: The U.S. Constitution/Presidential Election. The unit will explore the organization of our government, previewing the values of our nation. We will connect this work with the great teaching opportunity of the upcoming presidential election. Children will learn about how a citizen becomes a candidate and how a candidate becomes a president.