By: Aaditya Kadian

Literacy News

By: Aaditya Kadian

In Reader’s Workshop the students were working on a nonfiction unit where they were assigned a nonfiction topic. So first we made slides on google drive as a group. We worked on one slide combining our information and our knowledge/research. We ended this unit on January 22nd. After that we started a new unit, book clubs, in which we were divided into groups and we were given books to read and discuss. We started on January 24th and our first book is going to end on February 14th.

In Writing Workshop we were doing persuasive essays. We typed our essays and we celebrated them with a museum walk. We had to go around and sit at somebody’s desk and read their story and at the end we would complement them by signing our name and writing a compliment. Now in writing we are doing literary essays. Mrs. Brown read us several books and we could decide which story we wanted to use for our writing. Then we would reread the story and write all over the story to identify what stood out to us, like a life lesson or a character trait.

Social Studies

By: Sean Cao

In Social Studies we studied many different colonies that settled in the New World, which we all know is really America! We first studied the colonies that Spain’s queen sent to gain power for her country. They succeeded and gained lots of power and riches! We also learned about the Lost Colony of Roanoke! What a mystery….

We learned about the colonies that England attempted to start, but failed. Then we learned about the first permanent colony England started, which was Jamestown! We learned about Plymouth, and how the colonists there met the Wampanoag and had the first Thanksgiving. We also played a simulation game of being the leader of the Jamestown colony. Unfortunately, I was fired and all of my colonists died….

Anyway, that’s all the news we have for today from Social Studies this month! Buh-bye!!!

Mathematics

By: Divya Bharadwaj

This month in math we are learning all about fractions. We are also learning about equivalent fractions and how to find them. We also worked on ordering fractions from least to greatest. It was also interesting to compare fractions and find which one was greater than the other.

We played a dice game to find out whether the fractions were one whole or less than one whole. Any student who reaches one whole during the game is the winner.

We played another fun game to construct shapes using fraction model color shapes like square, rectangle.

We are exploring all about adding and subtracting fractions with like and unlike denominators. To understand the concepts ofadding and subtracting fractions we worked with blocks of shapes and plenty of word problems. The word problems are really fun and exciting to get the answer.

As an end to the unit, we had stations for the fractions that we reviewed. As part of this end of unit activity,we had 4 stations. On one station, the challenge was for kids to find objects or posters that represented different fractions. It was really a lot of fun to see the kids scrambling to gather as many fractions as possible. The second station was “fraction tiles”. Kids had to follow the instructions and form the shape using the colored fraction tiles. The third station was tangrams. We had to use the tangram shapes to answer several mind tickling fraction problems. This challenge was really hard to solve. A lot of kids were running out of time in this station. The fourth station was equivalent fraction find challenge.

We are continuing to do Division and Multiplication in XtraMath. Some of us continue to do Multiplication and some are doing Division.

It’s really fun and exciting to race the teacher in Xtramath.

Health/Responsive Classroom/Other

By: Mrs. Brown

Our Morning Meetings are continuing very successfully. The students have now become the hosts of our daily Morning Meeting in class. They are coming very well prepared with a plan and the students are enjoying a new host each day.

Our student teacher, Mrs. Jessica Updegraff,joined our class when we returned from our winter vacation. She immediately became another respected teacher in room 203 and the students are at such an advantage with two teachers in the classroom!

I am happy to see that many students are continuing to take advantage of the optional challenge homework that is offered each week.

Please remind your child to continue to complete his/her Xtra math homework each night (if they are on 3 or 2 second multiplication or division). Several students are forgetting this part of their homework and it is extremely important for students to practice their facts in order to improve accuracy and speed of recall. Thank you in advance for your support at home.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Dates to Remember

4th Grade Field Trip: February 10th (Camden Aquarium)

Class Party: February 14th

No School: February 17th and 20th