We gave our December Speeches today. It was obvious that all of the children worked hard and practiced! Once again, the children could be video taped if they wanted. 14 wanted to be taped! The others preferred having a picture taken. I have posted all of these for you to see. Enjoy~

Here are some videos of the speeches this morning!

Last Week in Review

These are some photos of our math review centers last week!

I'm sorry for the late post!

Last week was quite busy in our class. We finished reading The Family Under the Bridge. As you know, we held our small food drive! We collected 413 lbs. of food for the Franklin Food Pantry! It was nice that we could help families in our own community.

We also began reading Stone Fox last week. This is a nice story about a boy and his dog. We will finish reading it this week. Our focus skill for this book is writing a clear, concise summary. After reading, we will watch the movie and complete a compare and contrast activity. Children will note the similarities and differences between the book and the movie and they'll be discussed in our class.

In math we finished our multiplication unit and took our math test. Mrs. Merten was impressed with how well we did! We learned two ways to multiply in this unit ~ lattice multiplication and partial products multiplication. Click on the different methods for instructions on these new algorithms.

We also finished writing our December poems. We wrote rhyming poems this month, in the style of Robert Louis Stevenson.

The rest of this week will be busy with wrapping up our activities before vacation begins on Friday!

Wow!

Wow! The Kennedy School 4th graders collected 413 lbs. of food for our food pantry. We were excited about all of the food we could donate for those who aren't as fortunate as we are. Mrs. Merten took some videos of us loading the food. They are posted below.

This is the food collected in our classroom.

Below are pictures of ALL the 413 lbs. of food from the whole fourth grade.

Franklin Food Pantry Food Drive

To coincide with our latest book, The Family Under the Bridge, the fourth graders have been invited to participate in a food/supplies drive to help those in need in our own community. The food/supplies drive will take place next week. While any donations of non-perishable food items are welcome, the Franklin Food Pantry has put out a list of items that are especially in need during the holidays. You can find the list here. A notice was also sent home with your child today, and this list is on the back.

We will also be in need of a few parent volunteers who would be available next Thursday, December 16th in the morning, to box and deliver the items to the Franklin Food Pantry (as they have requested the donations delivered by noon). If you are available to help on that day and time, please let your child's teacher know.

Thank you for your support with this!

Our Week In Review

Last week was a busy one in room 24! Mrs. Merten was absent for two days, home with her sick daughter. We were lucky enough to have Mrs. Cameron for a substitute.

We finished our study of heredity with our unit test. Mrs. Merten was very proud of our performance. We continued with our study of Canada, and enjoyed learning some of our information through power point presentations.

We began a new interactive read aloud, The Family Under the Bridge. This is a story about a homeless family who lives in Paris, France. While we read this book, we will focus on cause and effect, theme, and author's message. We'll continue to focus on asking "talkworthy questions", too.

Next week, we will have our test on Canada. We received a study guide on Friday. Mrs. Merten is encouraging us to study this week, a little bit every night. Mrs. Merten is looking forward to meeting our parents this week!