Happy New Year!

Here are some pictures of some math and social studies work today.

I hope that this first week of 2011 was as successful for you at home as it was here in room 24! It was a little tough getting back into the swing of things, but all of the children did very well.

From the Teacher's Desk

This week we began unit 6 of the Everyday Math program. The main topic of this unit is division, which is a new and challenging concept for many of the students. This is particularly difficult for families, because it is something that most parents aren't comfortable helping their child with. Please don't worry! We will continue to practice this. I know that continued practice will make a big difference with this. If you would like more information, you can find instructions for all of the algorithms we use in fourth grade here. Division is at the bottom of the page. In addition, practicing math facts is essential. Students who know their math facts automatically will do better at learning this new topic. You can find the math fact practice that we use in school here.

In reading, we spent the week focusing on specific reading skills. We discussed finding the genre of books at length, as well as inferring and making connections. Several students are participating in a small book group reading Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan. This is a short historical fiction book about a family living in the midwest.

We also began writing a personal narrative this week. The topic the children are writing about is about something they did on a day off of school. You can imagine that many of the children had a LOT of ideas!

In social studies we are just starting our unit on the Regions of the United States. We began this week discussing "What is a region?" We will finish discussing this first topic on Monday and the students will have a quiz on Friday. They already have vocabulary flash cards, and though I announced the quiz today, I did not write it on the assignment board.

We are continuing our study of weather by learning about weather forecasting and tools to forecast weather.