Our Week In Review

Puff Mobiles, Author Visit, Terrariums, Math Test ~ What a week we had!

The fall weather has thankfully arrived!  We have been busily working in room 24, and have enjoyed a fun-filled week of learning!  Here we are working on our listening skills.

We wrapped up our second math unit about addition and subtraction.  The students worked very hard to practice this topic, and their hard work showed on our test.  The Pearson Realize technical glitches have been resolved, and students should be able to log into this site next week.  Students should continue to practice their addition and subtraction facts, as this will help with our next unit, multiplication.

We continue to redesign our puff mobiles, and will have a race in the next few weeks!

We have published our Hopes and Dreams and our Biopoems, and these will be on display this Thursday at Open House.  We are learning how important your audience is when writing, and we will continue this discussion throughout the next week, while we work on narrative writing.

We began learning about map skills during social studies this week, and have been focusing on looking at a world map and identifying our location using direction words as well as by learning about the hemispheres.  This unit will continue for another few weeks.

During reading, we have continued to work on fine tuning our routines for Readers Workshop, while we practice finding the setting, theme, and main characters of a story.  Understanding these topics will help us as we begin our first Interactive Read Aloud next week.  Some students have started to share their favorite books with our class!  This is an excellent way to find new books to read, and to practice speaking in front of a class.

We also had a wonderful virtual visit with author Amy Nielander, author of  The Ladybug Race.  Amy shared her writing process with the students, and also shared that she was rejected 12 times before getting her book published!  If you would like to order a copy of her book, please return the order form by Thursday.  Thank you to JFK PCC for funding this visit.

Finally, during science we began our unit about the weather.  Students learned about the atmosphere and about the water cycle.  We build terrariums on Friday, and will be observing them throughout the year, watching the water cycle in action.  Talk to your child about their experiences in science this week.  We have been discussing the following question in class:

We found this little guy, camouflaging himself on the pavement.  Thank goodness Mrs. A.Williams picked him up!

What is this?  Ask your child

"If water on the earth continues to cycle, and we never lose water, why do we have water shortages in Franklin during only some parts of the year?"  Students have really had some interesting ideas about this!  Check out some water cycle videos below!

Looking Ahead ~

We will continue with our Map Skills unit in Social Studies.

We will observe the water cycle in our terrariums and we will also explore weather instruments.

We will continue reviewing personal narratives in writing

We will begin learning about multiplication in math.

Conference dates have been confirmed, and  you will receive a link to sign up for parent/teacher conferences soon

SURVEYS

Please take a minute to share your feelings about fourth grade. Choose the appropriate link to complete:

• Parent Survey
• Student Survey

Here is our GOOD NEWS of the week!

Author Alert!

An Unlikely Story in Plainville is having a few exciting authors in the coming weeks.  Tickets are free, but needed to attend.  Use the links below to sign up or get more information.  Keep up with their free events by following the Unlikely Story Event Calendar.


Brad Meltzer - Author of the Ordinary People Biography Series (10/4)

Lauren Tarshis ~ Author of the I Survived Series (This has been VERY popular with our class) (10/24) Tickets become available on 10/3.

Our Week In Review

What a week!  We began our week with our fourth grade Community Meeting, where we learned our mantra was "Be and Engineer!"  This was important this wee, as we had a visit from our Engineers in Residence, Mr. Peter Gill and Mr. Andrew Leenhouts.  Both civil engineers are graduates of Franklin High School, and Peter is even a former JFK Ladybug (from Mrs. A.Williams' class)!  They explained how engineers work,and how the design process is important for them in their work.  Throughout the week we worked on planning our puff mobiles, and today we began building them during PBL.  We will have a fourth grade race in the coming weeks!

During reading, we have continued to learn and practice finding evidence to support our thinking.  We have discussed narrative elements, and have enjoyed reading some great stories!  We will continue this work, reviewing reading strategies and practicing them during independent reading zone.  In the coming week, students will be tracking setting, and supporting thinking with evidence from the text.  This will be recorded on their home reading log, in addition to other ways during school.  Thank you for supporting the routine that the same book should be read both at school and at home.  If your child is not happy with his/her book, please encourage him/her to talk to Mrs. Merten.  We will discuss abandoning the book.


During writing, we have been working on elaborating sentences while writing our Hopes, Dreams and Goals for fourth grade.  Students have shared their ideas, and discussed their thinking with a writing buddy. We will be publishing these this week.

We have been learning about addition during math this week.  We discussed various strategies for adding numbers. We also learned the importance of estimating sums before adding, in order to check the reasonableness of our answers.  Next week, we will be taking another math assessment, focusing on adding and subtracting.  Due to the technical difficulties we have been having with Pearson, we will take this math test on paper.  Students received a study guide today, and should be practicing their math facts regularly.

Dance Party Friday

Good News!!!

Looking Ahead ~

We will continue with our Map Skills unit in Social Studies.

We will begin learning about the weather, specifically the water cycle.  This will lead into the creation of our terrariums!

We will continue working on our Hopes and Dreams during writing, and begin to write narratives (both personal narratives and fictional ones).

We will assess our understanding of addition and subtraction skills with our second math assessment next Friday.

As soon as conference dates are confirmed, you will receive a message along with a link to sign up for a date and time that is convenient for you