Our Week In Review

What a week!  We began our week with our fourth grade Community Meeting, where we learned our mantra was "Be an Engineer!"  This was important this week, as we had a visit from our Engineers in Residence, Mr. Peter Gill and Mr. Andrew Leenhouts today.  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.Today during PBL, we worked on planning our puff mobiles in teams.   We will have a fourth grade race in the coming weeks! 

Thank you to the JFK PCC for funding storyteller Len Cabral.  We loved hearing his stories this week, to celebrate our summer reading accomplishment!

On Monday we celebrated the 231st anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution.  We watched some videos, participated in a group discussion and read some information about the Constitution and the Amendments.

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 during independent reading, and supporting their 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 options for 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 next 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.  Students received a study guide today, and should be practicing their math facts regularly.

Music

Looking Ahead ~

We will begin learning about Map Skills during Social Studies.

We will begin learning about the water cycle and about plant structures and adaptations.  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 (fictional ones).

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

Conferences are the week of October 25th.  Please sign up for a conference here.