Our Week In Review

Though it was a short week, we were able to complete a lot !

In Math, we have been working on place value skills.  This week we worked on reading and writing large numbers.  We also talked about the value of digits in numbers.  We will be learning about BIG numbers for a few weeks (numbers to the billions).  This week we also learned a math game, Name That Number.  We will be learning another game next week.  Ask your children about these games.  They are easy to play at home with basic cards and/or dice, and a wonderful way to reinforce our math lessons.

Name That Number!

During Reader's Workshop we have really been working to establish our routines.  We have also started talking about Narrative Elements (the parts of a story).  Laying the groundwork for our routines and literature basics will allow us to stretch our reading wings as the year progresses.  We have also been working in Reading "Zone".  Mrs. Merten is quite impressed with our stamina!  Mrs. Merten has been filling our bookbags with books that she thinks will interest us.  We are excited to give them a try.

The Reading Zone

                    One Reading Note:  One important part of our Reader's Workshop is the children read the same book at home and at school. This book should travel back and forth with your child.  The books can come from our class library, your home, or the school or public libraries.  This is a new expectation, and many children are still developing a routine to help remember to bring the book back to school.  Anything you can do to support this would be appreciated!

During Writer's Workshop, we began to talk about writing goals for fourth grade.  So far we have come up with some things that were hard for us last year, or things that we just would like to get better at.

Fridays continue to be spent on Creative Arts. This week, we were treated with a demonstration from our Music Department.  Teachers from the "String School" and after school band were at JFK to demonstrate the instruments that student have the opportunity to play.The teachers then played some music to show how the instruments would fit into a band or orchestra.

They were great!  If your child is interested in this opportunity, a note was sent home on Friday.

We have been working on writing poems about ourselves in Poetry workshop with Mrs. Williams.  We are almost finished writing these.  During technology workshop, we have been learning how to navigate the JFK website, our class blogs, and how to set bookmarks for ourselves (to get back to these sites easily throughout the year).  We also learned how to open/create a Microsoft Word document and how to save it into our folder. Next week, we hope to begin typing our biopoems.  Finally, during Art with Mrs. Hess, we worked together to create abstract sculptures. Then we drew the sculptures.  Stay tuned for pictures of our sculptures and our sketches!

The Technology Lab

Check out Mrs. Williams and Sammi~ They didn't know it, but they dressed alike this morning!

 



From the Teacher's Desk 
What a great start to the year! The children have really settled into the routine and are doing a great job!  One part of our blog that I like to highlight is the section "Spotlight On...".  If your child (or your family) does something exciting or special, please let Mrs. Merten know.  We can "Spotlight" your child on this blog.  In the past, we have "spotlighted" students playing in a basketball tournament, winning a medal in gymnastics or skating, celebrating Diwali, and so much more!  We even spotlighted a new puppy!  If you have something for this section of our blog, please email Mrs. Merten.  Next week is our Parent Information Session.  I hope to see you there ~ Wednesday, September 11, 3:00-3:30 and 3:30-4:00.

What a Week!

After Tie Dye Tuesday, we continued to have a fabulous week!  

In Math, we finished studying angles, and took our test on them.  We will continue to look at angles through our line design lessons, and we will even get to sew a line design as the year wraps up.

In Science we started to learn about magnetism and electricity. We have done some reading in our science books, and will begin to do some experiments next week.  At the end of this unit, we will even get the chance to make a flashlight.

On Monday we will see Mrs. Silvia of the Haffenreffer Museum for our last visit.  She will help to kick off our study of the Southwest with a presentation on the Hopi.  She has been a wonderful addition to our Kennedy curriculum, and we have learned so much from her! Thanks to the PCC for this awesome opportunity!

We finished reading Charlotte's Web this week!  We enjoyed reading this book using the Reader's Theater model. We all were impressed with Michael and Holly, who really, really brought us into the book with their awesome expression!  The children really loved reading this way.  Though the ending was sad (and Mrs. Merten cried, again) we enjoyed this book, and learned so much!  We even got to watch the movie and compare it to the book. EVERYONE agreed, the book was so much better!

Thank you to Mrs. Williams for recording parts of our chorus show on Thursday!  The puppets are amazing and the performance was fabulous!  We are very lucky here at JFK to have two amazing teachers ~ Mrs. Hess (who made the puppets with the children in art) and Mrs. MacMurray!  Mrs. Mac has a music blog which  you can check out here.

Here are some videos from the show (the puppets singing are Mrs. Merten's favorite).

Our Week In Review

We had a fun week in Room 24.  Our student teacher, Miss Boulay, began in our class on Tuesday.  She will be with us every day until the middle of May.  Miss Boulay spent the week getting to know our routines, and the children. She even started to work on our Interactive Read Aloud, by reading a chapter in our newest book, Snow Treasure.

In math, we have been working on learning about fractions.  This can be challenging, but we are doing a great job!  We have our fractions test this Thursday.  Mrs. Merten will send home the study guide on Monday, but if you want a preview, there is a link to it on the right. We also made a chart including some of the fraction rules we have learned.  Here it is!

In science, we took our first Weather "Quest".  Mrs. Merten will correct these over the weekend and will have them on Monday.  Next week, we will begin our study of the Regions of the US.  We will start with an overview, and then begin our "Journey Across the US" by learning about the Northeast.

In writing, we have gotten well into our unit on essays and are excited to start to write some of our own.  In poetry workshop we learned about Robert Frost and even got to listen to a recording of him reading "The Road Not Taken."  It was very cool.  We continued working on Power Point presentations in Technology workshop.  

Mrs. Williams lead us in some Yoga to celebrate National Yoga Recess day on Friday.  Click here to check out her yoga blog, and see a picture of all of the fourth graders in our yoga pose!

On Monday, our anthropologist in residence, Mrs. Silvia from the Haffenreffer Museum at Brown University,  will return for our second presentation about Native Americans. We will learn about the Inuit.  We are grateful to the PCC for funding this awesome opportunity!

We are making great progress with Recorder Karate.  Mrs. Merten said she would play her own recorder if we all make Black Belt, so keep working at it!  Check out Mrs. MacMurray's Music blog.