Our Week In Review

We began our week with our "Poem Swap".  Last week, during poetry workshop, we wrote a list poem "Things to do at a Teacher Sleepover".  Mrs. Roberts' first graders wrote about the same topic (2 pages!).  We enjoyed sharing our poetry and meeting some new friends.

In Science, we took a quiz on using the Scientific Method and the Water Cycle.  We will begin our unit on Heredity next week.  One thing that we enjoy in our class (as part of our Heredity Unit) is looking at pictures of our ancestors.  The children will have homework on Monday to bring a picture of an ancestor (or two) to school on Wednesday.  We will be sharing the pictures and looking at the traits that we've inherited from our family.

In Social Studies, we began to learn about Mexico this week.  We have learned about the geography and climate of this country, and many of us would love to visit!

During writing we have wrapped up our drafts of our narrative writing.  We will revise and edit and then publish this piece.  During poetry, we have finished our list poems and are working on haikus - with a Halloween theme.  Here are some of the fun leads we wrote about Mrs. Merten's favorite personal narrative.

We continue to make our way through The One and Only Ivan, and Mrs. Merten is working at not crying when she reads!  This book has opened our eyes to animals and their feelings, as well as how some humans treat animals.  It is rich in language and content, and we have truly enjoyed it!  We will need another week and a half to finish reading and discussing this book.  Below is the "book trailer" that we saw before we began reading this book.  Once you see it, you will see why we were immediately hooked!



Book talks continue to be a big hit!

Today we had our unit assessment on the topic of Multiplication.  The children have learned to solve multiplication problems in various ways, and they are able to explain and teach another how to use their strategy.

 Next week we will begin to learn about division.

Our power point presentations are coming along nicely. We will have one more week, and we hope to finish.  Many of the students have chosen to "practice" using power point at home as well.  Mrs. Merten is very impressed with our work!

Our Week In Review

We accomplished a lot of things this week in Room 24!

In math we have started to talk about strategies for solving multiplication facts.  Some of the  strategie we have discussed are:

• Memorizing ~ the best way to memorize facts is daily practice.  Many children find that the best way to do this is to practice for 5 minutes nightly.  Students received an optional practice chart.  If this is filled in completely and signed, students will earn extra credit.
• Repeated Addition  ~ 2 x 3= 2+2+2  ~ 
• Adding on Addition ~ 7 x 6 ~ if you know 7 x 5 is 35, then add 7 more to get 42
• Break apart the factors ~ 
• Traditional
• Tricks to solving 9 facts  ~ Ask your child to share these!
• We created some rhymes for  a few facts for extra credit.  These may help you remember!
• 9 and 7 like to be free, 9 x 7 is 63 ~ Jake
• 9 and 9 are having fun, 9 x 9 is 81 ~ Lily, Tanmay, Dhashadyu 
• 9 and 9 have a ton of fun, 9 x 9 is 81~ Sameen
• 4 and 7 are great, 4 x 7 is 28 ~ Brendan
• 7 x 8 likes to pick up sticks, 7 x 8 is 56 ~ Derek
• 7 and 8 did some tricks, 7 x 8 is 56 ~ Nate
• I've got 6 and I've got 4, Multiply them together and get 24 ~ Sarah
• 6 and 4 will mean no more, 6 x 4 is 24 ~ Katherine
• 4 and 7 are running late, 4 x 7 is 28 ~ Will
• 9 and 7 broke their knee, 9 x 7 is 63 ~Shreya
• 9 and 9 are almost done, 9 x 9 is 81 ~ Charlene
• 6 and 4 went out the door, 6 x 4 is 24  ~ Ilana

We have also started learning some new math games to go with our multiplication study.  

In reading we have finished reviewing basic strategies for reading.  Students will be "asking questions" on their reading logs this week.  Many of the children have signed up to do book talks.  We love hearing about the books that others enjoyed.  It gives us an idea about books we might like.

Stay tuned for our first Interactive Read Aloud.  We plan on beginning on Tuesday!  

In writing, we have finished our goals and our bio poems.  We also created "heart maps".  We will refer back to our heart maps throughout the year to help guide our writing.  

This week we also reviewed some other strategies for generating ideas for writing.  We have completed some "quick writes" about important people in our lives.  Next week we will "try on" some story ideas about important places and about turning points.  We will begin drafting toward the end of the week.  During poetry workshop with Mrs. Williams, we have continued to learn about Walt Whitman.  We will begin writing list poems next week. Today we got to write one about Mrs. Merten.  

We have been learning about the globe and about the hemispheres in social studies.  We will be moving on to latitude and longitude next week.  We will also begin our first science unit.  We will learn about the water cycle, complete some experiments and create our terrariums.  

We have almost finished our Puff Mobiles, and they all move!  We have been busy testing them and choosing our "puffers".  For some of us, the hardest part of this was compromising!  Mrs. Merten is proud that we have all worked at this.  We will be racing against the other fourth graders next week.  

From the Teacher's Desk:

I'm looking forward to seeing many of you at Open House next Thursday night.  I will be in my classroom at 6:30.   Please see your child's backpack for a notice about letting me know if you are not receiving our emails. I will be sending an email out next week regarding parent/teacher conferences.  This year, sign up will be done electronically.