Coming Up This Week....

It was a busy week of testing last week, but the kids did a nice job completing the ELA portion of the MCAS.  We have a break from testing during this upcoming week and will take the Math MCAS next week on May 9th and 10th.

Writing Workshop

We spent a lot of time previewing  the regions of the United States.  We looked at maps and watched a few videos to help us determine the regions that we are interested in learning more about.  This week each student will be assigned to a region and will start researching that region of our country.  This week the kids will spend time reading and building background knowledge about their region in order to eventually be able to decide what they will research more in depth.

Science

Throughout the school year we have learned about slow changes that happen in our world and rapid changes to our world.  We have learned about tree root wedging, ice wedging, and erosion early on, and more recently we have been learning about landslides, volcanoes, and now earthquakes.  Ask your child what he/she has learned about slow changes and rapid changes.

The classroom was buzzing with excitement on Friday as the students began to explore more about tectonic plates and earthquakes.  They were able to visit a website that shows where earthquakes are happening in real time.  We will be learning a lot about earthquakes, where they happen, why they happen, and how engineers construct buildings to withstand earthquakes.

I hope everyone has a great week!

~Jen

Coming Up This Week in LL38....

Welcome back!  I hope everyone enjoyed the vacation week!  We are officially in the "home stretch" of 4th grade!  The next few months will be filled with lots of fun!

This Week...
Just a reminder that fourth graders will be taking the MCAS test this week.  We have testing on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  We have had many positive conversations about testing in class the last few weeks leading up to vacation.  I am hoping the students feel confident in themselves!  We will be starting at the beginning of the day, so please make sure your child is on time for school!  Please let me know if you have any questions.

No Homework...
Since the kids will be working extra hard during the day on the MCAS, there will not be any official homework this week!

Researchers!

We will start our Regions of the United States research this week.  Your child will be able to choose one of the regions of the United States to become an expert on!  The kids will be reading articles, books, and watching videos to go along with the regions.  This project is a culmination of many of the writing genres that we have learned this year as well as taking our learning of  reading nonfiction texts and putting them into action in our writing.

Throughout the regions project, the students will research several topics that pertain to their region.  Students will also write an essay about the region and write a narrative story about a topic that has importance in the region!

I hope everyone has a great week!

~Jen

This Week in LL38.....

I hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful weather!  It was great to meet with so many families last week at Parent Teacher Conferences.


** This week (Monday-Wednesday) we will be eating lunch at 1:10 because of 3rd grade MCAS.  If possible, please pack your child an extra snack if you think they will be hungry.  An additional hour and 10 minutes can be rough!  :)

Reading Workshop
The kids were very busy last week.  They spent some time during reading working on open response writing in Google Classroom.  The class was able to try this out a few times and they even created goals for themselves based on my feedback to improve their 2nd open response.  Ask your child what he/she set as a goal for Open Response writing.

Math Workshop
Last week we worked on creating and reading line plots.  In fourth grade, line plots are the way that kids need to plot data.  We used real world data such as shoe size and pencil lengths as data to plot on a line plot.  Ask your child what he/she learned about the parts of a line plot.

Many parents asked about seeing the writing that the kids have been doing during Writing Workshop.  I am very proud of all of the writing that the kids have done throughout the second trimester.  Please take a few minutes to look through your child's Google Drive account to see all of the writing from the past few months!  Enjoy!

I hope everyone has a great week!  Enjoy the warm weather!
~Jen

This Week in LL38....

It is a very busy week coming up!  We have 1/2 days for Parent Teacher Conferences on Wednesday and Thursday this week.  If you didn't sign up for a conference but would like to, please email me and I can let you know the times that I have available on my schedule.  On Tuesday and Friday this week we will be going to the Scholastic Book Fair.

Last week you should have received this questionnaire (link below) for preparing for your child's conference.  It would be very helpful if you could fill this out by Tuesday, so that I can make sure we make the best use of your conference time.  If you would like to email me the answers/questions/concerns, please feel free to do so.  

Parent Conference Questionnaire

Science
     We had a lot of fun learning about the different types of volcanoes last week.  We watched some videos on the types of lava as well as the two types of volcanoes, a cone and shield volcano.  After learning that there are 2 types of volcanoes, the class set out to experiment and determine what kind of lava flows from a cone (exploding) volcano and what flows from a shield volcano. Ask your child the steps that were taken to determine the lava that flows from each volcano.

Reading Workshop

     We continued to read poems from My Man Blue.  We talked about the character traits of Blue and Damon, and discussed the themes in the poems.  Students gathered evidence to back up their thinking about the theme of some different poems.  

     We also went into the computer lab to learn the different tools that will be on the MCAS computer assessment.  The students were feeling comfortable with many of the tools.  

Math Workshop

     We continued to focus on fractions in math last week.  We worked with both improper fractions and mixed numbers. This week we will be learning about line plots and how to place fractions on a line plot.  

I hope everyone has a great week.  I look forward to meeting with many of you this week at conferences.

~Jen