News for February 20

Dear 4B Families,

We are wrapping up our poetry unit and we plan to invite you to a poetry event: an email will come out soon.

Also, our solar energy unit will be wrapping up within the next two weeks. Then, we will move on to the study of the Indus Valley Ancient Civilization. Students will take a traditional pencil and paper assessment to close up our solar e unit around the first week of March. 

The capstone project for our solar e unit is to build a solar cooker/oven. If you like these types of projects, please feel free to build one at home and bring it in. If you want your son or daughter to build an oven in class, please send in a pizza box (as clean as possible). Here is a link that you might enjoy: https://www.teachengineering.org/view_activity.php?url=collection/duk_/activities/duk_solaroven_tech_act/duk_solaroven_tech_act.xml 

MAP testing is scheduled for March 3, 5, 10 and 12 in this order: science, reading, language, and math. We are happy that math is last because this gives us more time to learn fractions!

The Importance of Stop And Jots

Above is a picture of our reading standards on the grade four report card. I post this because soon I will have students take stop and jots from earlier in the year (for inferences, point of view, and theme) and place them side by side current stop and jots. The goal is to write reflections about how our thinking about reading has changed. 

This will also provide the evidence that I need to code students as "applying" for these reading standards by the end of grade four. Note: you do not need to read on grade level to be "applying" for these standards. An English language learner reading in a level M can independently use these reading strategies to think about his/her reading just as well as a level S reader can. 

ONE each night and ONE each literacy block is all that I'm asking for. But, ONE really good Stop and Jot that has the page number, the text clue, and the student's thought. 

Sample pictures of Stop and Jots are posted on this blog.

For math homework, I find that most 4B students are not well practiced at multi digit-division and multiplication and I have sent home many links to online tools that allow for this practice. Please make sure your son or daughter practices division and multiplication for multi-digit numbers at least 3 times each week. Doing just a couple three nights a week would be great practice and not too stressful. They have graph paper booklets at home already. 

4567/7 is a sample division problem for a grade four student. Kids who are experiencing high frustration should start with 345/5 three digit dividends. 

34*97 is an example of a multi-digit multiplication problem. I have sent home big thick packets for this type of practice, but if you're running out please use an online tool. That way the answer is given right away and your son/daughter can re-do the math if he/she is incorrect. 

Note: Some kids did not get this packet because they are well practiced at these skills already and tend to have additional schooling in their home country's math program.

Thanks for reading!

Ms. T