News From Grade 4
Week of March 23rd
Science/Health
Our unit on magnets and electricity continues this week with a focus on circuits. Students will look at components of circuits, types of circuits, and conductors/insulators. We're fortunate to have many extra learning opportunities for students because of our school's MakerSpace. Last week, the Bakken Museum came to speak about energy and its connection to our unit. This week, our Curriculum Integration Coordinator, Mrs. Juetten, will be introducing students to Squishy Circuits and Arduino breadboards. Watch for additions to our photo albums at our classroom website!
WRITING
For fiction writing, students are creating a first person narrative from the perspective of a science tool they use in studying Rice Lake. They started with third person narratives. As they learn about different types of figurative language, those are being incorporated into the narrative. Later this week, they'll turn the third person writing into first person. As a final project, they'll record this narrative using the ChatterPix Kids app so that it looks like the voice is coming from the lake tool! Check out the kids' lake sites after spring break to see these projects.
MATH
We're finishing up our focus on using visualization and sketching to solve math word problems. The kids have been working on using different steps as strategies: reading the problem, underlining the question and rewriting it as a statement, visualizing the information in the problem, finding relationships among the information, determining necessary information, and creating sketches to represent their visualization. A large part of this work was discussion that involved comparing different representations and justifying decisions. I was really impressed with the work the kids did and the depth of their discussions!
Miss Gaab's Contact Information
Email: gaabj@district279.org
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/apps.district279.org/gaab/home
Phone: 763-213-3860