The Ritenour Review
2017 - 2018 Fourth Grade Weekly News
One Week Down!
Hooray! Hooray! We finished our first week of fourth grade! The week was filled with revisiting expectations and procedures from last year and we added a few new items to our list. I thought a lot about having students a year older this year, and this allowed me to make some changes to allow them to have more independence and freedom. As always, with more independence comes more trust!
Last year, we started off the year talking about our different intelligences. This year, we are working on learning about our brain. We have learned some fun facts about the brain in general, the three main parts to the brain and the limitations of the brain. We will be starting this next week talking about neuroplasticity and how this concepts helps us become our best self.
This week, we started our math curriculum off a little differently. I am aiming to create a thought-provoking and strong math block. Instead of jumping straight into our math curriculum, we are taking the first three weeks of the year to establish our now expectations. This year, each child is working with a math partner. I strategically picked the groups and knew each partner would have a strength to help his/her partner's weaknesses. So far, it's been beautiful to watch! We have been playing with Legos and all of our math manipulatives. As we move through each activity, we stop at the end to reflect how we used strategies as mathematicians. We are currently adding to our list daily. At the end of our first three weeks, we will go back over this list and revise it to help us throughout the year. Student created anchor charts are more meaningful than anything I could create solo.
Next week, we will begin to dive into our curriculum for math, reading and language arts.
- Math: We will work on learning expectations for number sense and expecting equations - two skills that will assist with EVERY unit this year.
- Grammar: Nouns and Verbs - the foundation of our sentences.
- Reading: We will work on building stamina for independent reading and interpreting characters.
- Writing: WE will begin our first unit of writing for the year: The Arc of the Story.
NWEA:
We will test NWEA this Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We are going to push forward and get those off our checklist and get back to business and a regular routine.
Special's Schedule
- Monday: STEM
- Tuesday: Music
- Wednesday: Art
- Thursday: Wellness **bring/wear tennis shoes
- Friday: Library
Lego Days
Building our Web
Along with our brain talks, we have been talking about having a 'thick web.' We all need layers of support - like a web. In our class discussion, we found out we all have a lot of connections and can support each other in different ways. We also talked a lot about the adults in the building and in our lives that can support our web, too. We had a fun activity of making a web by connecting with each other.
Math Exploration
Flick Friday! (The new Homework Hoops)
Upcoming Dates!
- Monday, August 15th: NWEA
- Tuesday, August 16th: NWEA
- Thursday, August 17th: NWEA