The Ritenour Review
2017 - 2018 Fourth Grade Weekly News
Welcome to Fall
Happy first week of Fall
Spirit week added a lot of fun and spunk to our days this week. It's fun to enjoy the moment and build memories. Yes, we have finally entered into Fall - with summer-like weather! Man, oh, man, it was hot out there this week! We survived and had a lot of fun indoors to keep cool.
Our biggest accomplishment right now is our science unit - Energy. The kids are having a blast! We are really enjoying the ABC's (Activity Before Content) of this new curriculum. The kids are highly engaged and exploring with materials and theories. Once we have tackled our focus question, we come back and talk about the concept we are learning. The conversations at this point are explosive! They are thinking like scientists! This week, we had two main focuses: how to light a bulb and how to complete a circuit.
In math, we finished up our first unit. By the end, I noticed much stronger math skills and they started to apply those skills into other areas. I heard several math concepts being mentioned in our Energy unit. Yes! #teacherwin
In writing, we used our practice from the Pixar Short Films and began building our own stories. The class is doing a much better job at noticing the rise and falls in stories and now they are applying those skills to their own stories!
In reading, we are working with building theories with our characters. We are still looking for those "out of character" moments and figuring out how that affects the story and the plot. Pierce said it best this week, "When a character starts to have a lot of the same 'out of character' moments, that becomes his new natural character trait." Awesome thinking Pierce!
Coming up next!
- Math: We will start our second unit focusing on multiplication and geometry.
- Reading: We continue building theories on our characters and looking at our complicated characters.
- Science: We will work with series circuits
- Writing: We will work on finalizing our narrative stories.
Making Interpretive Reading Goals
Story Arcs
Energy Investigations
Conferences
Our fall conferences are right around the corner! In the next week, you will receive an e-mail with dates for you to pick. I will have traditional conferences in the fall and will meet with each family one-on-one. You are more than welcome to bring your student with you to the conference. It is always beneficial for he or she to be a part of the conversation. I am also more than happy to just meet with the parents.
In the spring, I would like to hold a Student-Led conference round again. I learned a lot from last year's spring conferences and I cannot wait to host those again and apply a few positive changes.
Special's Schedule
- Monday: STEM
- Tuesday: Music
- Wednesday: Art
- Thursday: Wellness **bring/wear tennis shoes
- Friday: Library
Upcoming Dates!
September 18th-22nd - Spirit Week
September 27th - Jog-A-Thon
October 5th - Picture retake day
October 10th - Quarter 1 Ends
October 12th - PTO Meeting (6:00-7:00 in BME Cafe)
October 16th-20th - Fall Break
October 25th - Blood Drive