JW Reason Elementary
4th Grade Newsletter- January 2016
What's on the Calendar?
January 18- NO SCHOOL- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
January 20- Students will take their 2nd SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory)
What Are We Learning this Month?
January Curriculum
Reading- This month we will be focusing on THEME. Theme is the big idea or author's message. Students understand that theme is often inferred by paying attention to what the characters are learning and how they grow and change. There is often more than one theme to a text. Students must be able to prove their theme by providing evidence for their thinking.
Social Studies- We will be continuing learning about the history of the United States. This week we are starting to learn about the early explorers to arrive in the America's. From here we will make our way towards the American Revolution and how we gained our independence.
HOMEWORK
Students are also expected to play ST Math at home 2-3 nights a week. As we continue to work on multiplication and division this month, students are also expected to practice their basic math facts at home. There is a "fact log" that needs to be filled out each week on the back of their homework log. Being fluent in basic math facts opens the door to being able to go deeper in their understanding of larger numbers. They can spend less time on the calculations and more time understanding the process with accuracy.