4th Grade News 11/17/2014
Mrs. Curtright & Mrs. Foster
Important Information
Upcoming Events:
* 11/20 Stagecoach's Annual Hoe Down November 20th from 5:30-7:30 pm. Avoid the line and purchase your tickets early. Order forms went home last week.
*11/20-Picture Retakes-Students must have a note or pictures. You must bring your money the day of pictures if you plan to purchase.
* 4th Grade won the can food drive competition! Thank you to all the families who sent food items to help those in our community who are less fortunate.
Math, Science, and Social Studies
Math-We had another great week of learning in math last week! We have currently learned 3 ways to multiply multi-digit numbers. We have mastered the area model and partial product strategy. We are still working on the standard algorithm strategy. This strategy is the way most of us learned how to multiply with one simple difference. We are about to the middle of our current unit and will probably begin the Mid-Module Assessment later in the week.
On Tuesday, my homeroom will have several 4th grade teachers within the district come watch to see how they complete Number Talk, a focus lesson on problem-solving, and math rotations. I am the 4th grade math lab classroom for the district and there will be 2 or 3 days throughout the year that we may have other teachers from Cabot visit. My students are very excited to show other teachers how much they have learned so far this year!
Because we will be getting ready for our visitors coming on Monday and Tuesday, we will not have our accuracy check this week until Wednesday. I will be taking up their Weekly Math Fact Fluency Log that was homework last week on Monday. On Wednesday, we will be working on the 12 facts. Students will be making flashcards for these facts on Wednesday. Our homework this week will be to complete the Math Fact Fluency Log. Students are to spend 10 minutes per night studying the 12 facts. On the math log, students will log the time practiced, the activity they did, and get a parent signature. Because we are starting mid-week on the 12 facts, the Math Fact Fluency Log will not be due until next Wednesday.
After the completion of the 12 facts next week, we will begin putting all the facts together for a final accuracy check. We will have that final accuracy check the week after our fall break. The week of fall break would be a great time to have students begin studying all facts. Some great websites/apps students can use for practice is: multiplication.com, iPad or iPhone app Multiplication Table (free), iPad app Everyday Math Facts Practice ($0.99). I will also be sending home a game board that students can use to practice all facts as well as teach students a game they can play with regular playing cards (Multiplication War) that students can play with an adult or older sibling at home. Student should also have all the fact cards we have cut out since the beginning of the school year in the pouch of their binder. Please make sure they are practicing all facts 1-12's!
Social Studies-This week we will continue our unit on government. We will begin this unit by talking about the documents that helped form the government we have today. We will begin our research with the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Gettysburg Address. We will make a timeline on when each document was written and its purpose. After some discussion of each document, students will be divided into groups where they will complete a power point to present information they learned about their document to the class.
Reading, Writing and Word Study
Reading: We will continue our focus on nonfiction reading this week. Last week we listened to a portion of a broadcast of the 1938 radio play "War of the Worlds". This week we will look at primary sources to evaluate point of view about the broadcast. Several students wanted to listen to the entire broadcast and read the transcript. The links are listed below:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/mars/wow.htm
https://archive.org/details/OrsonWellesMrBruns
There will be a fluency homework coming home for this week! Please listen to your child read this on a daily basis to help him/her practice with rate, expression, and fluency.
Writing: We will continue our research on self-selected topics this week. We will be wrapping up research mid-week to focus on beginning to sort through information and summarize. We will also write a few "Thanksgiving themed" things this week. Be sure to look at our "save the turkey" stories outside our classrooms!