The Ritenour Review
2017 - 2018 Fourth Grade Weekly News
Hello February
Where is the time going? We are already in February? I am not okay knowing I only have a few short months left with these wonderful students. This last week was filled with excitement for our reading and writing units being up and running smoothly. We also had the opportunity to show our brilliant knowledge on fractions and soil composition. Look out for those assessments next week. As we move into this new week, we start off with a new friend! On Monday, we are expecting to meet out 27th student! Yes, you heard that right...27! The class is beyond excited and we cannot wait to meet this newest addition to make our class complete. Our new friend is coming from Japan and has a younger brother in first grade. We are beyond blessed to have the Jennings in our classroom family, since we have a beautiful connection to make the language transition easier. Again, the class is busting at the seams with excitement and they are ready to pour love all over our new friend, Misaki.
This past week:
In math, we took our unit five assessment in math and I look forward to grading those. I feel like the class as a whole really took off with the concept. We also updated our KhanAcademy scores with our most recent NWEA scores. This allows each child to work on individual areas of need. They can access this site at home, too. I honestly welcome this idea! www.khanacademy.org/mappers
In reading, we are all up and running with our historical fiction unit. Each partnership has book their are reading together and each child has an individual book in the same genre. We are working in so many different eras, so the conversations have been wild and exciting! Due to so many kids in the entire 4th grade reading multiple books in this genre, we are using our lifeline of being patient as we are working through getting everyone new books as soon as they finish. If you have any historical fiction novels (age appropriate) you have read and are no longer needing, we would love to take those off your hands - even if it is just to borrow. My goal is to get the volume of reading higher with books they have high levels of interest reading. We are connecting our books in so many different areas, and it is fun to watch the excitement grow within children when they truly connect with a book and then dive into the historical timeline.
In science, we finished our first investigation on soil and weathering. We culminated our concepts by looking at soil in our own schoolyard. I pulled soil samples without letting the class know the specific locations around the schoolyard. Using their knowledge from this unit, every group made a sound, logical hypothesis about the soils' locations and most were correct!
Coming up next!
Math: We will jump into division! As always, we are still practicing our fact fluency daily, because those skills make division much smoother. Similar to multiplication, we will work with strategies you may not be familiar with from your childhood - I was not. Please, allow your child to teach you the new strategy. In time, they will build the mathematical reasoning for different strategies, but for now, I feel the strategies we will be working with in class are best for everyone.
Reading: We will work within our partnerships and look at themes within our books.
Science: We will use our soil composition knowledge and look into erosion and deposition.
Writing: We will pick short literature pieces we are passionate about and we will write literary essays supporting our thesis built from the stories.
Special's Schedule
- Monday: STEM
- Tuesday: Music
- Wednesday: Art
- Thursday: Wellness **bring/wear tennis shoes
- Friday: Library
Upcoming Dates!
February 3rd - Talent Show in BME Cafe @ 2:30
February 8th - PTO Meeting
February 14th - Valentine Day Celebration
February 19th - Presidents Day - No School
February 20th - No School for Students (Professional Development Day for Staff)
February 23rd - Spirit Day: Neon Day
February 23rd - BME Mixer at Golf Club of Indiana 6:30pm - Sponsored by PTO
February 26th - March 3rd - ISTEP+ Testing window (Part 1) - 3rd/4th grades
March 28th - Kindergarten Round-Up @ BME
March 30th - April 6th - Spring Break (No school)
April 16th - May 4th - ISTEP+ Testing window (Part 2) - 3rd/4th grades