Mrs. Guide's 4th Grade News
February
READING
I remind the students often about completing their Book Talks for the 40 Book Challenge. You will receive an update in this week's Friday folder as to how many books your child has completed this year. I hope that these talks have sparked good conversations between you and your child. Your child should be reading each night for approximately 20 minutes.
We use digital Readworks to work on Reading Comprehension skills. On this site, I can assign the students an article to read at their level. The students are required to answer a set of multiple choice as well as some short answer questions about their reading. We will be using this as another resource to enhance our comprehension skills so, you will not see an assignment every single week.
Thank you to all of the parents and grandparents who have come in to be our guest reader. Many students are now reading the books that you have previewed with them!
WRITING / LANGUAGE ARTS
Writing Workshop- The students just finished their Non-fiction pieces. These pieces should be three to five paragraphs in length and will include at least two Non-Fiction text features.
Our next Writing unit is the Editorial/Opinion study, at the end of this unit the students will publish an Editorial piece on a topic of their choice. They will need to include facts in order to persuade their readers on a topic that they feel strongly about.
Just a reminder that each week the students bring home a Writer’s Warmup which is a prompt that will ask them to produce short piece of writing. The students are given one week to complete this because I expect that the paragraph be their BEST work, in final draft form and should be at least 3-5 sentences in length. I believe giving them a week to complete this helps them to work on time management skills and learn to prioritize completion of assignments too.
We are continuing our Vocabulary/Greek Latin roots study, last week we learned about the root- ject. In Grammar, we are studying coordinating conjunctions.
MATH
SCIENCE
EXTRA INFORMATION
Science Fair- I hope to see all of the students participating in this fun event! The students who participate will receive some extra credit in Science.
Genius Hour- The students have started their Genius Hour Projects this week. This will be an on going project that they complete here at school. We will work on this for about 25 minutes once a week. I have included a link to a video that is geared for teachers but, it will give you a good explanation of the idea behind Genius Hour. My students in the past have been extremely motivated by this idea and the fact that they get to choose what they learn about. They have produced amazing things and learned a lot! Please ask your child what their Genius Hour project idea is.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns feel free to call or email me at anytime.
Sincerely,
Christine Guide
630-861-4200 Ext. 4252