Classroom Update - Week of January 24th

Welcome Back! I hope that everyone enjoyed their winter track out and is ready to start another terrific quarter! I, for one, am very thankful that we missed all of the snow days and will not have to make up any (hopefully) Saturday school sessions. I was so excited to see the students and they all seem focused and ready to start another quarter of fourth grade.

International Festival - This Thursday!!!

This Thursday, January 25th our school will be celebrating all of the different cultures at Morrisville Elementary. It will be from 6:00-7:30PM. There will be food trucks and fun performances to watch. I really hope everyone is able to attend, because it is sure to be a fun event!

Upcoming Events / Reminders:

• Thursday, January 25th from 6:00-7:30PM is MES International Festival. Please click HERE to sign up if you want to present or help in any area during this night.

• On Friday, January 26th 2nd quarter report cards will go home.

• Friday, February 9th is an Early Release Day. School will dismiss at 1:15PM.

• Friday, March 2nd is an Early Release Day. School will dismiss at 1:15PM

• Interims will go home on Friday, March 2nd.

• 4th Grade Field Trip to the North Carolina Aquarium and Masonboro Island. More specific information will be sent home next week!

• Friday, March 23rd is the end of quarter three and track-out day.

Reader's Workshop:

This quarter, the students will focus on reading the often complex text of historical fiction. The students will all be participating in a novel study on this genre. Each student will be assigned a book to read and given a certain number of pages that have to be read by their next reading group. If the students do not have time to complete this assigned reading in class, it will become homework. In this unit, the readers will learn to keep track of multiple plot lines, unfamiliar characters, and shifts in time and place. The students will also learn the importance of supporting historical fiction with nonfiction texts and photographs to deepen their understanding of this time period.

Some specific mini-lesson topics this week will include:

• Paying close attention to the setting when reading historical fiction texts, as it will most likely be unfamiliar.

• Taking notes on the “important stuff”, so they can begin to grasp the who, what, where, when, and why of a book.

• Seeing big ideas in small details when reading.

• Analyzing photographs and historical nonfiction texts from that time period to see how they connect and enhance our understanding of the novel.

Questions to Ask Your Child at Home:

• What historical fiction novel are you reading for your book club?

• How does the setting affect the character?

• What “important stuff” are you stopping to notice and note as you read?

• What are some big ideas that are forming in your novel?

Writer's Workshop:

This quarter the students will be engaging in opinion writing. They will begin the unit by brainstorming lots of things that they have opinions about. This can be a great topic of discussion at home with your child, as sometimes coming up with topics that we are passionate to write about can be the hardest part! The students will then work on following their ideas into an organized five paragraph essay (introduction, 3 body paragraphs, and conclusion). One great way that you can help to support your child at home with this is asking their opinion on different topics and encourage them to give you elaborated reasons to support their belief (ie. ask them why questions). The students will be writing three opinion papers this quarter and it will serve as a wonderful precursor to our fourth quarter writing unit, that will focus on persuasive writing.

Questions to Ask Your Child at Home:

• What topics are you passionate or feel strongly about?

• What topics do you dislike and want to change?

• What topic did you have the strongest argument on?

Math:

In math, the students will be working on solving problems that involve area and perimeter. The students will be working on practicing these strategies during taught mini-lessons, daily quick checks and small guided math instruction. This is a very quick unit and the students will be taking the area & perimeter assessment on Monday, January 29th.

Questions to Ask Your Child at Home:

• Apply the area and perimeter formulas for rectangles in real world and mathematical problems.

• Solve area & perimeter problems

• Compose and decompose complex figures to calculate the area & perimeter.

Social Studies:

This week in Social Studies the students will begin their unit on economics. They will learn what a market economy is and the relationship between supply and demand through a lemonade stand activity and online game. This quarter’s unit has a great deal of vocabulary that the students will be responsible for knowing, so it is important that they try to study these words a little each night (they will have a copy in their social studies journal and LIGHTHOUSE binder, as they will be assessed on them Thursday, February 1st.

Questions to Ask Your Child at Home:

• What is a market economy?

• How does supply and demand affect prices?

• What is scarcity?

• What would it take to open a successful lemonade stand?

• Have you been studying your economics vocabulary words?