Our focus for Quarter 3 will be writing a persuasive essay. By the end of the unit, writers should be able to provide support for a claim in ways that chunk the supportive evidence into logically grouped categories. Writers will use transitional words, use phrases that convey the relationship between the chunks of text and the main claim, and draw on detailed specifics to support their claims.
Students will explore issues in the community in which we live. This "If I Were Mayor" essay will allow students to share an improvement to the community with Mayor Prats. (see Social Studies section below).
A link to a website for information on the 6 Traits of writing is below:
http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/post_its.htm
Several students in fourth grade volunteer to meet with students in our School Community Based classes during their lunch and recess. Mrs. Miller's class then writes a newspaper to share information about students they interview. This week, Jasmine was interviewed. To read the newspaper, click on the link below:
http://news2you.n2y.com/getpaper.aspx?paperid=682559f1-17ee-475f-918a-c214732969cf&teacherid=57487http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/post_its.htm
Several students in fourth grade volunteer to meet with students in our School Community Based classes during their lunch and recess. Mrs. Miller's class then writes a newspaper to share information about students they interview. This week, Jasmine was interviewed. To read the newspaper, click on the link below:
Natural Reader:
This tool can be downloaded on your home computers to assist students with reading text that may be challenging. We use this in class for webpage research and for revising our writing. Students can listen to what they have typed and determine if it sounds right to revise. In addition, when gathering research, this tool allows them to read difficult text. We have this program at school, but it is a great tool for home use as well:
www.naturalreader.com
Social Studies: Working to Create Change in Our Communities:
The "If I Were Mayor" essay contest is a state-wide contest open to all fourth graders in Maryland. Students will write an essay as part of their social studies grade and will have the option of entering the statewide competition. Last year was the first year that LES participated. Although no student from our school went on to win the state-wide contest, Mayor Prats chose 3 winners from our school contest.
First Place: Fadilah
Second Place: Erin
Third Place: Lauren
Their essays were about building more parks/recreation, protecting the environment, and ending discrimination. All final drafts of the essay are due Friday, March 15.
To learn more about the statewide contest, please visit the Mayor's Municipal Association website at: http://www.mdmunicipal.org/index.aspx?nid=168
Some helpful websites we will use in class are:
www.laytonsville.md.us/
www.gaithersburgmd.gov
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/index.aspx
http://www.dosomething.org/
http://www.toms.com/our-movement/
http://www.kidsforsavingearth.org/
Second Place: Erin
Third Place: Lauren
Their essays were about building more parks/recreation, protecting the environment, and ending discrimination. All final drafts of the essay are due Friday, March 15.
To learn more about the statewide contest, please visit the Mayor's Municipal Association website at: http://www.mdmunicipal.org/index.aspx?nid=168
Some helpful websites we will use in class are:
www.laytonsville.md.us/
www.gaithersburgmd.gov
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/index.aspx
http://www.dosomething.org/
http://www.toms.com/our-movement/
http://www.kidsforsavingearth.org/
Science: Chemistry
In this chemistry unit, students will participate in a variety of hands-on investigations with matter. They will observe liquids, solids, and gases and experiment with the effects of temperature on the states of matter. These investigations will lead students to an understanding of how matter changes states.
Enduring Understandings:
- Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space
- Matter can change state without losing any mass
- Each season has different weather conditions
- The Sun causes water to change forms on Earth, but does not change the amount of water on Earth
- The states of matter are solid, liquid, and gas
This week: Students will watch a video segment on matter and revisit their definition of matter. They will then observe a "mystery substance" to determine characteristics of the substance and its properties. This will help us explore how matter changes state (liquid/solid/gas).
Math Notice:
Parents of fourth grade students currently enrolled in Math 4 received a letter explaining that all MCPS elementary schools are implementing the new curriculum, Math 2.0, in Grade 4 during the fourth quarter of this year. Please let your child’s teacher know if you did not receive this information and another copy of the letter will be sent home.
Parents of fourth grade students currently enrolled in Math 5 received a letter regarding next year’s math organizational plan and information about a parent meeting scheduled for March 19. Please let your child’s teacher know if you did not receive this information and another copy will be sent home.
Math 5: Unit 4: Data & Statistics
This week we will look at the following graphs and talk about them more in detail:
*Pictograph: uses symbols and a key to display countable data
*Bar Graph: displays countable data with vertical or horizontal bars; compares factors about groups of data
*Line Graph: shows how data change over time*Circle Graph: shows how parts of the data are related to the whole and to each other
Upcoming Assessment: March 20
Math 4:
Our instructional focus for the remainder of quarter three will continue to be elapsed time and understanding the relationship between multiplication and division.
More info in our next newsletter!
Our instructional focus for the remainder of quarter three will focus on perimeter, area, elapsed time, multiplication and division.
Spelling:
*Our spelling program involves the use of developmental word study rather than traditional spelling books. This“Words Their Way” approach allows students to practice target spelling patterns that best address their individual needs as a speller. Students work in spelling groups to analyze the pattern and look for clues as to how to generalize the correct spelling of words within that pattern/sound.
Our next spelling assessment will take place on Friday, March 22. If you know your child will not be here that day, please let us know so that s/he can take hisher assessment in advance.
Math 4:
Our instructional focus for the remainder of quarter three will continue to be elapsed time and understanding the relationship between multiplication and division.
More info in our next newsletter!
Our instructional focus for the remainder of quarter three will focus on perimeter, area, elapsed time, multiplication and division.
*A great website that allows students to work at their own pace on word problems/real world application of multiplication & division:
http://www.thinkingblocks.com/
We continue to use the Khan academy website to help practice our math at home. This is a great site where students (if a log in is created) can track their progress and have example problems to work on. It has been featured in CNN as an up and coming way for teachers to assess individual students learning.
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Reading:
http://www.thinkingblocks.com/
We continue to use the Khan academy website to help practice our math at home. This is a great site where students (if a log in is created) can track their progress and have example problems to work on. It has been featured in CNN as an up and coming way for teachers to assess individual students learning.
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Reading:
Common Core State Standards recommend that we teacher fourth graders to determine the central ideas or themes of a text as well as analyze the development of these themes. We will study texts deeply to analyze in order to grow big ideas as we read. We will think about and talk about the ideas chapter books suggest in order to back up our ideas with evidence from the text.
Our first part of the unit will involve analzying various cartoons and pictures to find more than one idea. We will work collaboratively in partnerships and small book clubs in order to think about more than one text. It is important to identify themes over more than one text so as not to think about themese in isolation. Our first goal is to give students lots of repeated practice interpreting so that we will become fluent with this sort of thinking. We will also use familiar stories we have read in the past as well as our own writing projects to interpret many different ways.
The second part of the unit will involve revisitng familiar texts to think abou the "ideas" the texts suggest. We will read and re-read prior events and texts to determine if we can analyze how an author develops a theme. The goal is to find texts that may not have the same main idea but can be united thematcially.
For example, The Lorax, The Day They Left the Bay, If the Earth Were a Few Feet in Diameter, and Miss Rumphius are all different books with different authors. All can be used as an example of environmental stewardship.
Look for students to bring home their reading group novels as well as additional books that they may be reading to prepare the work of connecting texts by themes.
Our first part of the unit will involve analzying various cartoons and pictures to find more than one idea. We will work collaboratively in partnerships and small book clubs in order to think about more than one text. It is important to identify themes over more than one text so as not to think about themese in isolation. Our first goal is to give students lots of repeated practice interpreting so that we will become fluent with this sort of thinking. We will also use familiar stories we have read in the past as well as our own writing projects to interpret many different ways.
The second part of the unit will involve revisitng familiar texts to think abou the "ideas" the texts suggest. We will read and re-read prior events and texts to determine if we can analyze how an author develops a theme. The goal is to find texts that may not have the same main idea but can be united thematcially.
For example, The Lorax, The Day They Left the Bay, If the Earth Were a Few Feet in Diameter, and Miss Rumphius are all different books with different authors. All can be used as an example of environmental stewardship.
Look for students to bring home their reading group novels as well as additional books that they may be reading to prepare the work of connecting texts by themes.
Spelling:
*Our spelling program involves the use of developmental word study rather than traditional spelling books. This“Words Their Way” approach allows students to practice target spelling patterns that best address their individual needs as a speller. Students work in spelling groups to analyze the pattern and look for clues as to how to generalize the correct spelling of words within that pattern/sound.
Our next spelling assessment will take place on Friday, March 22. If you know your child will not be here that day, please let us know so that s/he can take hisher assessment in advance.
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