News and Notes 5/30

A Forest of Factor Trees

With our growing understanding of numbers and computation, this week we added a new skill to our mathematical skill set: factoring.  The fourth grade mathematicians took composite numbers and learned how to break them down into their prime factors.  This means we learned a few new vocabulary terms including factor, factoring, and prime numbers.  We discovered that all numbers can be broken down into small parts known as their prime factors.  To demonstrate our understanding of factoring and channel our creativity, the fourth graders created their own "factor trees."  We will use the skills of factoring to help as we begin working with fractions in the coming days and weeks. 

"Curiouser and Curiouser"

During our Junior Great Books work this week we started reading the story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  This classic story has been retold and reinterpreted many times and is a fairly familiar story for the fourth grade readers.  What was most remarkable for us this week was the amount of interesting word-play Lewis Carroll uses in his story.  We discovered that although this is a narrative, there are many examples of poetic language.  Using words for their meaning and their sound and playing with words is a distinct characteristic of this well-loved author.  As we read the story, we borrow a refrain from the text to describe the experience: it's getting curiouser and curiouser!

A Web

After researching different native species, the fourth graders created a large tangled web of interconnectivity.  Using the concepts of the simple food chain, we explored how organisms in a given ecosystem are connected to each other.  We started with the sun which then gives energy to plants which in turn give energy to herbivores and omnivores which then give energy to the carnivores which all provide nutrients for the decomposers.  As we drew these connections we used some string to create a literal food web.  Once we were all tangled together, we started to explore what happens when different forces impact the ecosystem.  Whether it's pollution, deforestation, or irregular weather, the fourth graders observed the ways one force can have a chain effect on an ecosystem.  Even if the species that one child was representing wasn't directly impacted, the dominoes of the food web made it evident that all the organisms of the ecosystem are "in this together."  As we prepared for our ecology field trip to The John Hay Estate on Friday, it was exciting to see just how much the organisms of an ecosystem are connected to each other.

Division Champions

As we move forward with other concepts in math, the fourth graders continue to chip away at their long division work.  We are at the point now where we are just practicing a couple problems each day to work on our fluency and fix up any lingering errors.  We can tell when a learner truly understands a concept when they are able to teach it to someone else.  The concluding assessment for our study of long division is creating a "how to" book.  The fourth grade mathematicians are demonstrating good comprehension and ability with long division by creating some impressive and informative instructional books about long division.  The class is becoming a crew of serious division champions!