Happy Summer!

Wishing all the fourth graders and their families a wonderful summer vacation!  I can't wait to see you all in fifth grade! Also, I'm looking forward to welcoming next year's fourth graders in just a few short weeks!  Enjoy the time of fun in the sun and quality time with friends and family!  We'll be back before you know it!

The Elephant's Child

We hope you enjoy our reader's theater based on the story "The Elephant's Child" by Rudyard Kipling...

Gaga

A little end of year fun for fourth grade...

News and Notes 6/13

News and Notes

From Fourth Grade

Bringing it to Life

The end of the year is full of all kinds of special events.  In fourth grade, the end of the year is the time when we pull together all of our reading comprehension strategies for the year.  The culmination of our work in reading this year is a reader's theater project.  This week the fourth graders put together all of their reading smarts to create a play based on our recent read aloud, The Elephant's Child by Rudyard Kipling.  In order to bring this story to life, the fourth graders had to apply all of their comprehension strategies.  They made connections with the text, asked questions, made inferences, identified the key elements of the story structure, and summarized their piece of the text to create a script.  With some help from our room volunteer, Diane Brunetti, we were then able to use our creativity and artistic abilities to create backdrops and puppets and props for the play.  Needless to say, the fourth graders are very excited and proud of their great work.  What an accomplishment to pull together a full year's worth of reading and create such an awesome finished product!  We can't wait to share The Elephant's Child brought to life with you!

Geometry Masterpieces

A quick dip into the world of geometry gave the fourth graders a positive end to their fourth grade math experiences.  This week we reviewed and added to our knowledge of shapes, space, and measurement.  We talked about lines and angles and polygons.  We played matching games to review vocabulary.  We integrated art and math by creating geometry masterpieces full of different geometric figures and concepts.  We designed playgrounds and hid different measuring angles throughout these playgrounds.  We practiced using different tools including rulers and protractors.  This quick look at geometry was enough to get the fourth graders excited for this special branch of math.  Hopefully this will help when they look more deeply at the subject in fifth grade! 

We Did It!

This week the fourth grade writers completed their first ever five paragraph research essays.  What a long, complicated, and challenging assignment!  At various times throughout the week a fourth grade writer could be seen jumping up and down and enthusiastically sharing with their classmates that they had finished their research papers.  After weeks of researching, prewriting, drafting, editing, and citing, it is a huge accomplishment to celebrate!  Now the fourth grade writers can add published informational writer to their list of writing accomplishments! 

Final Days

With less than a week left of school there is still so much we have to look forward to in fourth grade!  Thank you to the families and friends for your support and encouragement of the fourth graders as they seek to end the year well and enjoy their final days of the school year!

News and Notes 6/6

News and Notes

From Fourth Grade

Fractions

Building on our knowledge of multiplication and division, we are ending the fourth grade math discoveries with a look at fractions.  The fourth graders looked this week at identifying equivalent fractions.  We used models of fractions to identify equivalent fractions and also learned how to use our understanding of multiplication and division to find equivalent fractions.  Being able to explore fractions through hands-on models and computation strategies leads to a fuller understanding of this important piece of mathematics.  Of course, adding in some fun fraction games only adds to the depth and richness of the learning experience!

In Conclusion

After a long time working through the steps of the writing process, the fourth graders have finally reached the "conclusion" of their research papers.  So far they have learned how to write a thesis statement, conduct research and take notes on their selected topic, organize their notes into an outline format, and then from their outlines create a rough draft of the introduction and body paragraphs.  The conclusion is the last step in the writing of our research papers.  From here we move on to editing, revising, and publishing.  The fourth graders had a great sense of accomplishment as they put the conclusions onto their five paragraph essays.  What a great job they have done with this, their first formal research paper!

The Shot Heard 'Round the World

To end our year of study of history, we worked this week to discover the causes and beginnings of the American Revolution.  Before we talked at all about the 1700s, we first had to discuss the vocabulary term "revolution."  The fourth graders had some amazing ideas about what a revolution is and what they imagined the American Revolution looked like.  We discussed some of the major causes of the war, including the phrase "No taxation without representation."  The fourth graders changed this into a more comprehensible slogan: "We don't get a say, so we won't pay."  As we learned more about life in the 1700s we discovered that events like the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party were the result of a long pattern of tension between England and the American Colonies.  We also discovered this week that at Lexington and Concord the first shot of the War was fired... "the shot heard 'round the world." 

Stepping Up

We've come to the time in the year when we start looking ahead to fifth grade.  This week the fourth graders were given an opportunity to "step-up" to the fifth grade.  On Friday morning they joined with their classmates for fifth grade and met their new teacher.  Being able to form some connections and establish some familiarity now will only help us come in next year with a readiness and eagerness for learning!  The fourth graders were so exciting to be stepping up to fifth grade!

Fourth Grade at The Fells

We enjoyed a beautiful day of outdoor exploration and scientific discovery at The John Hay Estate in Newbury.  The fourth graders had a great time applying all of their recent learning about ecology!