News and Notes 2/20

News and Notes

From Fourth Grade

Spirited

This week was Simonds School Spirit Week.  The fourth graders participated in the festivities by dressing up.  On Monday they wore fancy clothes, on Tuesday they sported their sporting gear, on Wednesday they were all mixed up, and on Thursday they donned blue and gold (the Kearsarge School colors).  On Friday the whole school enjoyed "Winter Carnival."  We moved from station to station enjoying activities related to winter.  What a great chance to practice some of our skills of respect and cooperation!  It was also a special time to enjoy some good fun together as a whole school.  After this spirited week though, it'll be nice for the fourth graders to have some time off to recover from all this fun!

Application

We have been working for weeks on long multiplication.  We've talked about different concepts relating to multiplication and learned many different ways to get to a final product.  The fourth graders know all about place value concepts relating to multiplication.  They have been growing in their multiplication "snap-fact" fluency in order to solve the long multiplication problems more swiftly and accurately.  This week as we transition away from how to solve long multiplication problems, we took some time to examine why we would solve problems using long multiplication.  The fourth graders worked on creating their own long multiplication stories.  From these stories, they determined real-life situations when you would use long multiplication to solve a problem.   Then the fourth graders used their growing long multiplication computation skills to actually solve their problems and find a final product.  It was a good way to build off of our computation skills and see them applied to different situations. 

How To...

In writing this week, the fourth graders demonstrated their "know how" by writing instructional paragraphs.  We took the topic of winter activities and each selected one example that we knew well.  From this we created a list of necessary supplies and then formulated the steps involved in accomplishing our given activity.  In the end we created some fabulous instructional paragraphs about wintry activities.  The fourth grade writers are using their non-fiction writing skills to create some informative and helpful documents.  It is also exciting to see a growing awareness of the value of the process of writing.  As we work our way from brainstorming to prewriting to drafting to editing and revising and finally to publishing, the fourth graders are learning how to appreciate the process as well as the final product.  As we pull our published "how to" paragraphs together, we are recognizing that it is quite a useful document!  So, if you ever have any questions about winter activities, feel free to come check out our instructional writing pieces!

Vacation

Wishing all of the fourth graders and their families a fun and safe February vacation!  We are looking forward to a time of rest and also a change in schedule, but we're also looking forward to returning in March with a renewed excitement for learning!  I know I can't wait to hear all about the adventures the fourth graders have over this next week!