Holmes Carnival Friday!

We have had a great week at school this week! The students have really worked hard! I hope to see everyone tonight at the Holmes Carnival from 5-8pm!  The fourth grade teachers will be selling chocolate bars, so stop by and see us!

Math ~ We have been working on writing equations for multi-step word problems and then solving them.  These take a lot of careful reading and thinking! We have also learned about Prime and Composite numbers, factors, multiples and patterns! Today we took our math practice test. Our math test will be on Tuesday with a review day on Monday.

Writing ~ We are continuing to work on our informational books. We have learned about different types of text structures that non-fiction writers use and have tried them out for our books. Students learned about chronology, comparison and problem solution text structures. We also looked at specific text features that support each type of text structure.

Reading ~ Our fantasy unit continues! We have spent a lot of time reading The Lightning Thief and talking about ways to keep track of multiple plot lines for many different characters in complex texts.  We have also worked on inferring characters feelings in a text and using specific evidence in our text to support our opinions and ideas.

Social Studies ~ We have completed our Science units for the year (Energy Transfek is being taught in STEM) and we are switching our focus to Social Studies.  We began by learning more about Martinn Luther King Jr., and why we celebrate his life with a national holiday.  Our Social Studies kicks off with our Black History Month studies.  We are currently learning about slavery in the United States, The Underground Railroad and a little bit about the Civil War.

If your child is selling chocolate, a box of 30 bars is going home tonight.  Please sell these for $2 each and return the money to school, when you have sold out. If you sell out and would like to sell more, please send in the $60, and ask for another box.   We have plenty more!

Important Dates:

Friday, January 30 – 1/2 day dismissed at noon

Monday and Tuesday, February 2 and 3 – no school

January 16

Wow! Our first full week back since Winter Break! The two snow days last week allowed for a nice and gentle way for us to ease back in to our school schedule!

We have been hard at work this week and are learning a lot!

Math ~ We have been working on writing equations using variables to help us solve multi-step word problems. The students have learned two different ways to solve multi-step problems. You can write one equation for the whole problem or you can write three seperate equations. We have stressed that they must use the Order of Operations when solving their problems (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction) They remember the order of operations by using the mnemonic Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.

Reading ~ We have begun our Fantasy unit. we are reading The Lightning Thief as a class and discussing the elements of Fantasy. So far students have learned how to identify what type of world the fantasy is taking place in by paying attention to the cover and the setting. Students have also learned that the main character often has a steep learning curve as he or she finds out about the magic world he or she lives in. Students learned that we have to be alert to when the main character is learning about his world an learn right along side him.

Writing ~ Students have been working on writing their informational or All About books. THey have created their Table of Contents and have started collecting words for their glossary. They have all chosen a topic and divided it into chapters. Today students wrote a power paragraph for one of their chapters.

Science ~ We have finished our Unit on Organisms Have CHaracter, the test was on Thursday. Look for these to come home on Monday. We will begin Social Studies next week, starting with our Black History Month unit.

Please make sure you are checking your child’s homework each night on their My Homework app on their ipad. They should be marking their homework as comleted each night as they finish it.

Important Dates

The Holmes Carnival is on Friday the 23rd
4th grade Chocolate sale begins January 23rd
Chicago Tripp Chaperone notes are due in January 23rd