A huge shout out to all of the families that participated in the Bike Path Clean Up last night! Great job!

Today the 4th grade took a field trip to Grand Haven 9 to watch “the Jungle Book” to celebrate Earth Day. We will be discussing the habitats presented in the movie and how the animals used their behavioral and physical adaptations throughout the movie. We will also be looking for ways that humans have modified the environment and will discuss whether these modifications had positive and/or negative effects.

This week in reading workshop we started a new nonfiction book club. Students read the same book and then had the opportunity to talk with their book club about what they learned. Next week we will switch back and have a Fiction book club. Book clubs give the students an opportunity to use all of the reading comprehension “tools” that they have learned throughout the year.

In Writing Workshop students are putting the finishing touches on their Animal Research projects. Students will be displaying their posters and will be taking a “Gallery Walk” to critique posters from the other 4th grade classes. Those that have completed their posters have been doing some fun story writing!

This week in Math students have learned how to classify triangles by their sides and by their angles. We listened to a couple of songs to help us remember! Students have also learned how to identify parallel and perpendicular lines (again we listened to a couple of songs to help us remember. Ask your child to show you their hand movements). We will be studying and classifying polygons next and should be wrapping this unit up near the end of next week!

The students have been hard at work learning about different economic terms in order to be ready for Market Day! We have read a picture book to help teach the different terms and have also sung a bunch of songs to help us remember what they are. So far we have learned about producers, consumers, goods, services, scarcity and waste! Ask your child if they can sing one of our economic songs to you! Market Day will be on May 6. Your child will need to turn in their “What Will I Make” sheet on Monday, April 25.

This week we also practiced logging on to the M-STEP testing site and using keyboards connected to our iPads. Once we were in the site I took students through a sample test so that they could practice using the different tools and see the different question types, we will have a couple more practice days so that students can familiarize themselves with the different types of questions and to get them comfortable with navigating within the test. We will begin our real M-STEP testing in May.

M-STEP TESTING DATES:

May 10, 12, 17, 18, and 19 – Please try not to schedule any appointments for those days.

Important Dates:

Tuesday April 26 – Cool School Day at Front Porch

Wednesday and Thursday, April 27-28 – Swimming (swimsuit and towel)

Friday, May 6 – Holmes Art Show 5-7pm

Wednesday, May 11 – Link Up Concert

Monday, May 16 – ALL library books must be returned!

Tuesday, May 31 – 4th Grade Bocce Ball Day

Thursday, June 2 – 4th Grade Chicago trip

Friday, June 3 – Be Nice Fun Field day

Tuesday, June 7 – 4th Grade Celebration 6:30-7:30 Middle School

Wednesday and Thursday, June 8-9 – Half days and June 9 Last day of school!

It is hard to fathom the speed at which the school year is quickly coming to a close! As I sit it plan it feels like I am running out of days way too quickly!Please be sure to read this blog and check your emails for updates and reminders about special events going on.

This week in Reading Workshop we continued with book clubs. We switched our book club partners so that we had new groups to work with. Students in each book club were given a different book to read about the same topic. Some topics were The Titanic, Penguins, and Volcanoes. Each student was responsible to read their own book and take notes about their thinking that would then be shared when their book club met. Ask your child to share what he or she learned about the topic they read about.

In Writing Workshop we are continuing to work on our animal research projects. Students have each chosen an animal that is at The Lincoln Park Zoo. Then students used their ipads and books from the library to research information about their chosen animal’s habitat, behavioral and physical adaptations. After collecting this information students then designed a poster to present their information in an easy to read way. 4th graders will be taking a “Gallery Walk” to critique the posters from other 4th grade classrooms. This also helps the students to learn more about the animals we will be seeing at the zoo.

We have started our LAST math unit! We started our Geometry unit on Monday and began with a review of concepts that were learned in 3rd grade (line, ray, point, vertex, line segment, angle etc.). Then we started on our 4th grade concepts. Students learned how to use a protractor to measure angles, how to identify angles as acute, obtuse, right, straight or reflex and we have started to compose (add two angles together to make one angle) and decompose angles (make one angle in to two angles). This was done by adding angle measures together or subtracting angle measures.

We are wrapping up our social studies unit on ways that humans change and modify the environment by talking about public issues that stem from humans modifying the environment. We briefly talked about sand mining and wind turbines in the lake. We focused on the arguments for and against diverting Great Lakes water to the desert southwest. Ask your child about what they think about these issues. Monday we will start on our Economics unit. As a part of our economics unit all 4th graders will be participating in Market Day! Look for information to come home on Monday!

This week we also had the opportunity to work with the Kindergarten students in Mrs. Highhill’s and Ms. Melton’s class. 4th graders helped the K students find text features in non-fiction books and the K students created their own non-fiction text features books using Book Creator.

Important Dates

Thursday, April 21 – Bike Path Clean Up

Friday, April 22 – Jungle Book field trip

Tuesday April 26 – Cool School Day at Front Porch

Wednesday and Thursday, April 27-28 – Swimming (swimsuit and towel)

Friday, May 6 – Holmes Art Show 5-7pm

Wednesday, May 11 – Link Up Concert

M-STEP TESTING DATES:

May 10, 12, 17, 18, and 19 – Please try not to schedule any appointments for those days.