Weekly Update

Announcements:

Report Cards:  Report cards went "live" on Friday.  Please contact me if you'd like to schedule a conference.  

Field Trip to the Hyundai Factory:  Our field trip will hopefully happen on Friday, February 27th.  Again, this is an all day field trip and students must wear closed-toed shoes.

Math Project:  Adjusting a Recipe; Due Thursday, February 26th. We will have time on Monday to work on this project as a class and review questions and challenges.

What's Happening Next...

Please read below to learn about what is happening in our units of study.

Reading Workshop:  Historical Fiction Book Clubs

This week we begin Historical Fiction Book Clubs.  It's a challenging unit that invites students to imagine different times and think deeply about different issues that they often have never heard about.  For some students, it is the first time that they read texts with more mature content, and with storylines that are deeply disturbing.  We will be reading amazing, and also challenging texts in class, as a whole class, in book clubs, and independently.  For our book clubs, we will be mixing it up and pairing students with other fourth graders in Ms. MacDonald's class (4A).  

During our last round of book clubs, some parents mentioned how much they enjoyed reading the books their children were reading.  We were so thrilled to hear this!  We encourage parent/child shared reading.  One book we will be reading as a class is Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, a book that takes place in Denmark during WWII.  This is a fantastic, moving book that adults and children will both enjoy. While I don't have a class set, Ms. MacDonald has several extra copies and so does the library/CIC.  If you are interested in reading along and discussing the book at home, send me an email and I can check one out to your child.  Students will continue to have specific reading assignments and reading homework for their book clubs.  We will continue to log reading on a paper, as we did last week, as part of the homework accountability.

Our main objectives for the week in reading are:

• Compare and contrast historical fiction with other genres we have read this year.
• Understand the importance (and challenges) of the setting in historical fiction books.
• Discuss a historical fiction picture book with others.
• Work within a group to create agreements for a being a member of a book club.  

Re-visiting Narrative Writing:  A Small Moment Story
Next week, we will shift to another research unit called Bringing History to Life.  This week, however, we will re-visit narrative writing.  Students will write a "Small Moment" personal narrative where they tell a story about something that happened to them. 

Our main objectives for the week in writing are:

• Brainstorm possible ideas, and choose an idea that will make a good, inviting story.
• Consider our stories, and how we will write them, based on a story arc and identifying rising action, climax and resolution.  
• Re-visit the conventions of dialogue in writing.  
• Practice the art of writing vivid, descriptive, narrative text.

Math:  Metric Conversion and Measurement
We begin a unit on measurement and will focus on metric conversions this week.  Our main objectives for the week are:

• Express metric length and mass measurements in different units. (example 3000 m = 3 km)
• Model and solve addition and subtraction word problems involving metric measurements.  

Science:  Solar Energy
Students enjoyed our Science Focus next week.  We will continue to do a lot of work in science in the coming two weeks, before moving on to our next social studies unit.
Students will be exploring how we can use the sun’s energy and convert it to power/electricity. They will be designing their own solar cooker.