Update

Announcements

Continuity of Instruction Drill:  Thursday, March 25.  The school has already sent out communication on the thinking behind this day.  Plans for 4E will be posted on Moodle, as required, but I will also send an email that tells students their work for the day and it will be posted here, just as it was for our practice session last week. Fourth grade teachers have worked hard as a team to design a day that is engaging both on and off the computer.  

Please read below to learn what's happening in our units of the study this week.

Math:  Area and Scale Drawings

This week, students will be reviewing perimeter and area of geometric shapes as well as their hands and geographic areas. Students will also be thinking about the spaces we work and play in and exploring the concepts of area and scale.    Specific objectives we will focus on this week are:

• Develop and apply formulas for areas of rectangles, parallelograms and triangle
• Measuring to the nearest quarter inch.
• Drawing "rough" floor maps.
• Using a scale to create a scale drawing.

Reading Workshop:  Historical Fiction

This week, we continue our historical fiction unit.  Our mini lessons this week focus on:

• Building ideas slowly while reading.
• Writing responses to our reading.
• Sharing thoughtfully with our peers in book clubs.

Writing Workshop:  Bringing History to Life

Students spent last week brainstorming different historical events and thinking about one they will "Bring to Life".  This unit blends research skills with creativity and students are encouraged to present their learning in any way they choose.  In the past, students have chosen to make a movie, write a historical fiction story of their own, or perform something for the class to show what they've learned.  Now, we are still in the beginning research phase.  Students have progressed well in research this year and our teaching points will aim to challenge them to go deeper into their topic and to use more sophisticated researching skills.  Our teaching points this week will be:

• Identifying keywords to help search about a topic.
• Exploring "nearby ideas" to help search about a topic.  
• Considering the authority of different sources.
• Reflecting on how facts and events help us create ideas and opinions about history.

Solar Energy

We have encouraged the students to really reflect upon the problems and successes of their first solar cookers. This week we will finish our re-designed solar cookers and test them on Wednesday. We will be cooking some cookies, which hopefully we will be able to eat! 

Passion Projects:  Round Two

The second round of Passion Projects started last week.  The students have come up with some truly inspiring ideas of what they want to explore, learn, and do.  This round of Passion Projects has four requirements:

1.  Question:  Define a Guiding Question that will drive the project.  

2.  Create:  Make something, do something, build something.

3.  Find an Expert:  Reach out to people outside of our classroom community to learn more about your project.

4.  Share:  Plan a way to share what you do with an audience outside our classroom.  

We will work to coach students through all of these requirements.  It is our biggest hope that students will be so passionate about their projects that they work on them at home; some students have chosen projects that require work outside of school.  Your support is always appreciated.  Passion Projects will be presented to our class on April 27th and April 28th.