As we’ve enjoyed an unseasonably mild Indian Summer week outside, inside our classroom the fourth grade has remained cool and focused on their work. Much of our attention has been on preparing for the Middle School Poetry Assembly which will be held this coming Tuesday afternoon. The students began their preparation by breaking into three groups in which they worked to locate and select poems that interested them. The topics ranged widely from polar bears to spring to the uses of one’s hands! They have worked diligently to memorize and develop interesting ways to incorporate movement and different voice inflections to make their presentations of the poems unique and enjoyable. We hope that as many parents as possible will be able to attend our presentation.
In English, much of our time has been occupied with the Poetry Assembly preparations, but we have also completed our class reading of Avi’s book, Poppy. We will be starting our wrap-up projects for this book, that I mentioned in my last entry, this coming week.
Our major focus in math has been the review of the basic concepts of division. The students worked on the relationship between multiplication and division, strengthening any weaknesses they had with their basic facts from zero to twelve, adding to their confidence in their ability to successfully use multiplication and division. Moving forward we will be exploring the understanding of time, especially the analog format. While students can tell time easily in the digital format, they sometimes have trouble with a standard clock, so we will work to strengthen that skill.
In social studies, we will be starting our Land Form Project this week. In preparation for this, the students have helped develop a bulletin display in our classroom, naming and describing different types of land forms. We made a bit of a game out of it, with the students working to place the land form name labels where they belong on a map. The result of this is a much greater understanding of what constitutes each of these land forms. The activity has piqued their interest in this topic, so much so that in integrated studies the students spent their time looking at and identifying actual examples of various land forms. They were particularly excited to see photos and videos of geysers, fjords, and volcanoes! Coming up each student will select a land form he or she would like to explore in greater depth, and will do their project on it. More in depth information on this project will be coming home this week.
A reminder that Wednesday is Veteran’s Day and will be a day off from school, but first we are looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday for the Poetry Assembly.