What a Busy Week...

Dear Fourth Grade Families,

It has been a busy week in room 11! We have done lots of amazing things that have kept us quite busy.

Language Arts
This week in Language Arts, we worked on Book Reviews. We are working toward a four paragraph review, which will include a summary and specific reasons for liking and recommending the book. We visited Maeve Knoth, the parent volunteer librarian, who shared a Robert Mc Closky book. She was impressed with the number of learners were able to make many connections to Homer Price. We introduced a skills book that has proofreading exercises that will help us with our published work. I have decided to give the rest of the spelling assessments at school. Thank you for helping me out in that experiment. I appreciate the space and trust to try new things with your learners, to find the best ways to provide individualized instruction.

Math
This week we started our math groups. Learners were placed in small groups of 5 or 6 with a menu of math activities to choose from. Different groups played different games. After giving the assessments I noticed we have a wide range of math levels in our classroom. Most learners have strategies for adding multi-digit numbers, and some have mastered this. Many learners just need practice with refining their strategies for accuracy and efficiency when adding. I want them to start using different strategies when solving problems (rounding, estimation, break apart, etc), when appropriate. Some learners will start to look at adding decimals.
Some of the games we played this week were:
Race to $1.00: Learners trade in coins until they reach one dollar.
24: A card with 4 numbers is placed on the table and learners must use all numbers and a combination of operations to get to the number 24. This was a challenging, yet fun one!
Making Change: A pile of product cards with costs are turned over and added together, then change was made.
Beat the calculator: Learners tried to beat the calculator when solving multiplication problems.
Close to 100 & 1000: Two games that not only work on adding two or three digit numbers to 100 or 1000, but also involve estimating, subtracting, and multiple addends. Many different math skills needed and refined...all wrapped up in a fun math game.
Learners also were required to solve a multi-step problem of the week and clearly explain their thinking using numbers and words. Practing these types of problems will improve the learners abilities to problem solve.

California Review
Before jumping into explorers, we wanted the learners to think about what they learned last year about California. It was amazing how much they retained. The learners worked in small groups to discuss what they knew about California's regions, the Native Americans that inhabited the state and the resources they used, and what makes California such a desirable place to live. Next week we will share what we know and talk about what we want to learn about explorers. We will be creating a time line that we will add to over the course of the year.

Science
Before beginning the science unit we wanted the learners to experiment with the scientific method and scientific processes. In order to do this, we completed a gummy bear experiment where we asked the question: What will happen to a gummy bear if we soak it in 60ml of water overnight? Then we made a hypothesis. We made observations, took a variety of measurements on day one, and recorded our data. On day two our gummy bears almost doubled in size. It was very exciting. We repeated the process from the prior day and then compared our results. Learners discovered that most people's gummy bears increased in every area, except the density which decreased. We also talked about how altering one variable could change the outcome of the experiment. Learners made new questions for experiments they would like to complete. We hopefully will get to some of them next week. Some of the questions included:
What will happen to a gummy bear soaked overnight in salt water, lemon juice, milk, soda?
What will happen to a gummy bear soaked in water for one week?
What will happen to a gummy bear soaked in hot water over night?
What will happen to a gummy bear soaked in water and put in the freezer overnight?
Stay tuned for all things gummy bear...
https://scclc.sancarlos.k12.ca.us/class/Elysha-Passeggi/elyweb/gummybear/gummybear.html

Artifact Museum
This week we completed our artifact museum. Learners displayed their artifacts in class and we wandered around to read everyone's write up. Learners took notes about different artifacts and then wrote a letter to one of their classmates about their artifact. It was a nice way to learn more about one another. We really enjoyed looking at the pictures and were so inspired by the family story books. How amazing. Please stop by our room and read about the artifacts if you haven't already.
https://scclc.sancarlos.k12.ca.us/class/Elysha-Passeggi/elyweb/museum/museum.html

That is all for tonight, have a fantastic weekend!
Elysha and Lale