Dear Families,
Since last week a significant amount of time was dedicated to finishing up the letters and games for Whaling Day, it was nice to get back to our regular routines. Although it was only a four-day week, we were quite busy in fourth grade. We took time on Tuesday to recognize Kindness Day. Fourth graders explored the website reading about ways to spread kindness. The website had a number of kindness quotes that students found inspirational. Some students shared a quote with classmates that they found particularly powerful. Below are a few quotes that stood out to the fourth graders:
Turkey Trot Information: The Turkey Trot will be held on Tuesday, November 20 from 1:30 - 2:30 on the Field Hockey field. Families are invited to attend this event. Children can be dismissed at 2:30 or during the regular 3:05 dismissal time. Please send in a white t-shirt with your child by next Monday. We will decorate them for the event. You may want to size up to wear over a jacket/sweatshirt A few curriculum highlights: Language Arts
Math
Have a wonderful weekend! Warmly, Brigid Dear Families, Whaling Day was a success! The students did a wonderful job singing sea shanties and sharing their games. I hope you had a chance to check out their whaling letters, scrimshaws, and whale drawings made to scale. Fourth graders should be very proud of their curiosity and engagement throughout our study of the northeast. Next we travel to the south, where we will learn about the four pillars of this region (Who lived in the region before it became the United States? What are the states and capitals of the region? What national parks/monuments and landscapes are in the region? What significant events happened in the region?). Below are a few pictures from the Whaling Day. Next week is the book fair and the author visit! Fourth graders will be visiting the book fair during our library class on Tuesday. Students can bring money with them to shop if they would like to, and there will also have "no obligation wish list" pages that they can fill out to take home--and of course, they can just browse and not buy anything at all! Mrs. McCullough is planning on purchasing many of the book titles found at the book fair for our school library, so students will be able to come to the library and borrow titles that they are interested in for free. The author visiting is Matt Tavares. Many of his books have been previewed in library class and will also be available for purchase at the book fair. For families who ordered signed copies of Matt's books, Mrs. McCullough will deliver those copies to homerooms to be sent home with students on Thursday or Friday. Enjoy your long weekend! Warmly, Brigid Dear Families,
Happy November! It has been a busy couple of weeks in fourth grade. We had our field trips to Gillette Stadium and the Mystic Seaport, Student-Led Conferences, and Halloween. All of this while preparing for Whaling Day on Friday, November 9th. Pictures from the field trip are now posted in the photos section of this website. Be sure to check them out! It was a true pleasure meeting with each of you during our conference. The students did a wonderful job reflecting on their work, while sharing their goals for the school year. Having the students attend the conference and be a part of the goal setting process gives them a sense of ownership of their learning and helps develop a growth mindset. Whaling Day is rapidly approaching! Whether it has been through our class novels, mix it up time, or during a field trip, fourth graders have learned a tremendous amount about whaling and are eager to share with you. During language arts, students are writing a letter from the perspective of a person on a whaling ship. They have used a graphic organizer to identify the important information that will be included in the letter. They must include their role on the ship, ship name, place of origin, among many more facts! The letters is just one assignment they have been working on to be shared at Whaling Day. In our Mix It Up groups, students are creating an educational whaling game. Students have chosen to either work with a partner (which was randomly assigned to them) or on their own. Fourth graders will also be singing sea shanties learned in music and displaying scrimshaw created in art. We hope to see you at Whaling Day on Friday, November 9th from 9:30-10:30! In math class, students continue to solidify their multiplication facts through various games and by using IXL. Time has been devoted this fall to strengthening the multiplication foundation to prepare for our next steps in math. Now that students are multiplying 2-digit numbers with and without regrouping, it is important that the can easily recall basic facts. Students will also be practicing more complex long division problems, which require one to apply partial division, basic multiplication, and subtraction. Have a wonderful weekend! Warmly, Brigid Dear Families, Just a reminder that we have a busy week next week! Monday we are on a field trip all day, Thursday we have student-led conferences, and there is no school on Friday for a faculty and staff professional development day. If you have not had a chance to send in your hopes and dreams for your child, please do so prior to our conference. We have recently started using Google Classroom as a way to share documents and links connected to our curriculum. For example, fourth graders used links compiled in Google Classroom to research National Parks to add to their state pamphlet. This is also a platform where students can share their written assignments and receive feedback during the publishing process. We will continue to explore the many different ways to utilize Google Classroom to support our projects and assignments . Social Studies This week in social studies we started discussing the importance of whaling in the Northeast. We learned important whaling dates, which whales were hunted, and the different paths that ships took on their voyages. We were amazed by how many traveled from New Bedford. Check out the photo section to see a few moments from our trip! Social/Emotional Learning During morning meeting, we learned a new social thinking activity called Should I? Or Shouldn’t I?, which explores social behaviors from different people’s perspectives. Fourth graders listened to a variety of everyday scenarios and were asked to think about the expected and unexpected behavior of the situation. Students rated the scenario using a behavioral scale. The behavior scale is a tool that helps students have a common language with how social behaviors are perceived. To hear from multiple perspectives, they shared with each other how they would rate the same scenario. We spent time discussing the situations and why people rated it the way they did and how they viewed the situation. This is a wonderful activity for students to practice their problem-solving skills and to see how an individual's behavior can impact the the relationships they have with other people. Math Fourth graders used basic multiplication and division facts to find factors and multiples. They added factors and multiples resources to their math notebooks to refer to when working independently. Students continued using IXL focusing on the recommendations that were identified from the diagnostics. We also watched a video about the importance of struggle in math. Check out the video HERE . Language Arts Students have started typing their published stories. Through mini-lessons, students are learning how to revise their written work on a computer. When revising, students are checking for a clear beginning, middle, and end. They are also looking to add descriptive words, remove unwanted sentences, and expand upon areas that could use more detail. Have a wonderful weekend!
Warmly, Brigid Dear Families, Fourth graders have started to prepare for Student-Led conferences, which are coming up on October 24th and October 25th. To help identify strengths and goals, students started thinking about social and academic skills that are practiced throughout our day. They were then asked to reflect on how these skills apply to their learning and whether it is a strength or a growing edge. Next week, fourth graders will identify specific strengths and goals for language arts, math, and social/emotional learning that they will share with you at the conference. A new classroom job in fourth grade is a news reporter. The role of the news reporter is to share current events that they find interesting. They could cut an article out of a newspaper, share a video from the internet, or simply relay facts that they learned about a topic of interest. Each week the news reporter will be on the lookout for current events to share with our class. This job is meant to be fun and spark interest about what is happening in the world around us. I’m always happy to help the news reporter the find time and resources to fulfill their job. This week, one student researched Indigenous People’s Day and presented it through a slideshow. Below are a few curriculum highlights: Math
Social Studies
Language Arts
Have a wonderful weekend! Warmly, Brigid Dear Families, Student-Led Conferences are coming up on Wednesday, October 24th and Thursday, October 25th. Please note that there is no school on Thursday, October 25th due to the Student-Led conferences. (There is also no school on Friday, October, 26th). When students are not taking part in the conference, they can go to the library for childcare. Students will be present for a short time at the beginning of the conference. Please let me know if you have any questions about the conference format or the date/time of your conference. Please read a few curriculum highlights from the week: Language Arts During Writer’s Workshop, fourth graders are learning how to be a writing buddy as a way to confer about a story. A writing buddy listens to or reads a classmates story and provide positive feedback. Students have been practicing giving compliments and helpful suggestions. Below are the starter sentences used as a guide:
Fourth graders are learning that being a writing buddy means being an active listener. Another component to being a writing buddy is helping a friend proofread for capitalization, punctuation, order, and spelling. As we get more into the writing process, students will taking time to confer with either a teacher or a peer prior to publishing a story. Math In math, we continue to solidify multiplication skill through a variety of lessons, games, and activities. This week, fourth graders learned the partial-products algorithm to solve a multiplication problem. This is just one strategy that fourth graders can add to their problem-solving tool kit. Below is an example to show how the algorithm works. Social Studies Students have been learning the states and capitals of the Northeast. Next week, fourth graders will have a quiz to check their knowledge of the nine states and capitals of the region. During Mix It Up Social Studies, each student has been given one of the nine states to research. They will then make a pamphlet of their state to share with the group next week. The research and pamphlet will all be completed in school. Since fourth grade learns about whaling, we have started reading an adaption of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Each child has a copy of the book and we will be reading it as a whole group or in partners over the next few weeks. Have a wonderful weekend! Warmly, Brigid Dear Families,
Your child has brought home a questionnaire for you to fill out prior to our Student-Led Conference. This conference is a time for us to set goals for your child’s fourth grade year. Leading up to the conference, each child will have spent time reflecting on their own work and identifying samples that they will share with you. They will also set their own goals for the year. When thinking about your hopes and dreams for your child, I ask that you think about both social and academic goals. I’m looking forward to our conference time! Below is an announcement from the Development Office: Saturday, October 20th: Farmers For America Screening and Panel with Local Food Tasting. Click here to learn more and register. In addition, the Northeast Organic Farming Association, NOFA, is offering a free gardening workshop, led by FA teacher Steve Walach, on campus prior to this event. You can click here to learn more about their workshop. Contact Steve Walach to register. Curriculum highlights: Math
Language Arts
Social Studies We had a wonderful field trip the the Mashpee Wampanoag Museum. We enjoyed learning about the Wampanoag culture and history. Check out the photo section to see some pictures from our trip. Next week, we will begin to learn the states and capitals of the Northeast region. Other Social Studies highlights:
Have a wonderful weekend! Warmly, Brigid Dear Families, Thank you all for attending Parents’ Night and learning about our 4th grade curriculum. It’s going to be an exciting year! I look forward to our Student-Led Conference time where we get a chance to share our hopes and dreams for the year. Our social studies curriculum focuses on the regions of the United States. For each region, we plan to explore four major concepts. They are:
Over the next few weeks, our discussions will focus on the Northeast. To learn more about the region before it became the United States, we will be taking a field trip on Tuesday, September 25th. Mark your calendars because Whaling Days will be our culminating event on Friday, November 9th from 9:30-10:30. Below are a few pictures from our Outside the Classroom activities and our fourth grade hike. Have a wonderful weekend! Warmly, Brigid Dear Families, We have had a wonderful week in fourth grade! It is during these beginning days of school that we have been adapting to our school routine, learning our team rules, establishing peer relationships, and introducing the fourth grade curriculum. It is crucial that during these first few days expectations are spelled out and predictable structures are established. This helps us create a cooperative and stimulating learning environment. I just want to remind you that Thursday, September 20th is Parents’ Night. There will be a brief introduction in the Commons at 6:30 followed by our fourth grade presentation in Ms. Pindell’s classroom. You will have time to look around your child’s classroom after the presentation. I look forward to seeing you all then! Below are a few curriculum highlights from the week: Morning Meeting/Social and Emotional Learning Morning meeting is a time that allows us to greet one another, share important news, engage in a team building activity, and hear about the day ahead. We also will use this time to discuss topics that are important to the social and academic growth of the children. This past week we discussed Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset. Below is an image we have in the classroom to remind us of how to have a growth mindset: Language Arts
Students have started to learn the reading and writing routines used in fourth grade. Having time carved out in our day for independent reading will help build reading stamina. Students also took time to go through our classroom books and they decided together how to organize our library. This was a great team building activity that helped students feel a sense of ownership within our classroom. During Writer’s Workshop, fourth graders have been introduced to the Writer’s Notebook. This is a place where students will write stories or share ideas over the course of the year. Each student has brainstormed different topics that are meaningful and close to their heart. These topics were put in a Heart Map. They can refer to the Heart Map if they are ever stuck for a writing topic. Math Fourth graders have spent the first few days of school reviewing their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. This is has been done through independent practice, class review, and partner or whole group games. The math games are a wonderful way to support and extend math concepts. Please let me know if you are looking for suggestions to reinforce math skills at home. Along with a Math in Focus math journal, each fourth grader will have a Math Notebook. This notebook will be a place where students store math vocabulary and examples of concepts introduced and can be used as a resource over the course of the year. Students can also use the grid paper in the notebook as an extra place for solving problems. I hope you all have wonderful weekend! Warmly, Brigid P.S. Check out the photo section to see fourth graders in action! |
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May 2019
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