Happy Holidays!
Upcoming Events:
December 21st - Jan. 1st NO SCHOOL: Winter Break!
January 4th, Monday- Library Visit
January 8th, Friday- All School Meeting: Puffins Present! Spirit Day Theme: Monochrome
Homework due on Thursday, January 7th
1. Reading: Read for at least 20 minutes every night- track at home
2. Math: Complete at least 30 minutes of math practice per week-(more is recommended)
Suggested IXL skills for 3rd grade math practice:
- V.6 - V.7 Geometry
- Need help with geometry vocab? Congruent or Similar video. Reflection, Rotation, Translation aide.
- V.20 Angles
- Perimeter Review: Kahn Academy Lesson Link
- Comparing Areas and Perimeters of Rectangles: Kahn Academy Lesson Link
- Multiplication facts up to 12: IXL (D.2)
- Division Facts up to 12: IXL (E.1)
- Play the Math Facts card game sent home 12/18/15
- Link to a copy of the Math Facts card game and Instructions
3. Writing: Reading Response Letter- Notebooks due Thursday morning
- To help them to improve as writers, students were given a scoring rubric for this homework assignment (you can find it in their homework composition book). Please take a moment to look over this rubric with your child. Talk about the expectations and give support as needed to help them reach these writing goals.
- Writing Homework Home Support: Ask your child to read the letter they have written out loud. Take a look at the letter and provide them with feedback about what they have done well and how they might make it better. Give reminders about proofreading and working on neat handwriting.
- Directions for completing the Reading Response Letter can be found inside the front cover of the writing notebook. Sentence starting ideas can be found on the last page of the notebook.
Our Week in Review:
4th grade Math:
Students continued their work with area models, ratio tables and multiplication word problem solving strategies. We reviewed important math vocabulary and prepared for our assessment with a fun math review jeopardy game.
Students can play this game over the break as well!
Link to Math Review Jeopardy Game
Everyday, we worked to support our fluency with multiplication and division facts by saying multiples (skip-counting) for numbers 2-12.
Your child can demonstrate this activity for you and should practice this at home. We set a goal for our math group: we want our whole class to be fluent with saying multiples for 2 through 12 by the new year. Students can use their time over the break to practice!
Reading:
Students engaged with books during novel study by analyzing and appreciating various aspects of the text. During reading workshop, students follow up sessions of focused reading with a four part reflection. In their novel study journals, students list new words and/or examples of figurative language. They summarize the chapters they read, pose questions and make predictions about what might happen next in the story.
NW Coastal People Unit Wrap-up
Using a strategy called Story-path, students created a story based on an imaginary community living on the Pacific Northwest Coast in the 1800s. This unit spanned the time period from pre-European contact through Native American relocation to reservations. Students began their study of the people of the Northwest Coast by creating a setting and characters. They learned more about early Northwest Coast culture through roleplaying critical historical events and writing/reflecting about their experiences. The culminating episode, a First Salmon Ceremony, focused on honoring traditions, community values and generosity.
During our unit wrap-up, students synthesized learning from this Story-path unit with iMovie presentations. These digital stories will be shared at our next all-school meeting.
Out & About
This week, students learned from an expert visitor (Thank you Markus Roberts) and we got to hear from Level 4 student experts about earthquakes! During our In&About lab, students made model seismographs and used them to investigate different wave patterns. Later in the week, we reviewed the notes and data collected from the last three science labs. Students worked in groups to create a learning poster and script which they used in an informative iMovie about rocks, fossils, earthquakes and/or tectonic plate movement.
Oregon Battle of the Books
This year, Laura,Gretchen and Karen are working with teams of 3rd-5th graders who are participating in Oregon Battle of the Books. Teams meet Wednesdays after school to study and discuss the required reading. There will be a school competition in February and the winning team will represent FGCS at the regional competition in March. You can get more information from Laura ([email protected]). She has created a new page on the Plover Portal for students that are participating in OBOB. There is a link to team rosters and reading assignments. They are also looking for parents who want to read and discuss some of the books with students at the weekly meetings, so please contact Laura if you're interested!
Class Read Aloud
We are enjoying the award winning novel, Flora & Ulysses.