Hello Families,

We have completed another full week of fourth grade, and we are off to a great start!  This week, we began formulating ideas for a spooky Halloween narrative that we will start to write on Monday.  We are focusing on creating entertaining beginnings, and adding a lot of detail and structure to our writing.  As we approach October, I can see everyone's creativity flowing and there's a lot of excitement around this topic.  I look forward to reading their final drafts in weeks to come! 

This week in reading, we read My Brother Martin, a story about Martin Luther King told through the perspective of his sisters. As we read this narrative, we focused on the structure of the story, learning to recognize the entertaining beginning, the suspense, the main events, and the conclusion.  We will use our narrative diamond throughout this term while reading as well as writing.  Our reading program this week also focused on types of sentences. Students identified and wrote exclamatory, declarative, command, and interrogative sentences.

In science, we are continuing with botany and learning the parts of the flower.  We are still observing our Wisconsin Fast Plants and already we can see buds coming in.  Every morning, students rush over to see how their plants have progressed, it's exciting to watch.  In social studies, we have been learning about the land forms in the eastern, western, and middle part of the United States.  Our continent quiz has been moved to next Tuesday, the 27^th, so students have a few more days to study.  Today, they came home with another completed study guide.

To finish off, we will end with math! This past week, students were given an open response to complete in class.  This challenge was called "The Muffin Code".  Students applied critical and creative thinking skills to solve the code.  It was a good challenge and a skill we are going to continue to work on.  Today, we reviewed the rules of rounding by starting our morning with a fun game of spin and round.  Students loved the chance to review this concept with a hands on approach.

I wish you all a relaxing weekend, below are some questions for school conversation.

-Ms. Wentworth :)

·  Which part of the narrative diamond has "red flag words?"

·  What will your Halloween story be about?

·  What was the muffin code? Did you find it hard?

·  What types of landforms can be found in the Eastern, Middle, and Western part of the US?

Showing off our Green Thumbs!

Spin and Round Review!

Ordering the parts of a narrative.