October 28, 2016

Hello Families, 

Playing Government Concentration

As you can imagine, our room is buzzing with excitement as it is Friday and our class harvest party was today. Thank you to our room parents for organizing this fun event! This week in writing, we have been busy working our Halloween Narrative stories!  This has been a month long assignment, as students have worked to use their narrative diamonds to help organize their thoughts while adding elaborative detail and dialogue to their stories.  Most recently, students learned to edit and revise their writing, a very important skill that we will apply to our daily work as well.  Today, students worked on constructing their elaborative detail paragraph by focusing on including sensory details.  This has been an exciting piece of writing that every student has enjoyed and been proud of, especially since it is centered around Halloween!  In Social Studies, we are wrapping up learning about our government and will begin exploring our first region, the Northeast, next week.  Students have been accessing our quizlet account to help them study, which is always a useful resource.   As a reminder, the login name is Wentworth SS, and the password is hinghamschools.  In Science, students have finalized their month long Botany unit by presenting their beautiful bee and flower projects.  They look fantastic, and students have been demonstrating a great understanding of pollination.  

Brainstorming Sensory Details

 In reading, students have been learning “fix up” strategies to help them monitor comprehension in both fiction and non-fiction.  Our TRI groups are now in full swing and students have adjusted to their groups nicely.  We are continuing to apply “tracks” to our reading, which have encouraged students to think beyond the text.  This strategy is one that they can apply to their reading at home, and I’m sure they would be excited to share this with you! This week, I also sent home your child’s first RACE response.  This stands for restate, answer, cite, and evaluate.  This was done independently, so I could assess areas of strength and specific skills to continue working on.  The ability to pull evidence from the text is difficult, and this was the first reading response our class has done independently.  We will continue practicing this throughout the year. In math, we have finished our second unit, and are in the process of being assessed on this content.   So far, we have learned about the difference between factors and multiples, have found the area of rectangles, and identified square numbers.  We have also explored various applications for multiplication, and have classified shapes!  Thank you for working with your children on their multiplication facts, building fact fluency is so important.

In other classroom news, 4W  is greatful to be using Yoga4classrooms this year!  This program is a fun and effective tool to promote a positive, peaceful, learning ready classroom!  All activities have students moving around and completing brain boosting movements  to promote wellness and character building.  So far, it's been a big success!! As a reminder, next Wednesday will be an early release due to conferences.  I look forward to speaking with some of you about our year thus far.  If you cannot make that conference date and time, please feel free to email me, and we can set up another day that works best! Thank you for reading about our classroom, and enjoy our pictures from this week!

Best,

Ms. Wentworth :)

Upcoming Dates/Events

Conference/Half Day: November 2nd

Picture Retake Day: November 4th * We will re-take our whole class picture!

No School: November 11

Book Report due: November 14

Questions For Conversation 

• What are the editing steps you use in writing?
• When writing your elaborative paragraph, what sensory details did you use?
• What does RACE stand for?
• Can you tell me the three branches of government? What are their roles?

Talk about Creativity! 

Our adorable Craft!

Identifying "Red Flag" Words

Dear Families,

Happy Friday everyone!  For a short week, we have been able to squeeze in a lot of learning.  This included a hands-on approach as we visited our outdoor classroom Holly Hill!  Students exhibited fantastic expected behavior on our first field trip, and as a result we got a lot out of this learning experience. 

This week in 4W, we continued our second unit in math.  We are working on square numbers, factor pairs, and multiples.  Understanding 4^th grade vocabulary in math this year is critical, so it is important to take our time with homework and discuss these words with someone at home.  Today, students rotated through a “carousel” in class which reviewed math terms and got us out of our seats to practice these skills.  We also worked on a math open response which encouraged students to use critical thinking skills.  Students then revised their work after reviewing samples from others, which allowed everyone to carefully examine their answers and add onto it!

In science, we are dissecting lilies on Monday to conclude our botany unit. This was such an enjoyable unit of study, and we were fortunate to visit Holly Hill to reinforce these concepts.  This week in reading, we read a Tall Tale titled Stormalong and we learned how to completely answer an open response question using our R.A.C.E forms.  This organizer is used to help us organize our thoughts and fully answer the question by citing evidence from the text.  If you ask your child about this, I am sure they will respond by saying it was a lot of work at first, but as we practice it will become easier! They did a great job as I modeled this technique. In ELA, students also began our novel study, Gilly Hopkins.  This novel is about a spunky young girl and her experience as a ten year old in foster care.  We will be spending this time analyzing, comprehending, and writing about Gilly Hopkins and her adventures.  Having just read two chapters as a class, I already see students diving into the story and connecting to our main character.  We look forward to reading more about the life of this mischievous ten year old. 

To conclude our updates, students received their first book report today!  We spent time reviewing the directions and were able to view examples from previous years.  This book report is a mystery puzzle report, and students will be given the opportunity to choose a mystery book to read in library next week! Students will also receive their oak-tag on Monday.  This is not due until November 14^th. Below, are some questions for classroom conversation.  Thank you for your continuous support. Enjoy your weekend!

Sincerely,

Ms. Wentworth :)

1. What evidence from the text did you use to support the character traits for Stormalong?

2. Is 28 a prime or composite number?

3. What is the difference between a factor and a multiple?

4. Can you describe a R.A.C.E form to me? How did you use this to answer the Stormalong question

Our Carousel Review

It took 12 students to wrap around the base of this tree! It was 110 years old!

We love this "Hands On" Learning!

Reading about Gilly

Upcoming Dates

Bee Project: Due October 20th

Harvest Party: October 28th

Book Report Due: November 14th

October 7

Hello Families,

As the long weekend approaches, you could feel the excitement and energy in the room.  Our class has worked very hard since the beginning of the year, and this is certainly a well-deserved day off.  This week in math we began working our way through unit 2, learning about perimeter and area of squares and rectangles.  We also practiced the skill of identifying factors and multiples.  In this lesson, students experienced how important it was to know their math facts to help them with their daily work.  As a reminder, students can use xtra math online and even flashcards to brush up on these skills.

In ELA this week, we read a fictional story titled the Power of W.O.W and worked on identifying run-on sentences in our reading and writing.  Students also have become more comfortable with the new program’s vocabulary and have been applying these words to their daily work. TRI began this past Monday and it was exciting to see students reading in small groups with their peers! In writing, we are continuing with our narrative stories, learning to add elaborating detail to our setting and character.  Students have been practicing to “show” and “not tell” when adding description to their stories.  It’s thrilling to see a class so enthused about their writing each day, we look forward to eventually sharing their final products with you!

  In science, students have pollinated their flowers, and are next going to harvest the seeds.  This demonstrates the life cycle of a plant as the class observes the changes their Wisconsin Plant goes through.  In class today, Ms. Natale introduced a home project where students design a model of a plant or a bee to illustrate pollination.  This is a creative and fun way for students to demonstrate their understanding of this unit as well as conclude our Botany study.  In addition to this project, the fourth grade class will be taking a field trip to Holly Hill on October 12^th to finalize their plant study!

            At the end of each week, I continue to feel proud of this 4^th grade class.  I observe students making better choices throughout the day as we are always reminded of our South School motto to “bee kinder than necessary”.  Wishing you all a wonderful long weekend ahead.

·  In writing, how did you choose to begin your narrative?  What is the problem in your story?

- What is the area of a shape with a length of 8 and a width of 6?

·  What book are you reading in TRI? Who is your TRI teacher?

·  What is a factor pair? What are some factor pairs for the number 18?

·  What did you learn about electrical safety? 

Students demonstrate factor pairs in a number sentence.

Our Social Studies Ipads are just about complete!

Upcoming Events

1. Holly Hill October 12th
2. Bee Project Due 10/20
3. Harvest Party October 28th