Hello Families,

Top of the Morning to ya! South School was a sea of green today as we began St. Patrick’s Day at our Irish Step Performance.  Thank you so much to the PTO for arranging this fantastic assembly.  It was nice to bring some Irish history into the day.  It’s hard to believe there was a snow day Tuesday because we have completed so much in 4W.  In math, students were assessed on unit 6, and completed a cumulative which helps us to maintain skills that had been taught since September.  On Monday, we will begin unit 7 which focuses on multiplication of a fraction by a whole number, and measurement.  Students will use their knowledge of fractions to solve problems in real-world scenarios!  

Yesterday, our class discussed our upcoming MCAS practice test on Monday, March 20^th.  This assessment will be done on the chromebooks, and students will get a glimpse into the actual ELA MCAS testing.   This will consist of responding to reading in written form, composing a narrative, and answering text based comprehension questions.  We have been working on these skills all year, I know they will do wonderful.  On Monday, our lunch will be moved to a later time, so we are strongly encouraging students to eat a big breakfast and treat this day like a dress rehearsal.  Thank you for helping us prepare our fourth graders.  In writing this week, students were given a prompt and composed a narrative using google documents.  This allows students to type online, and email their work to me!  Using this feature, I can comment and type in notes on their work.  What a great tool! I was very impressed with the creativity in their writing and we will continue to work on these. 

Our ELA anthology this week was titled Harvesting Hope, and students read a biography about Ceasar Chavez and his fight for the rights of migrant farm workers in California.  We paired this story with another biography this week about Louis Braille, and students analyzed the two readings, pulling facts from the non-fiction texts!  In other news, the instrument project began in class this week and we are having a blast! You can see an example of a beautiful banjo that is in the works of being made and we cannot wait to see the final products.  In Social Studies, students will be quizzed on their Midwest Region Map on Tuesday, March 21^st, and we will continue to learn about the geography, culture, and economy of this region.  Thank you so much for reading about our 4W happenings, and I wish you a fantastic weekend! Below are some questions for conversation.

Best,

Ms. Wentworth :)

Questions for conversation

1. What struggles did Ceasar Chavez experience?

2. How were Ceasar and Louis Braille similar?

3. What was your narrative about? What hook was included?

4. What are your thoughts about the MCAS practice? How do you feel on the computer?