Fourth grade has recently received handmade rosaries from a very special person! Ms. Hietpas' grandmothers brother made us all a rosary! We are so excited for our new rosaries and cannot wait to get them blessed by Father Suess! We recently made thank you cards for our rosaries and we cannot wait to start using them every Wednesday!
The past few weeks we have been pretty busy exercising our brains! In reading we have been working a many different reading strategies. Two of our strategies we worked on in reading this week is summarizing and focusing on the main idea of a passage. We made a story summarizing foldable, to help us summarize a story we have read. We also did a fun fall project that focused on main idea!
This week we have also been utilizing our technology in our classroom! In math we have been doing lessons on the smartboard and using the iPad to enforce the concepts we have been learning about! In math we are starting math centers. Our centers will be centered around the term B.E.A.M., which stands for: Be Excited About Math! We are all really excited to start our math center process. I hope everyone has been enjoying this nice weather! We sure have been! Today we learned about a young boy named Beckett. This young boy is turning four tomorrow! We have learned that he has cancer that is causing him to have brain tumors. His only birthday wish was to receive cards in the mail! He loves getting mail and seeing his name on the package! As a class we decided to take some time out of our day to make birthday cards for him! The students did a really great job with the cards and we hope to make his birthday a little brighter!
We have been working with the third graders for this science unit. We have been studying plants and how they grow! We are currently measuring the growth of our plants every day and waiting patiently for the flowers to bloom! Last week we learned about the importance of thinning and transplanting a seed. We learned that it is important for plants to have their own room to grow. Below is a picture of us demonstrating plants packed together in one pot and why we need to give plants room to grow! We are patiently waiting to see how our plants grow! This week for art we put our rounding skills to the test and did a color-by-number. The students had to color certain spots certain colors all depending on what they had to round to. They really showed a lot of of patience coloring in all the squares.
Last week for art we started a pointillism project. The students had to make an outdoor scene by only using small dots. They had a lot of fun making these and are proud to have them hanging in the hallway. When I take them down, I am told they want them hanging on our "work to bee proud of" bulletin board! Below are some pictures of the art projects we have completed the last two weeks! We are finally starting to get into a routine! This week we have been working hard and earning brain bucks for our fabulous behavior. In this classroom we earn "brain bucks" for being on task, showing respect, being a helping hand, and having a clean and organized desk. As we earn "brain bucks" and lose some as well, we have to track them in our bank accounts. By doing this, it helps the students to take ownership of their actions. We have all been doing a wonderful job and our classroom community is a positive one! This week in math we have been working a lot with place value and rounding. This is a hard concept to grasp, but we are finally getting the hang of it! Today we read off task cards and used the QR code reader on the iPad to check our answers. The students really enjoy being able to check their answers using the QR code. In science we are currently learning about plants and plant growth. For this plant unit we work with the third graders. This week we have been watching our plants grow, learning how to thin and transplant our seeds, and we have also learned about the parts of a plant. To demonstrate how plants get water from the soil to the leaves, we did a celery experiment with food coloring, water, and sugar water. Ask your child about our results! This week in reading we have started reading groups. Students will be reading in groups based off of their interests and reading levels. Our reading groups have picked out some great books and I cannot wait to start reading them! In this classroom we have also started weekly reading logs. Each week your child will have a reading log, this is where they will track their nightly reading. On this reading log, the students will record the numbers of minutes read each night, as well as a summary of what they read. Parents will need to sign each night as well. Please continue to read our blog and keep up with what is happening in fourth grade! Here are our place value houses we have created in math class! We have been very busy as this first week has been under way! Our first week of school we did a lot of activities that helped us to get to know each other, as well as work as a team. Some team building activities that we did include: the marshmallow challenge, "saving Sam", and symbol. Ask your child about the activities today!
As a class we also constructed a class promise! The students did a really great job with it and are sticking to it! This week we are starting our first spelling unit and we will be using spelling city. Attached is the link for your child to use to practice their spelling words. If you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to call or email. spelling city link: http://www.spellingcity.com/nhietpas/ |
Ms. HietpasFOURTH GRADE TEACHER Archives
June 2015
Categories |