Our Current Read-Aloud: Wonder

Has your 4th grader told you about our current read-aloud book? Wonder by R.J. Palacio is an amazing book! It is beautiful in so many ways and is the perfect connection with our service learning partnership at Metro.

Here is the link to a great review from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/books/review/wonder-by-r-j-palacio.html?_r=0

Typing Club

I hope that each of you received the e-mail from Chris Weiss and Dee Lanier about our new keyboarding work in the Lower School. Tuesday, we will glue a reminder slip into your student's agenda that will provide information on how to practice their keyboarding skills at home. It will include the website address, your child's user name, and his/her password. We will work to have time in class each week to work in Typing Club and want to remind you that your student is also expected to practice at home 2-3 times each week. Please refer to the aforementioned letter for specific details.

Our goal for the 4th graders is that by the end of the year, they will reach the following benchmarks:
Words per Minute: 15-25
Accuracy: 90%

         

Readers' Workshop: Following Characters into Meaning

Our work in Readers' Workshop is shifting to focus on character study. We are inviting our readers to dive head first into the worlds of the books they are reading - and to do so wearing the shoes of the characters who inhabit those worlds. By doing this work, readers will develop  their skills at predicting, envisioning, and reading with fluency. We will work to notice characters' personality quirks and habits, inferring to develop ideas about characters' traits, motivations, troubles, changes, and lessons.

Great questions to ask you 4th grader about their reading at home are:

• What kind of person is your character? How do you know?
• Do you like him/her? Why?
• Why did the character do that? Where could you see parts that led up to this?
• Why is the character feeling that way? Are there clues?
• Do you think he/she did the right thing? How does it compare to what another character might do?
• What do you think will happen next, based on what you know about the character so far?

Describing the Shape of Data: Unit 2

After taking our Unit 1 math test on Monday, we will launch Describing the Shape of Data on Tuesday.

These are the key math focus points in this unit:
*Representing data
*Describing, summarizing, and comparing data
*Analyzing and interpreting data
*Designing and carrying out an investigation
*Describing the probability of an event

Please read the parent letters for more information on our upcoming unit:

Family Letter about the Mathematics in this Unit

Activities To Try At Home

Halloween

Good news! We will not assign any homework on Halloween. This is our treat to our favorite 4th grade trick-or-treaters! Students should come dressed in their uniform on Wednesday - no costumes! We will have a class celebration at the end of the day working on our Monster Match writing activity and having a healthy snack. Hope that the "Frankenstorm" doesn't put a damper on the fun your family has planned.

The Monster Match

Ask your student about the Monster Match! We asked the students to imagine a monster. After creating a drawing of that monster, they were asked to write a descriptive paragraph describing every physical detail about how their monster looks. On Halloween afternoon we will exchange Monster Match writing. Each student will receive another student's writing and have to sketch that monster based on the details included in the writing. It is such fun to see if you were able to thoroughly describe your monster well enough that someone else could envision it. This is great opportunity to work on descriptive writing in a fun way!

Election Work continued....

The countdown is on! Election Day 2012 will be here in the blink of an eye. Last week students worked to understand the important issues in this election and where each of the candidates stood on them.  Students analyzed taxes, economy/jobs, health care, education, and defense. We used the two websites below to research the information and then analyzed the information using a graphic organizer.

https://sites.google.com/site/meetthecandidates2012/

http://wrelections.so-studios.com/issue-guides/education

This week students will learn more about the life and service of each candidate. We will watch a short video on Obama and Romney and then read a condensed biography of their lives. Students will then be asked to write an editorial endorsing their candidate. They will be asked to back up their choice using specific reasons from the research they have done. This will be a great opportunity to think about the qualities of persuasive writing.