Students started the year discovering about place value. We studied place value charts and used our knowledge to write numbers three different ways, round numbers, and compare numbers. Students also discovered new ways to add and subtract numbers through games and other activities.
In ELA, we’ve been discovering who we are as readers and writers. We are learning and applying strategies to help us better comprehend what we are reading. We are discovering how our personal experiences and interests shape the books we read and the topics we write about. We are analyzing elements of literature, and transferring them to our writing. We are taking a journey through the writing process to brainstorm, plan, and draft realistic fiction stories and personal narratives. We will continue the writing process as we edit, revise and publish our work. In reading, we will be taking a closer look at characters in our books and how the author reveals their traits, both internal and external, to their reader. This will culminate in a project where students pick a character from a book they're reading and analyze them.
In science, we began by discovering who we are as scientists. First, we’ve studied the scientific method and applied it in a series of different experiments, where we made observation, crafted hypothesis, tested them, then wrote conclusions after examining our data. We then moved on to our study of the water cycle, where we discovered how water is constantly cycled through the process of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and accumulation. We even imagined ourselves as water droplets and pretended we were traveling through the water cycle ourselves through a fun writing project! We then learned about the different types of clouds, including what they look like, the type of weather they signal, and where they can be found in the atmosphere. We will be taking our new-found knowledge of the water cycle and clouds to study weather and forecasting.
Fourth graders discovered how the first people came to be in America. Students learned about the Land Bridge Theory how Alaska and Siberia used to be connected by a land bridge. Then students discovered the differences about the five Native American regions. Students created Native American mind maps with symbols to represent what the different regions ate and lived in. Students also made totem poles from the Pacific Northwest culture.
Fourth graders played various team building games in morning meeting to build community. We also met with our second and seventh grade buddies during this time!