Q3 W4
Hello!
Already we are four weeks into our third quarter of the year. It always astounds me how quickly the year seemingly flys by. We are gearing up for a full week of learning, becoming closer to fifth graders with each step. This is the time of year where a sense of melancholy creeps up on me, as the end of fourth grade closes in shockingly quickly. Whereas it is a time of great joy, I will miss all of the scholars dearly. But enough of worrying about the far future, let's discuss the excitements of the near future!
News:
Again, January is our month of reading! Each Kingdom is tasked with reading at least for 10,000 minutes. That includes the staff. At the recommendation of 4C, I will be reading the first book of The Keeper of the Lost Cities in order to participate. Go Camelot!
One thing that will help with the Kingdom task is to, again, remind your scholars to be filling out their reading logs. They should be adding a new entry after reading 150 pages of a book. If they are not reading enough for entries to be made, please encourage them to do so. The goal for students is 15 pages per day. This allows them to reach the overarching 30 “books” in a year and be rewarded with a small prize. However some scholars have catching up to do.
Our next field trip is already encroaching! On February 16th, we will be going to the Phoenix Liberty Festival as a precursor to our 4th quarter history unit: the American Revolution. So mark your calendars!
Curriculum
ELA:
In grammar, we will be practicing prepositions, creating a familiarity that will allow students to recognize such words at a glance. This is crucial as we use our WOL book, where they use prepositions to analyze and understand the phrases they make when combined with objects. There is a quiz on prepositions on Friday, 1/27.
Literature is the end of our poetry unit, not to be confused with our poems for recital. Students have their copies of "Harp and Laurel Wreath". We will learn and write concrete poems before moving onto the two final components of the unit. The first is making a poetry book which contains all of the poems that the students have written. The second is a test on poetry, taken on Friday,1/27, and will assess figurative language devices as well as different poem forms.
For our poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the fourth stanza should be mastered by Friday, January 27th.
Latin and Greek roots pick up next week with the following roots: centum-, mille, and decem-. Students will be expected to spell the following words: century, centurion, centimeter, percent, centipede, centigrade, millimeter, millennium, millepede, December, and decimal.
We will not have a philosophy unit this week, as we will use the time to study for the poetry and preposition assessments.
Math
In math, we begin one of my favorite units: decimals! We will begin with introducing the concept, learning to read and write decimal numbers. We will also be expecting students to complete test corrections on their previous math test.
History
In history, we will be continuing the story of the state, moving into the Age of Exploration. We do this with an extensive foldable and a lesson in keyword outlining.
Science
In science, we dive further into Geology, learning about the first of our geologic events: earthquakes. Students should know how earthquakes are caused and how they relate to the layer of the earth. That being said, there is a comprehension check on Friday, 1/27, that expects students to understand the role of convection currents within the earth. We will review this concept throughout the week.
Remember, the blog is updated weekly. Be sure to come back frequently to see any upcoming events or changes in fourth grade.