4th Grade Weekly Update Week of August 26-30
ELA: Students received their next spelling list on Friday and you should find it in their binders! These words come from our word studies skills book. Students will test on these terms Friday. We will be revisiting some phonics skills this week that help relate back to spelling basics and will give students quality practice to gain reading independence. You’ll see the hard and soft c and g sounds, as well as, multiple s sounds throughout the spelling words listed. We’re going to start a newspaper writing assignment this week by creating a newspaper “All About Me!” It will be full of fun cartoons, advertisements and favorites. Students also create a narrative writing piece about an important event in their life, a critic’s corner book review, and a “Meet My Hero” article. Students will need pictures for the hero section and pictures of themselves, or they may choose to hand-draw their portraits.
Math: We will continue with some practice of making change on Monday, and I will pull questions from their math workbooks for a quiz some point in the week. We didn’t get a chance to check Thursday’s homework and will check it on Monday, so they can review their homework pages to gain confidence in the skills they’ve learned over the last two weeks. Students will also be introduced to comparing and ordering money, as well as, rounding this week. We’ll end the week with a fun “I Have, Who Has?” game to practice rounding skills.
History:We will finish our first unit this week that practices map skills. We’ll start with some practice with time zones early in the week and then read our final lesson about physical maps. Week two Daily Geography will also start up again this week, with a focus on globe lines, including the equator, prime meridian, and the tilted axis of the Earth.
Science: In Investigation One, students learned how light is refracted by lenses and reflected by mirrors. They learned the parts and functions of the human eye, including its lens. We then used a hand lens to study the external structures of the human eye. In Investigation Two, students’ investigation of lenses and refraction moves to the use of convex, concave, and straight sided lenses, which all refract light differently. We are currently wrapping up this investigation and will introduce the compound microscope in Investigation Three. We will have our first test when we finish Investigation Three. Please begin reviewing with your child by simply asking them to tell you about what they are learning in lab. They should be able to tell you about the different parts of the eye and the pathway of light that helps our eyes see. They should also be able to tell you what refraction is and what happens as a result of refraction when we look through a convex and concave lens.
