4th Grade Weekly Update Week of March 9th

Book Reports were AWESOME on Friday! I love seeing the improvements and confidence that each student has gained over the last 3 quarters. Check out photos I posted on the Shutterfly site yesterday!
ELA: We’ll finish up our grammar homophones unit this week with some cumulative review and a test on Wednesday. We will also continue work on our rough drafts. We started the history section on Thursday of last week, and will conference about this section on Monday. Hopefully, we are able to keep trucking along and finish up the rough draft portion before our trip. I will be staying on Tuesday until 4:00 for those who want to work ahead or need to finish up some missed work due to absences.
Math: We are also wrapping up our measurement unit this week. Cumulative practice is always where students seem to struggle, so we’ll practice all throughout the week before we test on Thursday.
History: Students will continue to chip away at their African Kingdoms independent study. This independent unit allows me to conference with students about their writing while keeping busy if they are ready to conference, but are waiting for their turn. Everyone has made great progress this week, and I’m hoping for a Friday due date so the grade can go within this quarter.
Science: Last week, we concluded Investigation Two. This week, students will complete the investigation summary, and we will move on to Investigation Three. In Investigation Three, students explore the impact of environmental changes on primary food supply in an ecosystem. Through analysis of experimental data, they discover that changes in food supply directly affects animal consumers and that consumers are in competition with each other to survive in a changing ecosystem. They also are introduced to the concept of extinction and the fossil record. After wrapping up Investigation Three, we will have our unit test. The test date depends on how quickly we are able to complete our labs. I will be able to give an exact test date later in the week as I see how students are progressing.