Welcome Back! We hope everyone had the opportunity to rest and recharge this past week.
We are ready to hit the ground running, and finish these last nine weeks strong. Our fourth graders are that much closer to becoming fifth graders! With that in mind, we are jumping right back into those high expectations and work habits that will have them prepared and ready. Writers are wrapping up their final weeks of preparation for the STAAR writing test on April 6th. The last few weeks are where we really apply all that we have learned about expository writing: outlining and organizing, beginning with clear introductions and central ideas,developing examples and giving strong supporting details, and ending with a meaningful conclusion. In addition, we speak a new language: we know how to talk sentence structure! Subjects, predicates, dependent and independent clauses, conjunctions -- we know how each play a specific role in creating complex and compound sentences. We know the jobs apostrophes, quotation marks, and commas do. Now’s the time to show what we know. We will be reviewing this week and next. In reading, we are pursuing our independent reading books daily and applying the new strategies we are learning through our book, A Long Walk to Water. It’s exciting to hear the cheers when we open the book together. Students’ weekly reflections show how much readers are growing, not just in their comprehension of this book, but in their reading processes in general. “I am pausing to think and predict, like we do together,” and “I am paying close attention to my character now, like we do with Salva and Nya. It helps me make sense of what the real struggles are.” are some of the wonderful things readers are sharing. We are a little over halfway through the book -- stay tuned and ask your child what’s happening! We are finishing our study of data science this week in math. Students have become experts in representing data points using 3 different types of tools. We’re using frequency tables to organize data and show how many times a value or event occurs. We’re using dot plots and stem-and-leaf plots to create visual tools that represent data. Finally, we’re using stem-and-leaf plots to show each data point using place value relationships. We’ve found connections to fractions, decimals, addition/subtraction, and place value as we explore graphing. It’s so helpful for us as learners to find meaningful connections between concepts because our understanding deepens and we remember content better. In science, we’re considering the importance of the water cycle. We’ll review the many ways that water is constantly moving around our planet and why it’s essential to take care of our water supply. This concept includes lots of vocabulary, so we’ll play some games and create a colorful diagram to show the relationships between parts of the water cycle.
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Welcome to another full week! We are so glad to hit the ground running!
We continue to focus on content in learning...it’s not just task completion. Research shows that internal motivation comes from knowing the purpose of something and seeing why it matters. We are also emphasizing how doing EACH DAY'S work builds a strong understanding. Waiting until this week when grades are due isn't the time to start doing the work. How can you help? Be an audience! Ask them to show you their work from each day - not as a “gotcha,” but as a curious learner yourself. Ask them to teach you the word work or math strategy from the day. Find out what the character in our novel did. This coming week, we will be investing further into our characters, Salva and Nya. If your kiddo hasn’t told you about the book - ask them! They have learned so much about refugees, reading strategies, and how to think about how they read their own independent books. We are reviewing those complex and compound sentence structures in word work. Ask them about independent and dependent clauses, conjunctions, and how punctuation works with those types of sentences. In addition, we will be writing another expository piece this week. Our 4th grade mathematicians are off to a strong start in the world of data science! We’re exploring many ways that symbols, colors, and number lines can represent data points. This past week we analyzed climate data through a choropleth map from the New York Times. We considered how much data must have been collected over time, the importance of accurate measurement, weather instruments that meteorologists used to collect data, and the purpose of analyzing data as a way to inform choices. We’ve also enjoyed collecting data about our TEAM 4th community and are learning about frequency tables and dot plots as helpful ways to represent these smaller amounts of data. We celebrated as a community of scientists on Friday at our virtual BCE Science Conference. If you haven’t yet had a chance to see the contributions of our scientists, check out our BLEND homepage for a link to student presentations. You’ll learn about quokkas, the pull of gravity on planets in our solar system, chemical reactions, and much more! Virtual hugs to all! We know these past chilly weeks have tested our resilience and hope that all of our TEAM 4th families are healthy and safe. We’ve missed seeing your kiddos and look forward to morning meetings and online learning experiences together later this week! A few reminders: If your child is in person, please:
If your child is virtual, please:
All students, please:
This week, writers will review those sentence structures that we got stuck on in our Friday Escape Room. We will also be going over each part of the Writing MOY. Readers will continue walking with Nya and Salva in A Long Walk to Water. We are pausing A LOT to discuss, think, and make sure our understanding is on point - things each student should be doing in their own independent reading. Mathematicians are finishing strong with fractions this week! Proficiency with fractions is foundational to more advanced mathematics, so our month-long study has been time well spent. Key understandings through this month include representing fractions of a set/region/point on a number line, fraction equivalency, fraction comparisons, adding/subtracting fractions with like denominators, and decimal/fraction relationships. Take a moment to celebrate your student’s growing fraction knowledge by looking through work samples in BLEND. There’s such exciting evidence of progress to see! Each day last week we took some time to explore an organizational strategy. We discussed how, if we have an area to work and are set up with all our resources ready to go, things will go more smoothly. We set goals to get things done EACH day rather than cramming it all in at the end of the week, and we celebrated how many achieved that goal last week. Keep it up, TEAM!
TEAM 4th mathematicians explored equivalent fractions last week. We can create an equivalent fraction by multiplying or dividing our numerator and denominator by a common factor. It’s been exciting to consider WHY this “trick” works each time, both visually and by using the identity property. The week ended with some equivalent fraction races and our fraction fluency is definitely improving! This week we’ll keep building our muscles by comparing fractions. It’s so important to keep using the fraction tools in our notebook and drawing fractions, so that’s one of our strategies for comparing. We also use logical reasoning, which requires us to have a deep conceptual understanding of fractions. Finally, we know that cross multiplication will help us to find the greater/lesser fraction every time and is an efficient strategy. Many of our mathematicians are considering WHY this “trick” works and we’re so excited to learn with students who don’t just want to memorize a trick but seek to understand the math behind the magic of cross multiplication. Writers have brainstormed, outlined, and reflected on their deeper understanding of expository writing. Our small groups are our community of writers. We celebrate, suggest, and support one another! The more we are sharing our goals and pieces, the more we realize how our strengths and areas to grow as writers aren’t the same...we can help each other! This week they will draft and revise. BIG WORK! In addition, writers will be annotating sentences for grammar. They will have to determine which is the accurate sentence -- and tell why -- in addition to telling why the other sentences are inaccurate. Looking carefully will be the challenge. We’re starting our novel, A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. We could tell you about it, but we KNOW the kids will be telling you. Readers are going to deepen their understanding of not only summary, annotations, inference and author’s purpose. They are going to learn about the world. Stay tuned. Historians will learn about the Indigenous people of Texas this week. They will bring forward their knowledge of regions and natural resources to examine how that affected how people lived and operated. They will compare various tribes in Texas, as well as apply their learning to how they see that affecting their lives today. We want to remind you that you are always able to see all content in BLEND. Teacher lesson videos, assignments, student’s submissions, feedback, and resources are available to you. We’re off to a great start with our BCE Science Conference Projects! Students have chosen a topic of interest which project type they’d like to create. We’re going to learn so much about a wide variety of science topics from each other. If your student hasn’t yet discussed their project choice with you, please check in with their project plan and support with time management and resources as needed. Remember that these projects will be due the first week of March and that the BCE Science Conference website is a helpful tool for rubrics and safe research sources. Teachers will continue checking in with students about action steps, use of rubrics as tools for elevating work product quality, and appropriate research sources.
4th grade mathematicians are hard at work with fractions. We know that fractions represent parts of a whole or a whole group and that fractions with the same value can be written in an infinite number of ways. This concept of equivalency is central to fraction understanding, so we’re drawing lots of pictures and each student has a colorful fraction tool in their notebook. We represent fractions with both pictures and numbers every day as our brains process mathematical concepts so much better when they’re visual. We’ll work with comparing and ordering fractions more this next week, and it’s exciting to see how many connections with other math topics we’re finding as our fraction understanding deepens. Our readers are preparing for their first in depth novel study this week. We will be exploring our global community through literature before diving into Linda Sue Park’s A Long Walk to Water. This week we will be practicing our fiction summary through CSERT, responding to text with a double entry journal, and exploring inferential thinking through SAY, MEAN, MATTER. Our grammar study will review punctuating dialogue. It’s tricky remembering what the comma is separating, how those quotation marks are holding words in the air, and that the dialogue tag actually contains the subject and predicate! As research shows, visual strategies help us connect to concepts better. Fourth Grade learners are so grateful for those colored pencil annotations Mrs. Forrest taught them to use as they are looking at sentence structure. Finally, Mrs. Forrest will have shared writing and conferencing for a new expository piece. Happy February! Happy Monday, families!
This week we are spending time practicing activities in morning meetings that build our focus. We know that thorough and thoughtful work is the product of effort, and we need to exercise and practice to build those muscles. Research shows we can learn to focus longer, and more intensely, with practice and use. We'll be teaching the kids some things to do on a regular basis. In addition, we are flexing. This week, Mrs. Forrest will start teaching the ELA/reading for all Team 4th, and Mrs. Mangels all the math. This will enable teachers to hone in on a specific area. We see this as yet another way we can use our strengths to provide the best educational experience for your child during this not-what-we-are-used-to times. We have reviewed the schedule with the kiddos. Have them print it out to refer to throughout the week. There are some changes, but we know our students problem solve in a snap. Students are becoming more independent and using the BLEND inbox to email teachers. We respond to each one, and expect that students check their inbox each morning a few minutes before morning meeting for any specific messages from us. We have begun exploration of fractions! Knowing that fractions are an equal part of a whole is just the beginning - they have enjoyed thinking of real world examples of how knowing fractions can come in handy (think about how they may split a cookie with a sibling :)). Students will be asked to visualize fractions -- this will help them develop a deep understanding of what they are. Continue that fluency practice in Blend this week as well! Reading block will focus on poetry. There are specific annotation steps that we will teach them to analyze a poem. We will also be completing the personal narrative we started in writing. In word work, our grammar study is writing dialogue. This is a highlight for writers -- they are able to actually have their characters talk in their pieces! Students will explore the 4 major regions of Texas in social studies. We will look at physical land features, habitats, and natural resources for each one. Don't be surprised if your kiddo would like to visit the Mountains and Basins after they learn about them. In our FIT time this week, teachers will be supporting students by checking in on the topic and type of project chosen for the Science Conference. Remember that Friday is an asychronous day for AISD learners. Students will log on and we will have a full day of learning experiences to round out their week! Before we start with news, we wanted to say a huge THANK YOU for the generous gifts. We were able to eat, drink, and pamper ourselves over the break. We appreciate the thoughtfulness and the creativity of the room parents who so creatively put them together!
Welcome back as we start Q3 strong on TEAM 4th! As 4th graders, your students will be participating in the first annual Bear Creek Science Conference. This is an exciting opportunity for students to develop expertise as scientists through a project and topic of their choice. We’ll be discussing the wide variety of project choices over the next 2 weeks and supporting students through the next 9 weeks of work time. Please visit the Bear Creek Science Conference website for more information and expectations for each project choice. Know that you’ll hear much more information once we’ve talked with students about the different project choices. Also note that Bear Creek is NOT having a traditional science fair. If your child would like to participate in the Austin Regional Science Fair, you need to email 4th grade teachers ASAP so we can get your student registered by the upcoming deadline. Please review the details of science project expectations if your child chooses to compete and be prepared for your child to start experimenting ASAP as the timeline for a science project in the regional fair is much faster than other project options. We’ll spend the upcoming week in ELA learning a new tool for synthesizing our ideas about text or images. It’s called Say, Mean, Matter and it supports students in moving beyond a literal interpretation to deeper levels of meaning and global connections. We continue to build our sentence analysis muscles and patterns of compound/complex sentences. We’ll also read several texts together that invite us to think about MLK’s contributions and how we as members of the Bear Creek Community, can continue his work today. As mathematicians, we’re celebrating how 5 minutes/day of fluency practice are supporting the fluency goals we set each week. Your student can tell you whether they’re focusing on multiplication or division this week and which fluency game they’re choosing to help accomplish their goal. We’re also revising decimal understandings using visual tools like number lines and models. While we learned about tenths and hundredths at the beginning of the year, it’s helpful to review decimals as we get ready to start our upcoming fraction unit. Our Rube Goldberg machines were such a fun way to celebrate the growth mindset in our 4th grade TEAM! Students used the engineering design process to solve a simple problem by creating a chain reaction with household items. After drawing their blueprint, they enjoyed two days of building and lots of opportunities to “fail forward”. It was exciting as teachers to see students move from “I can’t build anything like that!” to “I built another Rube Goldberg machine because it was so much fun!”. Thanks for your support with materials and videography -- your continued support this year means the world! This week we will be looking at ways to stay in the present moment. With so much going on around us, we can get distracted and act without thinking. Taking moments to breathe, pause, and focus will help us process and act mindfully.
We will be completing our first expository this week! We've learned outlines with introductions, examples, supporting details, and conclusions. As a class, we developed rubrics to help us evaluate the quality of our work. Our critical friends have been giving KSH (kind, specific, helpful) feedback along the way. We look forward to sharing these this week with parents and administration. You are an important audience and your kids are very motivated knowing you will be hearing their voices. We continue working on compound and complex sentences. Finding conjunctions, commas, subjects, and predicates...that's our jam! In reading, we will be exploring stories of the season. In math, we will challenge ourselves with a new tool with multi step word problems -- strip diagrams. This will provide us with a visual representation to represent problems and understand the operations needed to solve the problem. Students will learn to understand the context of the problem to be able to create a strip diagram that accurately represents the thinking and solving they need to think through. In science, we will look at a new challenge based on the 14 UN Sustainable Goals: clean energy. We will investigate this by critically thinking about infographics, articles, and the design process. On Friday, we will celebrate with a winter party. Look for emails from room parents for details! Hang in there everybody -- we are almost to a well deserved break! Let's finish strong! Happy December 7th, families!
A huge thank you to all of you for meeting with us for conferences last week. We were so grateful to have a sliver of time to discuss the progress, growth, and goals for your kiddos! This week we continue to focus on mindfulness and being "in the moment." With so much going on around us and anticipation for the holiday season, we know that it's challenging to stay focused and finish this 2020 calendar year strong. We began our Project Based Learning Inquiry last week. We are learning about how others historically and currently, have adapted to the environment. We also have been looking at examples of change makers - those who spoke up to share their stories. Each of us are creating an expository piece that shares our experience of a COVID world and how we have made adaptations. Lots of fabulous discussions and writing taking place. It is an interdisciplinary project that involves reading, writing, social studies and science. More to come on our presentation of our work! In math, we have jumped into long division with both feet. We've related how our visual strategies relate to the standard algorithm, and how we can represent our understanding in many ways. This week we continue our long division journey. We strive to take our learning from a surface:"I can do it" level to a transfer level: "I can teach others because I really understand it deeply." Our reading continues to explore Biographies and expository text to support us as we are creating our own expositories. We are digging in deeper into compound sentences: two simple sentences separated by a comma and joined by a conjunction. Yes, it's a challenge to keep all these pieces straight. Is this a complex sentence? Compound? When do I want to use a comma? This takes time! In writing we are taking our outlines and creating drafts in paragraph form. BIG WORK! Know that you are an "observer" in our Blend course (meaning you can see but not do any activities), so you can always hop in and see assignments, feedback, and grades. It may be helpful to carve out some time this week as graded work is due next week. Check TEAMS for those grades so far. Thankful for you, your children, and this opportunity to grow strong in 2020. Welcome back! We hope your November break was full of rest and time with family. This year has given us so many opportunities to exercise our flexibility as a learning community and we’re going to explore that concept over the next few weeks in an integrated project.
As readers, we’ll explore a series of biographies about subjects who adapted to challenging circumstances. We’ll consider the contributions of each subject, how he or she demonstrated resilience, and how they amplified their voice as a solution seeker. Students will have opportunities to study character traits, evaluate multiple perspectives, and determine important ideas using our 5-word strategy. In writing we’ll review independent and dependent clauses as building blocks of complex sentences. Then we’ll learn more about conjunctions and their role in sentences with two subjects and one predicate. We know that sentence structure helps us to communicate ideas clearly as speakers and writers, so this is such important work! We’ll also consider the importance of focus in our own narrative writing, so you may hear/see some short small moment pieces from your student’s notebook this week as we write about moments from our Thanksgiving break. By mid-week, we’ll be studying examples of quality expository writing and learning to organize our own ideas about adaptations using this text structure. As mathematicians, we’re going deeper with division this week. We’ll review how to visually represent multi digit division by dividing hundreds, tens, and ones into groups. We’ve seen that it’s much more efficient to first divide out groups of hundreds, breaking up the hundreds into leftover tens if needed. This observation helped us see how regrouping works with multi digit division, so this week we’ll explore the traditional long division algorithm and see how it relates to the visual strategies that we’ve used so far. Science and social studies this week are all about adaptations in the world around us. Students will asynchronously explore adaptations in plants and animals. Then they’ll learn about ways that humans have adapted or modified the physical landscape of our planet. It will be a pleasure to connect with you during conferences this week. We are truly grateful for your support and for the opportunity to partner with your family this year! |
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