Our morning meetings last week helped us consider the importance of conflict management skills. We reviewed building blocks like assertiveness, calming strategies, and empathy. We shared a helpful strategy for talking through a conflict using an acronym called OUT. The O stands for “owning your choices”. The U stands for “understanding the other person’s perspective”. The T stands for “telling what you’ll do differently next time”. This strategy has proven effective for conflicts of all sizes at school and may prove to be a useful tool at your house, too.
Writers will draft a narrative this week about a time they learned something. We will be meeting in our small group time with other writers to ensure our work is clear to another reader. Having that audience also keeps us accountable for our grammar and conventions! In reading we continue to follow our character Alex through the morning of September 11, 2001. We have also met another important character, The Man in the White Shirt...and we are forming theories about how they are connected. Wordsmiths will be exploring plurals, homonyms, and another greek root word. 4th grade mathematicians are becoming experts in area and perimeter. We know that area refers to the space inside of a 2-D space and that we can use square units to help measure the space. To calculate efficiently, we can use formulas like l x w = a. For perimeter, we’ve found several formulas that can help us to calculate efficiently and we also know that visual strategies like drawing a diagram continue to be a helpful strategy. This week we’re looking closely at units of length that help us to measure perimeter and area. We’re exploring customary and metric units with the goal of understanding relative size and being able to convert between units using multiplication and division. As scientists, we’re making lots of connections with the metric system. We’ve had thoughtful discussions about why scientists use the metric or SI system worldwide and the importance of converting accurately. We’re also completing our study of plants this week by exploring soil. We’ll make more real-world connections with measurement units that help us understand the plants, animals, and places around us with some amazing nonfiction read alouds this week. It’s a wonderful week to celebrate our amazing planet Earth!
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