We have jumped into April with both feet!
Tomorrow the kids will not have regular scheduling. The STAAR testing will take the morning, and then we will want everyone to Zoom together at 2:20 for WOW and our class cheer. This week readers are analyzing poetry and reviewing poetry annotations. We know they are already clamoring to dive into a new novel, but we need to pause and savor what we just read. Students have now dipped their toes into the real power of reading -- it changes you. You put the book down physically, but emotionally and mentally that book is a PART OF YOU now. It’s been touching to see them respond to this book. They are developing reading muscles AND empathy. That’s not comfortable...some of the things we read were not easy to hear or think about. Salva experienced some big scary things. But that’s the amazing thing. Your children saw outside their lives and into the lives of others...and were moved. Kids can handle big topics, especially if they know that someone else is in need because of a problem. They wouldn’t have wanted me to water it down and make it more palatable. Let’s celebrate how they are seeing the world in a different way. Let ‘s encourage them to wrestle with things and question. Again, they are craving the next book...that means something. Writers will be exploring how we can write poems too. Your children are learning that writing is a craft with many different forms. It’s exciting to explore them, not as a task, but as a way we can choose to express ourselves, our thoughts, and our feelings. We will also learn some new strategies for vocabulary in word work. Good readers stop when they encounter words they don’t know and work to get at the meaning. Unlocking those words is key to deeper comprehension. Our mathematicians have been hard at work exploring geometry concepts. We saw how angles are measures of turn and learned that circles have 360 degrees. We’ve learned about benchmark angles like 90 degrees and 180 degrees, which are important numbers to help us solve unknown values in angle puzzles. We also know how to use a protractor to measure angles more precisely. This next week we’ll apply some of our understanding of lines and angles to polygons like trapezoids and rectangles. In science, we’re enjoying the spring and noticing all of the bluebonnets around central Texas as we move into life science. We’ll review the differences between living and nonliving organisms, then move into a short study of plants as a system with interdependent structures that function as a whole. It’s time for a little field science, so don’t be surprised if your 4th grader requests a magnifying glass or heads outside to compare leaf structures. We’ll be botanists at work!
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