Here is an update on what your child is studying at school.

Math- We have been working on: solving a variety of problems involving addition and subtraction, reading, writing, and identifying the place value of numbers to the millions and estimating sums and differences. We are taking a test on Monday.  Most students are ready and doing very well.
After Thanksgiving vacation we will have a short unit on angles and polygons.

Science- Students have been very excited to study rocks and minerals. Each day we used food ingredients to demonstrate a type of rock. Igneous rocks are formed by intense heat so we made rock candy by boiling corn syrup and sugar. Sedimentary rocks are formed into layers by pressure. We pressed together different colors of Airheads. This was very fun and even tasted good. (Our igneous rock had a slight burnt taste.) Metamorphic rocks are formed by a combination of heat and pressure. We layered, pressed, and heated graham cracker crumbs, marshmallows, sugar, and chocolate chips to demonstrate this rock. The rock cycle was shows how each rock type can change into another type. We also studied fossils.

The Rock Cycle

student writing

Writing- We have been writing about our ideas in the form of essays. We talk about “pushing our thinking” to generate ideas as we write. One of the essays students have been writing describes what they are thankful for.

Reading: Our reading mini-lessons have been about elements of a story-the plot, characters, and setting. The story The Princess and the Pizza has a plot with a “twist”-a variation from a typical “princess” story.
Most of the time students are given the opportunity to read books of their own choice during reading time. After Thanksgiving, students will be reading Stone Fox in small book club discussion groups. A book club of a few girls is reading the book Esperanza by Pam Munoz Ryan.

Jan takes all the thinking that teams of teachers do and shapes it into wonderful curriculum tools that look smart and attractive.  She just completed full revisions of our grade level brochures.  These will be available at the open houses and you can also view them online. To view the brochure, click on the “4th Grade” link below.

4th Grade

]]> http://cboersma.edublogs.org/2009/08/28/grade-level-brochures/feed/ 0 http://cboersma.edublogs.org/2009/03/01/the-words-are-just-pouring-out-of-me/ http://cboersma.edublogs.org/2009/03/01/the-words-are-just-pouring-out-of-me/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:32:57 +0000 cboersma http://cboersma.edublogs.org/?p=148 These are words I heard from one boy last week as we were writing fictional stories.  The students have been working so hard to develop characters that could almost walk off the page, they are so real.  I have read about Kellie who rides a horse named Charm, Jessica who wants a new baby sister but is getting a brother, and Julia who really wants her own pet, any pet.

Already this year we have written personal narratives and poetry, but students were really excited for the opportunity to write fiction.  Hopefully within the week, I will have on the blog podcasts of students reading one of their poems, with music of their choice in the background.  Check back in a few days!

Some of the other things we have done are:

• Make a poster demonstrating various electricity safety rules
• Test to see if various materials are conductors or insulators of electricity
• Arrange the electrical supplies so that one bulb will stay lit, while the other is unscrewed (a parallel circuit)
• Attach a knife switch to open and close a circuit
• Make an electromagnet
• Use static electricity to move a stream of water and a Cheerio hanging from a thread