Pam DeVos

Today was a busy day in 4th grade!  Book 1 reports were due, we

went to see the movie Chimpanzee with the entire school, and we celebrated

Earth Day by helping to plant a tree in the park.  The class also wrote new

verses to Home on the Range  and presented them to the rest of the class.

Note:  Next week look for information on Book 2 reports.  A permission

slip came home today for a field trip to the Heller Nature Center on Monday

May 7.  **Hot lunches for the 4th grade will be served on Tuesday,

May 8th since we will be gone.**

Fourth grade has been busy, as usual!  All presentations have been completed and the class has been taking care of their frogs, crabs and millipedes.  This week the students started roller skating in P.E. and have shown their ability to whiz around the gym on wheels.    Enjoy the pics for this week!

ISATs are done!  Thank you for helping to make sure your child did the best he or she could do on these week-long assessments.  Everybody was here on time, and everyone had healthy snacks each day.

This week our class received the animals we will be studying in science.  The Dwarf African frogs, the fiddler crabs and the millipedes arrived safely.  The students fed their animals and began making scientific observations that they documented in their science logs.

ISAT–Remember that ISAT testing starts on Monday (3-12).  I spoke with the class today to remind them that they should eat a healthy breakfast before they come to school and they need to arrive on time, since we will begin right away.

Daylight Savings–It’s that time of year again!  This Saturday night we all need to change our clocks to Daylight Savings time.  Don’t forget to “spring ahead” one hour.

4th grade is deep into research and finishing up their presentations for their state projects.  Families will be invited to the presentations the week of March 19.  I’ll send more information about your child’s exact day and time next week.  Right now it looks like the presentations will occur at 2:00-2:30.  We might also add times at 12:45-1 to  make sure that everyone has plenty of time to present.

Fourth grade had a great Valentines Day!  This morning we did a candy heart math activity where students had to figure out how much their hearths were worth in dollar amounts.  Their multiplications skills were tested in the process!

Also, Mrs. Jacobson did a fun activity with the class by having them decorate cake pops–it was delicious!

To top the day off, we had a Valentines party courtesy of the 4th grade room parents!  I’m afraid there may be more than one stomach ache tonight because of all the sugar we’ve had through out the day!

The 4th grade has been studying various geometry concepts for the last few weeks.  Several topics have included translations, rotations and reflections.  We also learned about rotational symmetry.  These pictures show the students using pattern blocks to sketch figures and figure out the rotational symmetry of order for each one.

4th grade used range of motion to measure angles this week.  Students moved various parts of their bodies and transferred their range of motion to a circle.  They then measured the angles using pattern blocks and described what fraction of a circle the angles were.

In social studies the class learned about the challenges and hardships the first settlers in Jamestown, Virginia faced.  The students then played the “Survival Game” and discovered  how difficult it was for these settlers to survive their first year in the New World.  The pictures this week show both our “Range of Motion” and “Survival Game” activities.

This week fourth grade showed their techy side.  On Monday we Skyped with Ben Reznik who now lives in China.  We learned about his visit to the Great Wall and what it’s like to live in China.  The timing was great, as it is Chinese New Year!

The class also presented their SMARTBoard lessons this week.  Four groups taught the rest of the class about how wind, water, ice and earthquakes/volcanoes change the shape of our planet.  I was impressed with the information each group included and the interactive quizzes they all had at the end of their lessons.  The pictures this week are of the SMARTBoard lessons.

Our class began working on their SMARTboard lessons this week.  Reading groups will be teaching the rest of the class about forces that shape the Earth using the SMARTboard.  Each student is responsible for creating a visually appealing page that accurately presents information from his or her book.  I can’t wait for the groups to teach the rest of us their lessons!

We are finishing up with our science unit on Land and Water.  This week fourth graders conducted an experiment that showed how the steeper a slope is will increase the amount of erosion that occurs.  They also built dams in their stream tables to learn how dams can affect the land around them.  We will complete our unit next week and take an assessment on Wednesday.

Enjoy the pictures this week from science and reading.

In math fourth grade practiced division facts and worked on building models to demonstrate what division looks like.  We played a math game today to reinforce division facts called “Remainders Win.”  We continued to experiment with how water causes erosion and learned that not only does velocity affect the amount of sediment washed away, but volume, or the amount of water, does as well.

Fourth grade had a great week!  The class earned a special reward for filling the marble jar by using good behavior in class and in the halls.  They chose to have a game day.  Students brought in some of their favorite games and taught their classmates how to play.  These pictures are from our game day.

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