Fourth Grade Blog

Dear Fourth Grade Families, Welcome back to another year at Hannah Senesh Community Day School! Your teaching team is hard at work getting our spaces and selves ready to welcome students on September 3rd, and we are so excited to meet (and re-meet) them. This year, the fourth grade team includes both new and returning teachers and specialists that your child will meet in the first few weeks of school. Dawn Wheatley, General Studies, returns to Hannah Senesh in a new role after teaching Kindergarten here for the second half of last year. Previous to that she has worked as... Read More

General Studies with Mike: It’s hard to believe the school year is almost over! We’ve finished the math curriculum for the year, completing the final chapter on tessellations last week. Students enjoyed creating their own tessellations using repeated patterns of shapes. We noticed that tessellations appear all over, from brick walls to tiled floors. We happened to notice that the foyer of the Tenement Museum contained tessellated hexagon floor tiles. We spent this week creating math games in groups of two and three students. Each group focused their game on one specific math concept we covered this year – addition,... Read More

General Studies with Mike After several weeks of test preparation, students spent the early portion of the week completing this year’s ERB. Students expressed a variety of emotions before and during the exam – nervousness of the unknown, surprise at how simple some of the questions seemed, frustration at the more challenging questions, and relief when it was all over. Lag B’Omer came as a great celebration to the end of testing. While the rain kept us indoors for the bulk of the day, many students proclaimed this to be the most fun they’ve ever had at school! It was... Read More

General Studies with Mike: This week in math class, we began to discuss the properties of quadrilaterals. Students recognized that rectangles are special types of quadrilaterals with four right angles and opposing sides that are parallel. They also learned that a square is a special type of rectangle with four sides equal in length. As the week came to a close, we began to discuss how to find the perimeter and area of these quadrilaterals. Students are enjoying their Civil War book club books as well as our class read aloud, “Number the Stars,” by Lois Lowry. We have begun... Read More

General Studies with Mike This week in math class, we wrapped up our math unit on angles. Students learned how to draw and measure angles of specific sizes using protractors. They also learned the difference between acute, obtuse, and right angles. When we return from Spring Break, we will begin a new math unit on parallel and perpendicular lines. This is another quick unit that will mostly focus on vocabulary. Students are well into their next round of book clubs, all set during the Civil War. Students are also enjoying our read aloud, “Number the Stars,” by Lois Lowry. We... Read More

General Studies with Mike: This week in math class, we wrapped up our math unit on adding and subtracting decimals. Students can now add and subtract up to the hundredths place value. We began a new chapter on angles, and students have been introduced to several new vocabulary words. Feel free to incorporate words like “acute,” “obtuse,” and “right angle” into discussions at home. We also kicked off a new round of book clubs, with students reading historical fiction books set during the Civil War. The titles for this round of books are “Iron Thunder” by AVI, “Freedom Crossing” by... Read More

General Studies with Mike: It was great having the chance to chat with so many of you at conferences last week! I look forward to meeting with more families this coming Monday! This week in math class, we wrapped up our math unit on decimal place values. Students can now identify numbers up to the hundredths place. They can also translate fractions to decimals (and vice versa) by creating equivalent fractions with 10 or 100 as the denominator. Students breezed through this unit and are well prepared to begin computing with decimals in the coming weeks as we enter a... Read More

General Studies with Mike: Welcome back to class! In math class, we began our new unit on decimals. As there is a large emphasis on decimals within the second half of the curriculum, we will remain on this concept for the next few months. Early in the week, students were introduced to a new place value – the tenths place! And then later in the week, they learned the hundredths place! Students were excited to see how fractions and money connect to decimals. We continued our read aloud, Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin, discussing possible themes (life lessons) from... Read More

General Studies with Mike: We completed our unit on fractions early last week and moved into a mini unit on data and probability. The students are practicing finding the mean, median, mode, and range of various different data sets. When we return from break, we will jump right into decimals. Over break, you might want to preview the concept with discussions of money. (Ask, “What does it mean if I have $1.01 vs. $1.10?) Students are now well into their book club books, responding to the texts in their book club journals, and taking on various roles in discussions. The... Read More

General Studies with Mike: We are nearing the end of our unit on fractions. Students can now add, subtract, and multiply fractions. We spent the bulk of this past week solving real-world problems (word problems) involving fractions. We will end the unit at the beginning of the week with and in-class assessment. You can help reinforce new math vocabulary at home when helping with homework by using words and phrases like “numerator,” “denominator,” and “simplest form.” We are about halfway through our second read aloud, Rain Reign, by Ann M. Martin and have continued to chart a class list of... Read More