Hello 4th Grade Families

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 overwhelmingly favorite book club discussion role seems to be the illustrator, who has the opportunity to illustrate a scene from the text. Since the roles rotate, each student will have multiple chances to take on this role, as well as the discussion director (who develops and poses questions to the group), the word wizard (who finds challenging words in the text), the summarizer (who summarizes each chapter), and the quote master (who notates when the author uses language in interesting ways).

In writing, students spent the week publishing their opinion essays. They will be on full display in the hallway bulletin board when we return from break. We discussed the types of fonts and covers that we should use if we want readers to give serious attention to our claims. Students enjoyed exploring the different font options to discuss why a particular font may or may not be the best choice. When we return from break, we will continue with nonfiction writing, this time drafting information reports.

In social studies, we began learning about the events leading up to the American Revolution. We also practiced some note-taking strategies and discussed how to determine which information is worthy of jotting. (Hmm… Could these notes make their way into our upcoming information reports?)

On Wednesday of this week, both half groups celebrated filling their reward jars with marbles. Each group had a movie party, complete with a buffet of snacks. The room still smells like salsa! We had tons of fun!

Judaics with Aliza:

This week in Judaics, Fourth Graders began learning about the Age of Kings in Ancient Israel. We have begun to read the story of Saul and David, the warring early kings, and how the government of Ancient Israel worked around the year 1000 BCE. In Chumash, we finished up Parshat Toldot with Esav’s vow to kill his brother Jacob over their father’s birthright, and Jacob’s escape to his uncle Lavan’s house. After the break, we will begin our next Parsha, Parshat VaYeitzei. Have a great week off and Shabbat Shalom!

Hebrew with Ilana S.:

This week the fourth worked on practicing past tens. They wrote short paragraph using verbs in past tens that they learned and had a quiz. Also we started to work on a story in the workbook – Food for the Coat. The student had vocabulary from the story and they worked on comprehension. The students will work on a skit of the story when we’ll finish learning it.

Shabbat Shalom