Hello 4th Grade Families

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 continue to practice responding to our reading by making claims and supporting those claims with evidence from the text. We use phrases such as, “For example,” “in addition,” “I will add,” and “for instance.”

Students are thrilled with our Oregon Trail simulation unit, which spans both writing and social studies class times. Each day, we learn about a new stop on the trail, and students are presented with an obstacle they must overcome. From gathering water to crossing rivers to broken wrists, we brainstorm solutions as a class, and then students journal from the perspective of someone on the trail. We’re nearly halfway through the journey, and will finish shortly after we return from break.

Last week, we attended a field trip to Old Bethpage Village Restoration out on Long Island. Students had the opportunity to enter buildings that were restored to their construction dates from the early 1800’s. Costumed tour guides spoke with these students about what life was like almost 200 years ago in a farming community. Students also enjoyed some homemade birch beer in the town saloon. Of course, for our city kids, having the chance to run across the wide open fields of an old time village proved most exciting.

Judaics with Aliza

This week in Judaic Studies, fourth graders completed the Haggadah with a rousing chorus of “chad Gadya” (and a lesson on the song’s origins), finished up their pesach projects, and presented them to the third grade. We also shared a fun round of pesach songs and some charoset with our third grade friends. Chag Sameach!