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October 1, 2021 — Wake Me Up When September Ends

Math with Justin

Over the past two weeks, we have been focusing on place value up to 1,000,000, ordering numbers, comparing numbers as well as adding and subtracting six-digit numbers. Fourth graders also worked on filling in missing numbers in patterns, creating their own patterns, and identifying the rule that defines a pattern. The students are learning how to round to the nearest hundreds place and thousands place to enhance their estimation skills and number sense. Ask your fourth grader how they can round to the nearest 10, 100, or 1000! 

Science with Sammi

Luckily for the 4th graders, we have been in school every Thursday and Friday for class! That means we have really jumped right into our first unit, “The Scientific Community”. Each day in this unit, students are presented with a new teamwork challenge. After the challenge, we discuss what went well, what was hard, and how they could improve next time. Before each challenge, students receive a teamwork goal and discuss how we can achieve it. For example, students have discussed how to choose between 2 or 3 different ideas. We have also discussed positive and encouraging language choices. The challenges completed so far involved building pipe cleaner towers, making the longest paper chain out of a single piece of paper, and building the tallest tower out of cups and popsicle sticks. Stay tuned for pictures in another email as there are far too many to share on the blog. 

 

Humanities with Hilary

Dear Families,

I cannot believe that we are already in October AND that we have only had NINE days of school! Craziness … The month has flown by.

As a community, we democratically came up with a classroom contract — or “The Fourth Grade Constitution” as I termed it. First, each half group shared their ideas for what type of rules they had seen in previous classes, and ones they felt would best fit fourth grade. From there, we looked at their ideas and talked about how we could group suggestions together. For instance, being an active listener, waiting your turn to share, thinking about sounds you are making (either vocally or with objects), and the words you use ALL umbrella under the idea of “respect,” or kovod. Here is where the democratic process occurred –> we then voted on our top choices, thinking about which topics were extraneous. In the end, we came up with three main umbrella ideas:

  • safety (keeping ourselves safe and making safe choices)
  • respect (respecting our classmates AND each and every teacher
  • trying our best (persevering)

This contract was signed by each and every student, as well as all the teachers that teach in room 118. We hope there will be a connection between school and home with this classroom constitution.

During the first two months of school, we are working on our “realistic” fiction stories. This means that students are thinking of stories that are based on truth, but might not have happened in real life. Next week, students have the option to write a more fictional type of story. Over the past two weeks, we have been doing a lot of brainstorming of ideas. First with moments that had strong emotions tied to it (like being on a roller coaster for the first time, eating a fireball, losing a pet, or playing soccer. We then focused on the main character of our story. What are their external (physical) and internal (emotions, desires, aspects of a person that are not visible) traits? What does the character want, and what is preventing them from getting to this goal? Having this background will help us as we develop and stretch out our stories. It also connects to our thinking, as we independently read books, on what do we know about these characters and what are their motivations.

We did a crash course two weeks, in learning about elections and the 3 branches of government. We learned about why it’s important to vote every year — not just every four — because there is always some area of government that you need to vote on, be it proposals, city/state amendments, city council, judges, mayors, governors, state representatives, congresspeople, and more! Now don’t worry — government will keep coming back throughout the year, with almost every unit we cover. Next week we will start our mini-exploration unit, which will turn into a colonial America unit.

I have had some parents reach out about reading expectations and the reading homework. I will be sending some book suggestions soon BUT I can definitely talk about reading homework:

Students read for 30 minutes every night. They can read a chapter book, picture books, a graphic novel, a magazine, a newspaper. This could be from them listening to an audible book, watching a youtube video of a book being read aloud (hopefully with your student following along). Maybe everyone in your family is reading at the same time (like having a DEAR time, drop everything and read), or your student is reading aloud to a younger sibling. Maybe they are reading aloud to you or reading in their head. Nightly reading could be you reading to them, or taking turns for who reads each page. This can look like so much!

In the classroom, there will be some weeks where I let the 4th Graders read graphic novels, and others where I don’t. It will switch off based on our focus and student behavior. Please let me know if you have any more questions about it.

Shabbat shalom, everyone!
Best,

Hilary

Sukkah Studies and Simchat Torah Time

Students had an amazing time celebrating Sukkot and Simchat Torah with their class, their new K buddies, and the whole school. We spent time with buddies and in class finding similarities and differences among ourselves, just as the four species are both similar and different. We considered what we can learn about our community through exploring our similarities and differences.

Today we continued our study of the verse from the creation story in Breisheet, Genesis stating that all people are created in the image of god. We asked questions about this verse, like why is there so much repetition, and what can this verse teach us about ourselves and how we treat each other? We will continue to use this verse to explore and celebrate each of our own identities in the coming week. Today we dove deeper into the topic of gender identity which is raised in the verse, through reading the book “It Feels Good to be Yourself”.