FOURTH GRADE NEWS

by Ms. Gurton and Miss Francis

The fourth graders have accomplished so much in just a few short months!

We would like to thank the parents who helped to make our Hallow-een parties such a success. The kids had a wonderful time. We look forward to meeting with you at conferences. We are thrilled to share your children's successes and to work together to plan for the future. Congratulations to all!

In reading we have completed our genre study of fables. We are exploring the characteristics of fantasy such as in magical or fantastic settings. We will continue exploring cause and effect relationships and character motiva-tion. Students have enjoyed writing their own fables. Our personal narratives continue to keep us very busy as children progress through the various stages of the writing process. Some are still drafting while others are revising, editing, and proof-reading. We look forward to their final product.

We are pleased the fourth graders have completed unit 1 assessment. Remember to help your son/daughter practice the math facts (especially if you are given a practice packet at conference time). The students who are more adept at the multiplication and division facts will transition to unit 2 with greater ease. Students will be asked to solve for the unknown, determine patterns amongst groups of numbers, simplify expressions, work with functions tables, and solve problems involving greatest common factors and least common multiples.

In science we are continuing our ecosystem exploration. The students have been completed a written prompt identifying whether or not the venus fly trap is a plant or animal using the characteristics of each to support their decision. We will identify the importance of the aquatic plants in our aquariums. Students will now compare and contrast the gambusia f ish and the snails. We will be observing different food chains. The food web as a chain is an important analogy for the students to understand, as a break in the chain can cause environmental disasters and species extinction. Please encourage your child to look in newspapers and magazines for articles about our environment. Remember, every day is EARTH day!

In social studies we are concluding our study of the Maryland regions. Students demonstrated their understanding of how the physical characteristics of Maryland’s regions affect the economic activities and development. Currently the students will be investigating how people have used technology in Maryland to modify their environment. In our next unit we will be analyzing geographic characteristics for the regions of the United States. Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

Last updated on November 12, 2009 by Damon Riley