What are we Learning?

Reading:

We are off and running with our read aloud The Tiger Rising in both classes! We are practicing noticing if a book is readable by thinking to ourselves: Can I read the words? Am I reading smoothly? Do I understand what I am reading?

In our upcoming unit, all students will read Save Me a Seat by Sarah Weeks. This unit will focus on describing characters, settings, and events in depth, while using specific details to build inferences.

When reading at home, you can use some of the questions stems in this document to help your child build strong ideas (this unit will focus on RL 4.3 if you need a place to start).. Reach out to me if you have any questions on helpful literacy practices at home.

We are reading a different poem every week to practice fluency (reading with expression, reading smoothly, and recognizing words). Ask your child what we are reading this week!

As we get back into school, it is important to try and build lifelong readers both at school and at home. Students should read at home for at least twenty minutes as often as they can. This can include listening to audiobooks and reading with a family member. Let me know if you need support in this area!

Math:

We started out the year learning about Math Mindset. Math Mindset is the most you should be in when you are doing challenging task in math, like knowing speed is not important, having confidence, knowing that you might solve something differently than someone else, etc. we also learned a handful of math games that students can and will play throughout the year to practice auditions, subtraction,multiplication and division skills, once we finish up a group lesson or during independent work time.

This week we started Unit 1: Multiplicative Comparison. Students have been learning what ‘times as many’ means and making whacky comparisons. For example, a penguin is the height of 6 popsicles. A popsicle is 7 inches. How tall is a penguin? Next, we will move into factors and multiples, while learning the area model!

Writing:

Both classes are completing their I Am poems, and will begin working on a project we call Best Part of Me. We are beginning the year off with understanding what makes a complete sentence. Our learning community is looking forward to sharing these with you at Open House!

Science:

Both classes are continuing to work throughout the Human Machine science unit. So far, we have learned how our muscles, tendons and bones work together to move our body, making a robotic finger. We made a model of the eye and learned how the iris, pupil, cornea and retina work together and why some people have vision problems. We have learned about how some animals see in the dark. We will end the unit by learning how our brain controls our body and how the brain informs our decisions! Following this unit, we will do a social studies unit and continue to go back and forth throughout the year.

Field Trip to the Sailing Center:

We had a blast on our first field trip of the year at the Community Sailing Center of Burlington. Half the field trip students were on land learning about the food chain in Lake Champlain, and the other half students were in sailboats learning how to sail and even getting to steer the boats themselves!

Important Dates and Links:

Picture Day: Wednesday October 18

Open House: Thursday October 5: 6:00-6:30: 4th Grade

FMS Fun Run:Friday, October 13

Sign Up for Our Class Dojo

Volunteer Registration Link

Founders Memorial School

Chelsea Henderson

Brooke Senesac

Updates from Fourth Grade

September 2023

09.05.23 - First Week of 4th Grade!