January 23-27

Students are swimming in P.E. this week. There is a spelling test on Friday. Words should be written in assignment notebooks on the week on January 17.

The students are learning all about explorers and the fur trade this week in social studies. They have learned about Nicolet, Marquette, and Joliet. They have learned that the French were the first to arrive in Wisconsin from Europe. They wanted to spread their religion and to trade goods with the Native Americans. The students learned that beaver fur was a hot commodity during this time. Soon they will learn about the British taking over French trading posts.

In reading, students are learning to take notes from their nonfiction books. We are focusing on how nonfiction texts are structured and organized. Students are learning the difference between cause and effect, problem and solution, compare and contrast, sequencing, and main ideas and details.

In math, the students are getting a short break from extended, multi-step word problems and are now learning about factors, multiples, prime numbers, composite numbers, and patterns. There will be a quiz on these topics on Thursday. The final test for chapter 4 will be on Monday or Tuesday. A review sheet will be coming home over the weekend.

These are a few of the strategy posters that students can reference in the classroom. They may be helpful to use with homework assignments as well.

January 17-20

The students had their very first orchestra performance today. They did a great job!

They created new year's resolution mobiles for the start of 2017.

Last week, the students all participated in the fourth-grade classroom spelling bee. Jim and Aria from our class made it to the final round. Congratulations!

The students will be swimming in P.E next week and will continue to work with recorders in music class.

There will be a bake sale sponsored by the student council this Thursday, January 19th. Students can bring money to purchase baked goods during their lunch hour.

There will be a YAC for 4th and 5th-grade students on Friday evening.

Math- This is quite a challenging unit for 4th-grade students. We are currently focusing on multiplication and addition comparison word problems. Students need to draw comparison bars and write equations with variables to solve these problems. Later this week, we will move to two-step, three-step, and four-step word problems. It is important that students take their time with these and reread them at least twice to comprehend what is being asked in each problem. The students need to make sure they label their answers.

Social Studies- Chapter 4 social studies is about explorers and the fur trade in Wisconsin from 1600 to 1840.

Spelling- The students will be taking their spelling tests tomorrow (Wednesday), as we ran out of time last Friday. They should have their word lists written in their assignment notebooks on the week of January 2nd. The students will be getting a new list of words this week, with a test on Friday the 27th.

Reading-  We are beginning our nonfiction unit in reading this week. The students are currently reading nonfiction books of choice, but will soon be switching to weather topic books. Please make sure your child is doing their 25 minutes of reading per night.

Writing- Students will be completing their final drafts of their opinion essays tomorrow. After that, we will move into the persuasive essay.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Becker

Welcome Back! I hope everyone had a wonderful winter break! Just a math update to help with the new unit...

This is a very intricate unit in math where the children need to think critically in order to solve the word problems given to them. One thing I noticed is that many are struggling with the difference between situation equations and solution equations. Here are the terms defined by Math Expressions:

Situation Equation- shows the structure of the information in a problem

Solution Equation- shows the operation that can be used to solve a problem

With both equations, there will be a variable represented by a letter. 

Here is an example:

Susanna took $3,050 out of her bank account. Now she has $11,605 left in the account. How much money was in Susanna's account to start?

I usually tell students in order to find the SITUATION equation, they should write the equation in the order that it is read in the problem, leaving a variable for unknown information.

Situation equation for this problem is: s - 3,050=11,605 because we do not know how much money she had to begin with, but we do know how much she took away and how much she had left. This is stated first in the problem.

Solution equation for this problem would be 11,605 + 3,050 = s. In the solution equation, you must get the variable alone on one side so that it can be defined. This is often an inverse operation of the solution equation. The answer, in this case, would be $14,655.

It is possible for the situation and solution equations to be the same in some word problems.

I hope this helps!