Dear 4th Graders and Parents of 4th Graders,
Wow! We’ve accomplished much in the last 3 weeks! Please bear with me as I attempt recap the events of our classroom since the last time I’ve written.
HINT: Parents and students, as you read this together, you might want to break it into chunks, since this represents 3 weeks of our studies. Also, you’ll probably have a lot more fun reading this online- students will better be able to show parents links to games, videos, and images that way.
Week 6: 10/13-10/16 (short week-- Monday off)
Virginia Studies
- We constructed a raised-relief map of Virginia’s regions using pizza ingredients. It was great fun and delicious! Thank you so much to our parent volunteers! We couldn’t have done it without you!
- As we began our study of Native Americans, we also continued to learn about the particulars of each region. We looked at photos of the natural wonders of the Valley & Ridge region and read about its historically important mountain gap, the Cumberland Gap. We finished off with the Appalachian Plateau region by studying its main industry: coal mining. Students discussed the uses of coal, its environmental impacts, and what it like to be a coal miner. We watched this very interesting videos on coal mining:
- We met Chester the Crab for the first time. He will be a recurring character in our studies.
- We took our first Virginia Studies test and everyone did really well!
- We continued to enlarge our collection of poetry and to memorize new poems.
- Students took a reading skills test with the substitute. This will help us to determine strengths, so that I will best know how to challenge students. I will share results with parents at conferences.
- We continued to concentrate on non-fiction reading skills, working both with Scholastic News and our textbook.
- We discovered the concept of an “exquisite corpse” and began our own exquisite corpse writing project. We also read the beginning of The Exquisite Corpse Adventure, written by some of our favorite authors.
- During homeroom, we began the Second Step program, which encourages discussion about character issues. Our first talk was about feelings changing over time. We also discussed how people feel differently (even friends) about the same things. We used roller coasters as an example: Did you always like roller coasters? Did they ever frighten you when you were younger? Would you not be friends with someone just because they didn’t like roller coasters and you did?
- We will occasionally be doing Second Step in our classroom and Mrs. Seaver will be incorporating it into her Guidance Encore class.
- How is a raised-relief map different from other topographical maps? What does the professionally-made one look like?
- What did the VA pizza taste like? What was the tastiest region?
- How did the different toppings (sauce, cheese, green peppers, pepperoni, sausage, olives, and pineapple) represent the landforms of the different regions?
- What are some of the natural wonders in Virginia’s Valley & Ridge region?
- How is surface mining different from deep mining?
- What is elevation?
- How do archaeologists learn about the first people who lived in Virginia?
- What is an “exquisite corpse”? Was it fun to draw one? Do you think it would be fun to write one?
Week 7: 10/19-10/23
Classroom
- Everyone was hired this week! Each student has at least one job in the classroom and will be paid for their services in Tigerbucks. At the end of the year, these Tigerbucks can be used to start up a business as well as make purchases on Market Day. Parents will of course be invited to shop! More details to come as the year progresses.
- Students will have the opportunity to apply for an additional job. But this next round of hiring will be more selective. We discussed the importance of neatness, correctness, confidence, and effort on job applications. Parents: Please discuss your own experiences with your 4th grader. Are things like correct spelling on a job application important? Why or why not? Does it matter if your application is crumpled or has eraser marks or stains on it? Why or why not? Etc.
- Students may leave the classroom during Enrichment time to participate in enriching activities-- like extra math or a special project. These are exciting opportunities to work on challenging material. Teachers and administrators have arranged it so that students don’t have to worry about missing any new curriculum in the classroom during that time period.
- We browsed and made purchases at the Book Fair this week. Thank you for supporting our school library by buying books!
- I am particularly overwhelmed by the riches our classroom library received. On behalf of this year’s class and all my future classes who will enjoy the books you donated, thank you, thank you, thank you!
- We had our very first Guidance Encore class. Because Guidance is held in our classroom, Ms. Bragg got to watch and participate a bit. Mrs. Seaver began by describing a worker who wasn’t doing his job very well. 4th Graders: Please tell your parents about this worker and who he turned out to be.
- She also gave us a very important and difficult test that taught us a very important and memorable lesson. Many students then took blank copies of these tests home to administer to their parents and family members.
- We began the next chapter in our textbook by asking ourselves: Who were the first people in Virginia? And how did they get here? We watched some interesting animations and reenactments that showed scientists best theories to explain the earliest peoples’ arrival in North America and Virginia, including this one, which says that our textbook is probably wrong/out-of-date.
- We completed our first blog assignment and our first webquest. The webquest allowed us to do research on Virginia’s 3 main American Indian Language groups.
- We began compiling our Virginia Studies binders and making a table of contents for each section. At the end of each quarter students will receive a grade on how well they keep their binders. The grade will be based on the quality of the work contained in the binder, neatness, and consistency in the table of contents. Students will be able to use their binders to study for future tests and it will be a record of everything we learn in Virginia Studies this year. So it’s a very important assignment!
- We began our Virginia Regions Photo Albums, the culminating assignment of our Geography/Sharing the Planet unit.
- Three times we met with Jeanette Stewart, the author and environmentalist, who wrote the story “Happenings In Our Habitat”. She told us stories of how she and her dogs got into and did their best to solve some environmental entanglements. Students were able to really show off their knowledge of watersheds- bravo!
- Because Ms. Stewart always left us with a cliffhanger, we were able to use her stories as a seed to start our own, similar to the way an exquisite corpse works. 4th Graders did some very imaginative writing!
- We started using Ms. Bragg’s portaportal site to practice Math Facts both at school and at home. This site is always available for student use (24-hours a day) and there are many fun games/videos/etc. on it that we simply can’t get to during the school day.
- What is your job? Is it hard/easy? What do you like about it?
- Would you like to apply for a 2nd job?
- How do you think you think you could improve your application for next time?
- How is being a student like having a job?
- Why is it important to read and follow directions thoroughly?
- Where is the Bering Strait?
- How did the earliest people get to North America? What does the scientific evidence show?
- Why are Native Americans called “Indians”? They’re not from India.
- Who are the Eastern Woodland Indians? And why are they important to Virginia?
- What are the 3 American Indian Language Groups that existed in Virginia?
- How were the different language groups similar/different? How did they live? What were their houses like? What did they eat? How did they dress? Where in VA did they live?
- What is an artifact?
- What is a nomad?
- What is agriculture? How did the Indians practice agriculture differently from the English?
- What encouraged civilization? What are the signs of civilization?
- Do we know what Chief Powhatan looked like? Why or why not?
- What is a dugout canoe?
- What is an epidemic?
- How long have people known about germs?
- Why did the Powhatan people build their homes close to rivers?
This Week: Week 8: 10/19-10/23
It was so good to be back with the students this week! And to see that many of them, like me, have recovered well from the flu that unfortunately has been making the rounds. Slowly but surely we will get everyone (including me!) caught up.
Virginia Studies
- This week we have jumped head first into studying Jamestown. On Tuesday, we completed our second blog assignment, which connected our study of the watershed to early Virginia history. We watched this interesting video about Captain John Smith’s explorations of the Chesapeake Bay. We then began playing one of the best interactive history games out there: On the Trail of Captain John Smith. Students have enjoyed finishing this game at home and have become very knowledgeable in the process!
- We have also been reading Jamestown: New World Adventure, an excellent book that teaches us about Jamestown through a narrative. As we read, Ms. Bragg has been pausing to share video clips that reenact the events in the book. Additionally, we’ve seen how experts have deduced information about the past through archaeology.
- Using our nonfiction reading skills, students worked together to complete at 45-question (wow!) scavenger hunt with the book Flowers, Trees, & Other Plants. In the process, they learned many things about flowers, trees, and other plants of course!
- Our next Science unit will be all about plants. We’ll be doing many experiments and some dissecting. But most of all, we’ll be strengthening our scientific thinking skills.
- Today we’re going to plant some pumpkin seeds to see what will happen.
- Speaking of seeds, Pumpkin Math was a great success! Students collected data about pumpkins all morning long-- whether they sink or float, their circumference, the number of lines each one had, and the number of seeds they each contained. Through analyzing this data students were able to prove or disprove their hypotheses/predictions.
- Thank you to the parent volunteers! You made it possible!
- We wound down from all the excitement by watching this video about a teenager who grew an award-wining giant pumpkin:
- Soon after, we learned that we have our very own giant pumpkin expert in class . Just for fun, we also examined this evidence, which shows that even the really big ones float, given enough water (thanks Michael for pointing that out!).
- Finally, students constructed a histogram, using the seed data from our class.
- On Monday with the sub, students participated in a really fun imaginative writing activity. Each fourth grader was able to select and different hat to inspire a story. The results confirmed the creativity and goofy sense of humor of our classmates.
- We’ve now read two books that overlap with our Virginia Studies curriculum; the already-mentioned Jamestown: New World Adventure and the very similar but different Blue Feather’s Vision, which deals with an Eastern Woodlands tribe’s encounters with the English. These books allow us to learn about history through historical fiction, which is quite different from our textbook.
- Our poetry collection continues to grow and we’ve added a few words to our sophisticated word collection: scarce, foolhardy, and swift.
- On Wednesday we were entertained by our first assembly, put on by a group who traveled all the way from NYC: Improv for Kids. We all laughed and some of us got to participate too.
- Many more details about Jamestown will be coming next week. For now, I just want to say how excited we are to be actually visiting the place where it all happened and where archaeological digs are still underway. We will actually be visiting 2 Jamestowns: the original site (The National Park, where the digs are located) and the re-creation (known as Jamestown Settlement).
- Extracurricular Opportunity: There is currently a very interesting exhibit at the Smithsonian dealing with some of the human remains that were found at Jamestown: Written in Bone (runs through 2011). This exhibit melds science and history, using popular forensic techniques. 4th graders might enjoy a weekend visit. They even have a lab where you can touch some of the bones- yeow! (appropriate for Halloween right?) Details and an informative video can be found here: http://anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/index.html.
- How has the Chesapeake Bay changed since Captain John Smith’s time?
- What is the best part of On the Trail of Captain John Smith?
- What is one new thing that you learned by playing On the Trail of Captain John Smith?
- What are the two main ways we learn about the past?
- What is a primary source? Are primary sources always reliable?
- Have people always known where the original site of Jamestown was?
- What kinds of artifacts have archaeologists discovered at Jamestown that reveal how the gentleman lived?
- What genre are the books Jamestown: New World Adventure and Blue Feather’s Vision? How do you know?
- Why is sunlight so important to plants?
- Do all flowers smell nice? How do you know? Why would a flower not smell nice?
- Why aren’t mushrooms (and other fungi) considered plants?
- How do we know that a pumpkin is a fruit?
- How is a histogram different from a bar graph?
- From whose point of view was Blue Feather’s Vision written? What about Jamestown: New World Adventure? How are the books alike/different? Do they end similarly?
Phew! You made it to the end of 3 weeks of study! When I sit down to write about what we’ve been doing and I’m surprised by how much there is-- but 3-weeks worth is truly a great deal indeed!
Have a fantastic and healthy weekend!
-Ms. B.
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