September Events

September Dates to Remember:

September 17, 2015- 4th Grade Welcome Conference.  Come meet the teachers and learn about the 4th Grade curriculum and expectations! 5PM - 8PM

September 25, 2015- Parents as Learning Partners.  Spent your morning learning with your child! 8:40AM - 9:27AM

September Reading Workshop

September Reading

Building the World of the Story

In this unit, we will delve deeper into identifying the different elements of a narrative structure, such as character, setting, conflict, important events, resolution and change in order to guide their reading.    

Determining Importance 

• Students will pay attention to story elements as they read
• Students will be able to retell a narrative story using story elements

Monitoring for Meaning 

• Students will self-select appropriate books from the classroom library 
• Students will preview a book to make predictions about their reading
• Students will accumulate the story across a book
• Students will ask questions as they read
• Students will choose appropriate stopping places in the text

In order to help your child at home:

• Make sure they read at home every night for at least 40 minutes and respond in their reading notebook
• Please provide a well lit, quiet space for your child to read without distraction
• Ask your child to retell the story to you each night to determine their level of understanding

September 2015 Social Studies

The fourth grade Social Studies curriculum provides students with an opportunity to learn about the different cultural groups who lived in New York State centuries in the past. Each unit will culminate with a research-based project and exam. 

In September, we will begin with a mini-unit focused on Geography. During this unit, students will learn about geographical terms, explore different types of maps, and create their own map of New York. 

Starting the week of September 21th, we will begin our Native American unit. During this time, students will learn about various groups of Native Americans who lived in the Northeastern Woodlands of the United States. As the unit continues, we will begin to focus on the Iroquois, a group of Native Americans that lived in New York State. Using both primary and secondary resources, students will develop an understanding for what life was like for the Iroquois. The unit will last approximately one month and will end with a culminating research project. Working in the classroom, students will come up with their own research question and will learn how to use non-fiction texts and Internet resources to carry out their research. Students will then present their research in the form of a journal entry, poster, and other mediums related to the students' topic.

Students may also continue their research at home by using our class website: http://www.portaportal.com/ Students may scroll down to the Social Studies section of the website in order to help with their research. See login information below:

Username: 4302
Password: ps172

September Math Workshop

September Math 

In the first unit of fourth grade, we will extend our work with whole numbers.  They begin with large numbers using familiar units (hundreds and thousands) and develop our understanding of millions by building knowledge of the pattern of times ten in the base ten system on the place value chart.  We recognize that each sequence of three digits is read as hundreds, tens, and ones followed by the naming of the corresponding base thousand unit (thousand, million, billion).

Some concepts we plan to master are

• Place value of multi-digit whole numbers
• Comparing multi-digit whole numbers
• Rounding multi-digit whole numbers
• Multi-digit whole number addition
• Multi-digit whole number subtraction
• Multi-digit addition and subtraction word problems

·       In order to help your child at home, please reinforce these terms and concepts with them:

•  Sum (answer to an addition problem) 
• Difference (answer to a subtraction problem)
• Rounding (approximating the value of a given number)
• Place value (the numerical value that a digit has by virtue of its position in a number)
• Digit (a numeral between 0 and 9)
• Standard form (a number written in the format: 135)
• Expanded form (e.g., 100 + 30 + 5 = 135)
• Word form (e.g., one hundred thirty-five)
• Tape diagram (bar diagram)
• Number line (a line marked with numbers at evenly spaced intervals)
• Bundling, making, renaming, changing, exchanging, regrouping, trading (e.g. exchanging 10 ones for 1 ten)
• Unbundling, breaking, renaming, changing, regrouping, trading (e.g. exchanging 1 ten for 10 ones)
• =, <, > (equal, less than, greater than)
• Number sentence (e.g., 4 + 3 = 7) 

September 2015 Read Aloud

Welcome to Grade Four- Read Aloud

During the first few days of school, grade four students will discuss their ideas about what read aloud is all about. Here are some of those ideas: 


What is Read Aloud?
Read aloud is a time of learning when the teacher reads a book. The students listen, look, and have conversations with one another about the book. 

What do we do during Read Aloud?
Build upon each others ideas, listen to the story, make pictures in our minds, discuss our ideas with the whole class or with our partners. 

What should Read Aloud look like?
Students form a large circle where everyone can make eye contact. 


During the month of September, students will continue to work on these skills in class, in order to utilize our read aloud time in the most effective way. Students were given a rubric that outlines what is expected to take place during our read aloud period. At the close of each lesson in September, we will evaluate our discussion as a class according to the rubric.  


Grade Four opens up Read Aloud with:

                                              

- Mentor Read Aloud Texts- Ish by Peter H. Reynolds, The Curious Garden by Peter Brown and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein  

·      - Short story texts- Moving to Winter, The Save, The Tree House, The Guardian Angel, andWings.

·      - Complex texts- Your Name in Gold and Always a Fight

·      - Finally, at the close of the month we will begin our first realistic fiction novel, Fourth Grade Rats. 

Students will receive homework on a daily basis in connection to classwork. Such assignments will consist of short response questions, which will require students to think more deeply about the text.

Vocabulary work is also a big part of the read aloud. Students will be expected to learn a new set of words per chapter. These words will be expected to be applied in discussion as well as in various assignments. At the end of each week, students knowledge of these new words will be assessed with a quiz.  

Here is a link to the vocabulary we will be working with while reading Fourth Grade Rats:
Fourth Grade Rats Vocabulary

September Writing Workshop

Personal Essay

Personal essays are idea-based pieces written in non-narrative form. Non-narrative writing is idea-based writing where a writer tells a reader what he or she thinks about a topic.

When students choose a topic for their Personal Essay they will look through their writer's heart and get ideas about a special person, place or thing in their life. Their topic should be something they are:

• passionate about
• interested in sticking with for a while
• feel like they can write a lot about

Students will state an idea about their topic and elaborate upon the idea with support. Each support is developed and defended with a mini-story, dialogue and or inner thinking.

Personal Essay Unit Goals:

At the end of the unit, students will be able to:

• State a main idea, theme or opinion and provide supporting details.
• Use relevant examples, reasons and explanations to support their idea.
• Express opinions and make judgements that demonstrate a personal point of view.
• Use personal experiences and knowledge to analyze and evaluate new ideas.
• Develop a personal voice that enables the reader to get to know the writer.