A Big Bite

Yesterday was the 90th day of school!  4th grade is half over :(  Everyone was so surprised yesterday when we realized that fact because the year has gone by so quickly.  The past two weeks have been filled with so much.  The chorus concert last week was FANTASTIC!  Everyone did a great job and Manal sounded like a star on American Idol during her solo.  Maddie did a great job presenting and her French accent was spot on!  It was wonderful to see everyone participate fully in the concert.  I can't wait to see the concert in June, I am sure it will be amazing as well!  Click here,  and here to view two of the concert videos!  Mrs. MacMurray will be posting other videos soon!  Click here to view the videos on Mrs. Merten's blog.
We are continuing to work on fractions in math and will be working on multiplying fractions next week.  The cold and snowy weather  makes our study of the water cycle and precipitation especially meaningful as we can connect the concepts that we are learning to our lives.  We will be studying icebergs next week, fun stuff!  Our journey across the US will begin next week when we learn about regions and review land forms.  Our first region of study will be New England, home, sweet, home!!  We will have another in school field trip from the Haffenreffer museum this week to learn about the Native Americans of New England.
There was great growth and maturity in reading this week for all readers as we read Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner.  We learned about cliff hangers and sad endings and how to LOVE a book even when the ending makes us cry.  One of the best feelings in the world is seeing the excitement in a child's face when he/she is reading a book that they can't put down.  The moaning and groaning was audible when we would reach a stopping point, particularly yesterday before lunch.  I even had to collect the books so no one would peek at the ending.  Excitement about a book is a magical experience, one of my favorite feelings!  Ask your child about the legend of Stone Fox and we dare you NOT to read it. :)  If you do, leave a comment and let us know what you think.  We will be starting a new interactive read aloud next week in addition to starting to prepare for the ELA MCAS in March.  Our work in writer's workshop is about essays, which is helping us to grow as writers in addition to preparing us for the ELA long composition test as well.  In poetry workshop we are learning about African American Poets and listened to Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni and Langston Hughes read some of their poems. We also listened to some of  Rapper's Delight, by the Sugar Hill Gang in order to understand meter and rhyme in poetry and to realize that poetry is often performed in the oral tradition. Ask your parents if you can search for The Sugar Hill Gang to see them perform Rapper's Delight on Soul Train.
Mrs. Merten has been working with the students on their Google Accounts and they children love it!  Ask your child to tell you about tech workshop! I am learning how to use Google Docs with students, so I thought we could try another survey, without Mrs. Merten's help.  So, students, please click here to complete another survey.  The results are private and will only be sent to me.  Complete the survey only once.
So much to do, so much fun, so little time! :)
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Williams