It has been three weeks since vacation and we have been having a ton of fun in room 23.  We enjoyed a great visit with Ms. Liz and wrote free verse poems for Mother's Day.  We read poetry by Douglas Florian and painted pictures in the same style as Florian.  Then we wrote free verse poems and will be typing them in the tech lab.  In addition to all of the poetry that we have been writing, we are completing the final copies of the expert pieces in the tech lab.  Mrs. Merten is showing everyone how to incorporate pictures, tables, photos and other text features into our writing.  

We really worked hard reviewing for the math MCAS and took the test this past week.  We will be completing several math projects to end the year.  One of our projects, line design, will include tie dying t- shirts.  This is one of the highlights of 4th grade and a tradition that many 4th graders look forward to each year.

In reader's workshop we have started Charlotte's Web as an interactive read aloud.  Our skills involve recognizing character behavior and motivation as a way to identify the theme in a story and ultimately the author's message.  We are reading non fiction books about spiders, farm animals and life on a farm.  We will be setting goals for summer reading in a few weeks.  We are almost at our goal of reading 1200 books as a class.  :)

We have two more regions to visit in social studies and will be traveling to the west and southwest during the next few weeks.  It has been an exciting journey so far.

We read a folktale about a boy named Magnus to kick off the Electricity and Magnetism unit.  Experiments will start next week.

Everyone ran the mile in PE and finished in great time.  We are a Black Belt Class in recorder karate and have been doing a lot of painting and sculpting in art class.  I am so glad to see so many students using the many yoga strategies they have learned to relax and focus.  It makes for a very relaxed and safe environment for learning.  Ask your child to show you the 4 Us for U!  

The end of the year is approaching quickly and the time is going to fly.  We have so many group projects and fun activities planned to end the year that I am looking forward to completing with the students.  This year has gone by too quickly!

Students, please click here to complete this week's survey by Sunday night at 6:00. Thanks!

Mrs. Williams