April 24, 2012

Math: Have you heard about the purple transparent mirrors that we get to use in our current math unit? They are fun and are helping us learn about the properties of preimages and images, lines of reflection, and symmetry. Students are realizing that a reflected image is the same distance from the line of reflection as the original image (preimage), and that reflections are congruent, but flipped. This is a short math unit, so we will probably test next Thursday. Please make sure to look over and discuss the unit 9 math test, which came home yesterday, with your child.

Literacy: April is National Poetry Month, and a perfect time to teach and learn about poetry. In reading we have been learning about various types of poems, such as haiku, cinquain, free verse, concrete, and limerick. In writing we are trying out the different formats and including literary devices/figurative language, such as simile, metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and personification.

Students are still involved in book clubs; reading, writing about, and discussing a historical fiction book at this time.

Social Studies: Did you know that approximately 95% of the milk produced in Wisconsin is made into cheese? Wisconsin is the 5^th largest cheese producer in the world! No wonder we are the “Cheese-heads!” This week we will wrap up our unit on Wisconsin’s Developing Economy. Students have been learning about various industries in Wisconsin, such as logging, farming, dairy, and manufacturing, noting how technology made a huge difference in production.

Our field trip to Madison on Friday, May 11^th, will be a great way to review what we know about state history and government.

Our field trip to Sullivan’s Woods on Wednesday, May 2^nd, will be a great way to kick off our upcoming science unit on ecosystems and the environment.

We will be sending home another field trip form for Heritage Hill this week! Sorry for all of the forms—4^th grade trips happen to work best in the spring!

April 1, 2012

Math: This week we will be wrapping up unit 9 concepts, but will not test until the Tuesday after Spring break. Unit 10 will be a far cry from fractions, decimals, and percent, and instead will focus on symmetry, lines of reflection, patterns, and negative numbers.

We have been working hard to make conversions between fractions, decimals, and percent. A couple of helpful hints: if a fraction does not have 100 as the denominator, such as 2/5, make an equivalent fraction that does have a denominator of a 10 or 100, such as 4/10, or 40/100. This makes it a lot easier to convert to a decimal and percent. If the denominator of a fraction is a 4, say the fraction as a “quarter.” The students know how to write the decimal for $0.25, or $0.75, which then helps them write the percent as well.

Literacy: Has your child shown you their “Storybird” account yet? As a wrap up to our traditional literature unit, students are using “Storybird” to help them write a fairy tale, tall tale, or myth. Students are required to include the elements of that genre, and the fiction writing strategies we’ve been working on to make a fun story. This is due on Thursday.

As a tie in to our social studies unit on immigration, students have been listening to many short accounts of Wisconsin immigrants’ experiences and making written responses to the stories. They have been challenged to imagine what it would be like and to take the perspective of that immigrant or family.

This week students will start a poetry unit. I will be exposing students to many different kinds of poetry. Students will be reading poetry and finding poetry that they like. After Spring break, we will begin writing our own poetry, trying different styles, and including figurative language, and literary devices like onomatopoeia, alliteration, simile, metaphor, and personification to help us.

Social Studies: We have had some guests in 4^th grade to help us with our learning! As you saw in the “Traeger Tales” Representative Hintz visited our class to discuss government. Our own Traeger ELL teacher, Bee Vang, gave an excellent presentation on her Hmong immigrant experience. And finally, on Thursday, Mike Breza, from the Oshkosh Public Museum, came in dressed as a lumberjack to kick off our lumbering unit. We will learn about Wisconsin’s developing economy from logging, farming, manufacturing and tourism.