Students have returned to school refreshed and ready to learn! (And some have grown even taller than the teacher!!!) We would also like to welcome Aidan and his family to the PRIS community!
Language Arts
Students have been very excited with our new unit on historical fiction. Since these are big issue stories and take place in a time period in which they have no background knowledge, a number of new strategies are required of the reader:
- Collect setting details. What kind of place is this and what does it feel like?
- Is trouble brewing. How is it changing?
- Collect important details about the character. Traits? Pressures on them?
- What new understanding and historical information do you have?
- What is the sequence of event in the story, including jumps in time?
- How do the character's choices compare to the event unfolding around them?
Students have had traveling reading buddies as they make their way through these complex books to help them process the ideas/concepts in the story.
As writers, student have been working on their essay skills. They are developing powerful statements and generating reasons and examples to support their statements.
Social Studies has been integrated with our reading the past few weeks focusing on a unit of Freedom. Our focus questions are:
- How is freedom gained?
- What does freedom look like?
- How is freedom and responsibility connected?
We have been learning about different periods in history,(WW11) through brainpop videos, books and discussion. In the next few days we will be learning about slavery, civil rights and immigration. With this background knowledge in place, students will be able to read and understand books with characters in these situations.
Math
We are working on fraction unit and students will be expected to understand the following:
- fractions as a whole
- fractions as a set
- equivalent fractions
- ordering fractions
- simplfing fractions
- word problems involving fractions
Grade four is certainly a happening spot! Until next time,
Theresa Marriott
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