Another week under out belts here in fourth grade!  

In writing workshop, we finished up our final copies of our personal essays.  We started the last bend of this writing unit, and are taking all that we know about essay writing to write persuasively.  We know that many of the strategies are the same for personal and persuasive essay, but we started off by tweaking our thesis so that it was something that we would want people to care about.  Today started our three-day process of drafting, and next week we should be all ready to edit this piece!

In reading workshop we are taking all that we know from expository and narrative non fiction to come up with theories about our texts.  We have been jotting down notes, learning new facts and becoming teachers, teaching our reading buddies about new topics.  These young readers love their book group time, and look forward to meeting a couple times a week.  They keep me on my toes, making sure I have their next books ready!

In math, we started Topic 9, dividing by 1-digit divisors.  This topic requires that we really know our multiplication and division facts, as we are using mental math to divide and estimating quotients.  We will most likely be tested on this topic early next week, since it is a short chapter.

In science, we weighed different objects and continued testing whether they sink or float.  We discovered that some objects that weigh more than other objects doesn’t necessarily mean that those heavier ones will sink.  We came up with questions we are still wondering about floating and sinking.

This week, with our buddy class we completed an activity for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Mrs. Klugman read a short book on Martin Luther King and both classes discussed things that they may be dreaming they can do.  All the students created a mobile that had some of their dreams on it.   

Thank you to those who sent in boxes of tissues.  If you haven't done so yet, and are willing to donate to our dwindling supply, we really appreciate it!