Curriculum Updates October 5 - 9

Reading - This week students practiced summarizing their book club books.  They also began thinking about the larger, universal lesson that the author is trying to teach us.  Students began to determine theme in both our classroom book; Tiger Rising and their book club books.  Next week we'll continue to work on determining themes.

Writing - Our realistic fiction stories are all in the drafting phase.  Students are drafting their story's scenes.  Fourth graders learned about dialogue and why author's use dialogue in their writing. Next week, students will finish their drafts and will begin to revise their writing.

Math - This week students took their pretest for Topic 4 and began learning some strategies for mental math.  They also are learning to round numbers in order to find an estimate when either adding or subtracting.

Social Studies- In our economics unit students learned about supply and demand and how these affect the price.  We discussed how consumers, producers and the government are independent.  Students applied their knowledge to their business that they are creating.

PowerBlock - Look for a letter in your child's back pack about PowerBlock which begins next week!