Curriculum Updates: Sept. 9 - Sept. 11

Thanks to all the families who came to Touchdown Family Math Night!  It was fun seeing families play math games together.  If you were unable to attend, look for some math games to come home next week.  These would be great games to play for home learning.

Reading - Students focused on completing their English Language Arts Acuity Test this week to provide teachers with some baseline data to help guide instruction.

Writing - Fourth graders worked on revising, editing, and publishing their small moment piece of writing from the introductory writing unit.  Next week we'll be making plans for writing a realistic fiction story.

Math - On Wednesday, fourth graders took the Topic 2 Pretest on the Pearson SuccessNet website. We began Topic 2 - Generate and Analyze Patterns.  On Thursday, students learned about repeating patterns.  On Friday, students found the missing rule in a pattern and learned how to explain the pattern's rule. Topic 2 is only 6 lessons long so we'll be finishing all the lessons by the end of next week.

Science - Each 4th grader has chosen a Missouri animal and they working to research the animal's environment, interactions with other plants and animals,  specialized structures, and special behaviors that help the animal survive.  Finally, students are researching how humans have helped or harmed the animal. We are finding out that there are a lot of interesting animals in Missouri!

Social Studies - We finished up learning about the 4 geographical regions of Missouri this week.  We are also studying how all the regions are interdependent on one another.  Finally, we discussed the similarities and differences between rural, suburban, and urban areas in Missouri.