4/13/2014 0 Comments Happy SpringIt finally feels like Spring, thankfully. As your child's last year at Memorial winds down, our learning activities are speeding up. This week holds The Mystery Theatre play on Wednesday night, National Library Week Events and class time devoted to mastering fractions and preparing for the math MCAS on May 6th and 7th.
We have recently completed a math unit on geometry. Student learned to measure angles, recognize attributes of polygons and measure perimeter and area. We are now on a fractions unit which can be a struggle for some students. While in past grades students have been introduced to the concept of equal parts of a whole, this year they are expected to do and understand a lot more. In fourth grade students need to be able to recognize and explain why fractions are equivalent: 2/3 = 4x2/4x3. They must compare fractions with different denominators and numerators by creating common denominators and apply this skill to adding and subtracting fractions. We have been practicing converting mixed numbers to improper fractions and vice versa, with a fun whole game, as this is another fourth grade standard. Finally, the students also must be able to multiply a fraction by a whole number. With the new Common Core standards, fourth graders must understand, prove and explain each of these concepts. We were lucky to have a very inspirational math speaker at the school last week, Scott Flansburg, aka the Human Calculator. He really got the students excited about math, calling himself a 'mathlete' instead of an athlete. He taught us to activate our human calculators, which with practice can go faster than an actual calculator, as he proved with many examples. Check out his message for teachers and students at thehumancalculator.com. April is also poetry month and our high school volunteers, Megan and Catherine, have been working with the students one on one to read poetry in Spanish with expression and fluency. Reciting and listening to poetry allows students to hear the rhyme, rhythm and meter that makes poetry such a complex and beautiful genre. I'm looking forward to hearing the students recite the poems they have practiced during the week of May 5th. Our focus on Spanish literature continues with a class reading of Gracias a Winn-Dixie. It is a story of a girl looking for companionship and her place in the world. She is being raised by her Pastor father and upon moving to a different town she finds friendship and trust in an interesting set of characters. All fourth graders have been working hard on The Mystery Theatre play. Each child has a role in the production to be performed for parents Wednesday night and for the school Thursday. Whether it is acting, helping backstage or creating props and scenery, all fourth graders have contributed to this event made possible by the grant Julie DeZutter has written for the past four years. We hope to raise a good amount of funds for the Fourth Grade Send Off. If your child is an actor, server or backstage, please help him/her put together proper attire for the evening and have them wear/bring the outfit four our dress rehearsal this Tuesday. Servers should wear black bottoms (pants or skirts) and white tops. Back stage should be in all black, or dark colors. Check out our new homework schedule for Term III on the homework pages. However this week, with no school on Friday and the play on Wednesday, homework will consist of only IXL and math pages. Enjoy the nice weather!
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February 2019
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