MORE Division Help - 4 digit dividends!

Hello again, Room 20!  Here are two different videos explaining how to divide 4-digit dividends.  I think they will be useful for your classwork on Tuesday and your homework for Tuesday night.  Watch carefully - use these steps as you work on your classwork with your partner and your homework by yourself!

Here is one example of a 4-digit dividend:

Here's another example:

Remember, stick to 30 minutes only for your math homework, write me a note and show what work you've done so far.  Take your time and watch out for these common mistakes:

• copying the problem wrong
• messy mistakes (write neatly!)
• multiplication fact errors
• zeros mistakes
• subtraction mistakes

Division Help!

Hi Room 20!

Use this video to help you review how we've been dividing at school.  Here are some tips that you'll see in the video, but that I think will really help:

• Try using another piece of paper (a post-it or a big piece of paper) to write down your groups.  Split it into 10's (divisor x 10, divisor x 20, divisor x 30 ...) and 100's (divisor x 100, divisor x 200, divisor x 300...).  
• Remember to subtract very carefully!  This was the biggest mistake people were making in class last week.
• If you want to make your remainder into a fraction, remember to keep the BIG number the same and make the fraction by putting the remainder on the top and the divisor on the bottom.  (There's an explanation in the video if this doesn't make sense.)

Remember, you should not be spending more than 30 minutes on your math homework.  I must see ALL of the work that you do, so do not erase or forget your work at home.  If you're stressing, write me a note about what steps you think you should do and what's confusing.  We can review together at school!  NO STRESS!!!  :)

Catch up with Room 20!

Many thanks to the Franklin Veterinary Clinic for an informative and fun visit!
Read more below about their visit below.

We've been super busy since our last blog post!

Social Studies - Our Canada test is tomorrow!   We used the Chromebooks to review for the test and to explore more about Canada with a TIME for Kids website.  Check it out: http://www.timeforkids.com/destination/canada!  Now we're moving onto Mexico!  If you have any travel experiences, cultural, geographic, or other information or expertise about Mexico, let us know!  In our study of North America (Canada, Mexico, and the US), we have been learning about native tribes of people (they're called "First Nations" in Canada) that were living in North America long before European settlers came.  We enjoyed an awesome 2-hour program with Mrs. Silvia from the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology in Providence, RI.  (Thank you, PCC!)  The program was called "Dig It!" and we learned all about archaeologists and how they uncover clues about ancient peoples.  We got to reconstruct pottery, count tree rings, and dig and sift for "clues" in an archaeological site!  Check out the photos below!

Math - We finished our study of multiplication and took our first online test!  We learned how to multiply using the Windows method and the area model.  These are two ways to multiply that involve breaking up numbers into tens and ones and finding partial products!  We have been working hard on reading, thinking about, solving, and checking our answers to word problems.  Sometimes word problems are not what they seem!  Sometimes we do a ton of work and then never really answer the question!  We've been working hard on doing thoughtful math work.  This week, we're starting with division.  We worked on division fact families and extended division facts.  We are continuing to practice our multiplication and division facts daily!  We're working on getting multiplication and division facts through 12x12.  We can do it with daily fact practice!

Writing - We have done a lot of work with our fiction stories and are now starting to draft!  We looked carefully at some "expert" fiction leads in published picture and chapter books.  We tried to write some "inspired" leads based on the ones we really loved.  Next, we'll be drafting our fiction stories using our timelines and planning boxes!  Stay tuned - these stories are going to be epic!  With our mix-it-up groups, we're working on writing scripts of our favorite scenes from The Sisters Grimm.  We've been collaborating using Google Docs and are working on including stage directions, lines for each character, and similes!  We can't wait to finish typing our scripts and presenting them to our classmates.

Reading - Now that we're done with The Sisters Grimm, we're starting a new read aloud book, Little Dog, Lost.  We did some pre-reading activities and learned that the book is about a stray dog and a boy that really wants a dog but can't get one.  We had a special visit from the Franklin Veterinary Clinic to help us learn more about pet ownership and stray animals!  It was a fun and informative presentation - check out the pictures below!  We're starting to read Little Dog, Lost this week - can't wait to tell you about it!

End-of-Week Update, 11/14

Congratulations to all of our Room 20 Student Council candidates -
Conor, Isabella, Destiny, Shaw, Joey, Tanaya, Anurag
Audria, Alex, Dora, Kelli, Emily, and Emma!
Also, big congratulations to Audria for being elected as Room 20's representative!

What we've been up to:

It's been a busy couple of short weeks in Room 20!

In math, we've been working on multiplication a lot.  We have been multiplying by multiples of 10 and 100 and using our basic facts to solve trickier multiplication problems all the way up to 4-digit by 1-digit and 2-digit by 2-digit products!  We've been using the area model (see the photos below) to illustrate our multiplication work with base-10 blocks and shaded grid paper.  We've also used the Windows Method to show our partial products.  We're getting pretty quick and accurate at multiplying big numbers!  Now we're working on avoiding careless errors (like copying mistakes or addition mistakes), practicing our facts (through 12 x 12!), and reading and thinking about multiplication word problems carefully before solving.  Our multiplication test is this Friday!  Mrs. Adams says that the biggest thing we can do to prepare is to practice our facts!

In writing, we've been working on our fiction pieces!  We chose seed stories, developed our characters, identified the theme of our stories, and planned the scenes in our stories using a comic strip!  We storytold our drafts to a Mix-It-Up partner and we're ready to start drafting soon!

In reading, we've been really busy with finishing up The Sisters Grimm.  We've been working on collecting more evidence for our theme posters and we read the last chapter with Miss Farrell's class on Friday!  We loved that Granny Relda and Mr. Canis were alive, that Daphne and Sabrina's parents are alive, and that Puck is moving in (even though Sabrina isn't too happy about that).  We started our latest "Mix-It-Up" technology project with Miss Farrell's class.  We're cooperatively writing scripts of our favorite scenes from The Sisters Grimm using Google Doc's.  Since all the group members can type in the same document at the same time, we can write the script together!  We can't wait to finish writing our scripts so we can start practicing and perform them soon.  Stay tuned!

In social studies, we've been continuing our study of Canada - including the five different climate zones in Canada, some important industries in Canada's economy, and the First Nations (Native American) tribes of Canada.

One more full week until Thanksgiving and we're going to be really busy!

What's coming up:

• Haffenreffer Museum presentation - Thursday, 11/20.  Be sure to ask your Room 20 student all about this first of four outstanding enrichment programs brought to 4th grade by the PCC!
• Multiplication test will be on Friday, 11/21.  Use the purple study guide (2-sided) to help your child prepare for the test.  Mastery of basic multiplication facts is essential!  Keep up that fact practice at home - at least 10 min a day!

Spotlight on Tyler!

Room 20 was so  happy to hear about Tyler's big news - he has a new furry family member, Fenway!  Fenway is a labradoodle puppy and we think he's extremely adorable.  We can't wait to hear all about the fun adventures Tyler and his family will enjoy with their new pet!

Welcome, Fenway!

Student Council Speeches!

Election Day isn't until Wednesday for JFK Student Council candidates, but the campaign speeches happened today and Room 20 students have one very difficult decision to make!

Check out the videos of Room 20 candidates below!  We are so proud of all of them for having the bravery and determination to run for Student Council.  There may be only one winner of the election, but everyone who gave a speech today was a winner for putting themselves out there!  Great job today - Dora, Destiny, Anurag, Shaw, Audria, Joey, Conor, Emma, Tanaya, Alex, and Kelli!

End-of-Week Update, 10/31

A Mixed-Up Halloween with our friends from Room 21!

Happy Halloween from Room 20!  We had an incredible week that ended with an awesome Halloween!

In math, we worked hard to learn and practice traditional addition and subtraction, even with zeros in the top number!  We took our Topic 4 test on Thursday and tried to avoid the "WATCH OUT" careless errors that we listed earlier last week.

In writing, we've started thinking about our fiction stories!  We watched a Pixar short video called "Partysaurus Rex," to see an example of a "seed" fiction story.  If we watched "Toy Story," that would be a watermelon, for example.  We wrote "back-of-the-book blurbs" for "Partysaurus Rex" that included the setting, characters, and the problem.  In the computer lab, we typed them up as our first Google document!

We've been reading more of The Sisters Grimm as well!  We started working in small groups based on what we think the theme of the book is (from what we've read so far).  We have groups for the themes of "courage," "determination," "perseverance," and "kindness."  We're collecting evidence from the book as we read to prove that we've chosen the best theme!  We can't wait to read more next week.

For Halloween, we celebrated by having a short Mix-it-Up Day with our friends from Room 21.  We completed some Halloween math activities and worked on following written directions to create origami masterpieces!

Next week is November!  We can't wait to see what we'll do in the next week / month!

End-of-Week Update, 10/24

Read about our Mix-It-Up Publishing Party below!

What we've been up to:

We laughed our pants off reading The Sisters Grimm this week as Sheriff Hamstead lost his pants on a barbed wire fence!  We've really been enjoying our read aloud and we've been working hard trying to identify the theme (important lesson, overall message) in both The Sisters Grimm and our own Readers Workshop books.  We've been trying to use characters, the problem and solution in the book, and other events in the plot as clues to help us determine the themes of the books we're reading.  We're even trying to think of themes as we watch movies!

In writing, we worked hard to finish revising and editing our second personal narratives!  We met with our writing partners and reflected on the goals we set at the beginning of these stories.  We re-read the advice we got from Mrs. Adams and from our families and made sure that these final copies were our very best!  The best part of the week, by far, was having a Mix-it-Up Publishing Party with our friends from Room 21 on Friday!  Check out the photos below.  First, we met in small mixed-up groups to share our stories aloud.  We made sure we read our stories with expression and pride (not like bored robots!) and we listened respectfully.  Then, we got to "pop" around from room to room and read all of the other personal narratives we didn't hear in our small groups.  We also left specific compliments for the authors of the stories we read.  Then, at the end, we enjoyed a page full of compliments for our own stories!  It was an awesome way to wrap up personal narratives.  Mrs. Adams and Miss Farrell told us that next week we're starting fiction - we're so excited!

In math this week, we wrapped up our study of place value, including rounding.  We took our Topic 3 quiz and already started in on Topic 4, which is all about addition and subtraction of BIG numbers!  We have been creating a "WATCH OUT" list of all of the common mistakes that fourth graders typically make when adding and subtracting including lining up the place values wrong, making fact errors, making regrouping (carrying) errors, doing the wrong operation, and making copying mistakes.  We didn't make the list to make ourselves feel badly, just so we can be on the look out for mistakes we can avoid!

In social studies this week, we learned about the 10 provinces and 3 territories in Canada as well as some important cities.  We saw photos of some cool places in Canada and are excited to learn more in the coming weeks!

In spite of some rainy weather this week, we've had some fun times during indoor recess!

Conor and Jeremiah with their mammoth creation!

Check out Joey's cartoon of everybody's favorite "pear shaped" sheriff - Sheriff Hamstead!

Tyler, Liam, and Cameron are aspiring cartoonists!

Check back in at the end of next week for some more fun (and spooky) updates!

What's coming up:

• Thursday and Friday (10/30 and 10/31) are half day for students due to parent / teacher conferences.  Please be in touch or check in Sign-Up Genius if you forgot your date / time.
• Topic 4 math test will be on Thursday.  Please see the purple study guide in your child's take home folder for more information on what will be covered!