End-of-Week Update, 2/28

Fourth grade mathletes ready to compete!

Representing 21 different countries with flags and medals - Measurement Olympics was a blast!

What we're up to:
The music of the bugle, the waving of the flags, the shining of the medals and all the fourth grade mathletes in the gym (in their PJs!) - that's how the 1st Annual Math Olympics started at Kennedy Center (aka the gym).  In the past couple of weeks, we traveled to different fourth grade classes with our teams to learn about measurement - distance, weight, liquid capacity, and time.  In our Fourth Grade Olympics, we had 5 events!  One event was Luge with Mrs. Perry (our favorite) in which we measured time and had to race on a scooter board and put fluffy balls of yarn into a bucket.  Another favorite event was speed skating with shoebox speed skates.  Other events included the snowball shotput, the snowflake discus, and the hockey slap shot.

We were PSYCHED that Dawn Cusick, author of Bug Butts wrote to Mrs. Adams before vacation!  In her "shout out," she said she was happy we'd enjoyed and learned from her nonfiction book.  We couldn't resist asking her questions of our own about what it's like to be a nonfiction author.  She wrote back and gave us lots of advice on tables of contents, research, and considering our audience!  Then we got to work on our own nonfiction books!  We started by picking a topic that we know a lot about and organizing our tables of contents.  You can organize a table of contents in lots of different ways.  One way is to organize by questions, another way is by putting chapters in an order or sequence, and the most popular way was by organizing by different topics.  We then gathered information about our topics to help us fill in ideas for our different chapters.  Towards the end of the week, we gathered books and websites as research and added them to our fact pages.  Next week, we're going to start drafting!

In reading, we have been reading nonfiction books at school and at home.  At home, we've been using a new nonfiction bookmark to track our thinking.  We have four different tasks to complete in response to our nonfiction reading.  We're very close to finishing James and the Giant Peach!  Check out next week's blog for some cool projects!

In social studies, we finished the United States and had our Southwest quiz before vacation.  We started a new unit in science about heredity and animal adaptations!  In PE, we are collecting and donating money for Jump Rope for Heart with Mrs. Perry.  In music, Caroline earned Room 20's first black belt!  Go Caroline!  We are trying to keep up consistent at-home practice so we can all earn all our belts.  On Friday, we earned a movie with our specialist points and enjoyed "Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked" with our stuffed animals.  We think the theme was growing up, not holding grudges, and being responsible for your choices.

What's coming up / Notes from Mrs. Adams:

• All next week is Read Aloud week!  We'll be doing lots of different activities in school and I encourage parents to read aloud with their children at home.  Nonfiction makes fun reading aloud as do favorite picture books!  Just because your child can read independently does not mean the benefits of reading aloud go away - have fun and celebrate Read Aloud week!
• Next Tuesday, 3/4 is the Barnes and Noble book fair in Bellingham.  I will be a "celebrity reader" at some point from 6 PM - 7 PM.  Come join in the reading fun!
• Next Wednesday, 3/5 is a full-day professional workshop day for teachers, so no school for students!