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!