Writing, Writing, Writing

Phew!  Students made a huge effort to complete their persuasive essays this week and most were able to!  Today they shared their work with some of their peers and a short 'round robin' of reading.  As you may have noticed, the expectations (standards) for third and fourth grade writing are rigorous!  In this case students had to compose a four paragraph essay with a strong internal structure and persuasive language.  What do I mean by a strong internal structure?
Introduction:  The introduction needs a background information, a strong claim and two reasons supporting the claim.
First paragraph:  This paragraph needed a topic sentence about the first reason and evidence to support it.
Second paragraph:  This one was to prove the second reason supports the strong claim.
Conclusion:  The conclusion restates the introduction and adds a little final thought.
See what I mean?  That's a lot.  Add to it persuasive language, correct spelling and punctuation and you can see why this unit has taken eight weeks.  Some students may choose to post their essays on their blog.  At any rate you'll see the essays with the scoring rubrics attached at our conferences.

Speaking of conferences, I hope you have received a link to the sign up document.  Please let me know if you are having any trouble with that.

Students have also been doing some great writing that you can read on our blog.  There you might read about March Math Madness, The Red Clover books being read to us or how students shared their persuasive essays.

All students are now in guided reading groups.  The titles we are currently reading are Charlotte's Web, The Anybodies, Twister on Tuesday, Ralph S. Mouse and Frindle.  In addition, we have finished The BFG which we LOVED and we have begun Flora and Ulysses.  With guest readers reading Red Clover books almost every day, silent reading, group work and Read Aloud, we are getting some great literature studies in.  We all love stories, that's for sure.

In math grade four is practicing measurement.  We have worked with measurements of time, length and volume.  Students are consistently asked to make computations of these measurements.  They are also constructing ration tables.

We continue to talk as a class about mindful behaviors, the quality of our work and how we interact with each other.  Students have taken over running Morning Meetings and our Theme Shares were a great success.

Reminders:

Here are two FAP fund raising opportunities for you to contribute to!  (FAP helps  fund our programming.  Specifically those funds help with field trips and special projects such as building instruments with the engineers.)

• Next week is the last week to contribute to our Backyard Fun Big Basket.
• The Lucky You raffle takes place next week only.  Please see the School Bell for details.  

Enjoy the weekend!