Welcome to Fourth Grade!
Mrs. Linda Skrzyniarz
 

It is hard to believe that the holidays are just around the corner and that snow is on its way! We have many fun projects going on in fourth grade which will carry us through to the new year.

In Writing, students are word processing with ibooks to write their final drafts of our classroom yearbook. Yearbooks will be published in the spring. Students have also used our new wireless internet access (thank you, Mrs. Whittaker!) to access images of bats we have been studying in Science. Each student was assigned a particular bat last month and has been researching facts about the bat’s description, habitat, diet, and other interesting facts. These facts have been organized using Thinking Maps. Each student will be writing a five paragraph report about their bat. These reports will be shared with the rest of the class in January.

Any research you can help your child do at home would be very helpful.

We are currently reading our last E.B. White children’s book, The Trumpet of the Swan. After watching the videos of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, most students agree that the books tell better stories :)

Very soon, fourth graders will begin their annual collection for the Reformer Christmas Stocking. Needy children from our local area will benefit from this worthy cause. Before passing the donations on to the charity, we will be studying the money collected during a Numismatist unit in Social Studies. (We will also spend some math time counting the

money!) We will be learning about the history of American money and celebrating the beauty of coins and currency from around the world. The unit will end with a classroom Numismatist Museum during which all students will have an opportunity to display their own coin and paper money collections from home. Thank you in advance for your generosity. We hope to send the Reformer a large donation!

We are currently in the middle of our third Investigations math unit. A newsletter was sent home recently describing our activities as students tackle 2 digit multiplication. Many students have mastered their 100 multiplication facts and some are still in the process. Continued practice at home with these facts would be beneficial to everyone.

Students will be tested every Friday with a three minute times test of all 100 factor pairs. Results will be graphed by the students to highlight individual progress.

We will be starting a new Science unit in December about Forces and Motion. We continue to study nutrition with the Brattleboro Food Coop volunteer, Meredith. She will be in our classroom again on Nov. 28th and Dec. 19th. Our last two ELF lessons have been about Spiders and Webs and Variations on a Leaf. In the holiday spirit, our December topic is Cones!

In Social Studies, we are in the midst of a map project. Students have learned the 5 parts of a good map, and are now applying it to a map of their own design. Hopefully, the maps will be finished before our December vacation.

The fourth graders are again the stars of the holiday concert on December 12th at 6:30PM. Students have diligently been learning their lines and songs for Mrs. Corey’s December in America show. Hope to see you there!

Our Christmas party will be on Thursday, December 20th at 2:00 PM. There will be a small gift exchange. Details will be sent home in a few weeks.

I enjoyed meeting with you during Parent conferences. If you were unable

to meet with me then, it is not too late !!

Mrs. S.