Reading
This week, students continued working hard to meet their read-a-thon goals by finishing their book club books! Starting next week, students will begin working on a summative assessment to show the knowledge they gained through their reading. Many students have chosen a creative way to express their understanding, and will be using a combination of writing and art to show their thinking. If time allows, students will be presenting their ideas in a presentation that will try to convince their peers as to why they should read their book club book!
Math
This week, students continued working with customary units. We focused on creating conversion tables and finding the sum and difference of problems involving mixed units of capacity, length, and time. Students also participated in solving multiplication story problems by using their knowledge of measurement.
Inquiry
This week, students continued exploring our new PYP unit of inquiry, Sharing the Planet. In order to learn how natural resources have a structure and function within a community, we dove deeper into the use of water. Students used estimation and graphing to discover the surprising difference in the amounts of fresh and salt water we have here on Earth. We also constructed an explanation about the existence of underground water. Students played a game using maps in which they obtained and combined information about groundwater in order to select the best site for building a potential new town. We ended our week by learning about different landforms, and how map makers use topography to show the physical features of an area. All of this background knowledge will be used to gain a better understanding of watersheds, as students build their own starting next week.
Field Trip
4th grade has launched its PYP Inquiry unit on Natural Resources. Students will be investigating concepts related to sharing the planet: An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.The central idea will be that natural resources have a structure and function within a community.As a class, we will form answers to the following lines of inquiry:
How watersheds work (function), Ways of maintaining balance (connection), and Community’s effects on environment (responsibility)
As part of our inquiry we will be taking a field trip to the Cedar Mill Wetlands on Tuesday, June 12th. This location is off Barnes Rd. just before NW 118th. The students will be leaving West TV at 12:20pm and we expect to arrive at our destination within ten minutes. We will head back to the school around 1:45pm.
During this field trip students will be going to different stations to test water quality, look for indicators of a healthy watershed, and make observations. We are asking for at least eight volunteers to help at the stations. We will have volunteer training the Friday before the trip, 6/8 at 3:30pm. In order to volunteer you will need to attend the training on 6/8, have a completed background check through the office, and be able to provide your own transportation to the field trip location. Please let me know if you are interested in volunteering for this field trip no later than Tuesday, June 5th.
Rummage Sale
Do some spring cleaning in the next few weeks and save your "Goodwill" items for our very first Rummage Sale! We will begin to collect donations in June and the sale date is set for Saturday, June 9. Donate gently used goods to help raise money to pave the path. Rummage Sale Flyer
Upcoming Dates
- Tuesday, May 1st-31st- Walk/Ride Your Bike to School Month
- Monday, May 28th- Memorial Day- No School
- Tuesday, May 29th- Reading Logs due/Vocabulary Test
- Wednesday, May 30th- Continent Club
- Thursday, May 31st- Friday June 1st- PYP Authorization Visit
- Tuesday, June 5th- Field Trip Permission Slips Due