It's hard to believe it's the last day of September. Whew, time is flying by! 

     So much has been happening in fourth grade and so much is to come next week. Wednesday and Thursday are big days for fourth graders! A winged visitor will visit on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning is Donuts with Dad and we'll be dissecting owl pellets right after that. Please don't worry if no one is available that morning to come in, as we'll be buddy up if we need to.
     It's time to turn in your cookie dough packets. Wow, we sure do have super sellers! We are neck in neck with Mrs. Wrigley's class. Conferences are right around the corner (Oct. 19, 20, and 21st) so if you haven't returned the paperwork please send it back.

Reading: We have spent some time reading different genres and taking reading counts test this week together. Ask your reader about the progress they've made on their way to completing the first cone. Many of them have met the goal! While reading "A Walk in the Desert" we identified the most important details that led us to the main idea.

Writing: After learning about Jackson Pollock and abstract expressionism, we wrote a paragraph together using different types of elaborations. We used a checklist to help us revise and edit. We are ready to type it up now.

Math: Our target has been rounding to the nearest ten thousand and hundred thousand. We have used a vertical number line strategy and now we are working on looking at the value of the number in the place to the right of it.

Science: Big news! Fourth grade scientists are caring for living organisms. Ask about the structures and behaviors of the critters. Have them tell you what all living things need in order to survive.
We've also been learning about our incredible brain. Ask about the parts of the brain and their functions. Your scientist can tell you about the difference between the left side and the right side of that awesome organ.

Met with our Kinder buddies this week. What a special time! Listening to the fourth graders read to them was heart warming.

This week's one to answer: On a piece of paper that's named and claimed write 4 types of elaborations we can use as writers. Good luck!

And we're off! It's going to be a great year with all these awesome fourth graders!

Mission Impossible isn't impossible at all with team work.

Learning new vocabulary words and teaching them to the class!

Work hard every day and do your best! Be sure to read and complete your reading log. You need to read 100 pages per week. We'll celebrate every Friday with a self manager's celebration!

Math: Working with numbers to the millions place has been a math mouthful! Ask your mathematician about the many different ways we have been representing those big numbers.

Reading: Your reader should be able to tell you what it means to summarize a text. So far we've written a summary for "Living in Alaska" together. See if your reader can tell you about it. Learning about different genres to choose books for our nightly reading so we can pass cones is important so we had a "book tasting."

Writing: Painting using Jackson Pollock's unique technique led us into our first piece of writing. Ask your writer what we've put together so far. We've been working on learning words to help us jazz up our work. Your author should be able to tell you about interjections, strong verbs, adjectives, nouns, and adverbs.

Science: Our brain is an amazing organ! Ask your scientist what they know about how it works.

This week's one to answer: 10 x 2,500 is ____________
Write the answer down on a piece of paper and bring it back to school to enter the drawing. Be sure your name is on the paper.