Week of 5.23 - 5.27

We had a great week:  author visit, talent show, 5th grade picnic... the list goes on.  This was our last week for spelling, and next week will be our last week of math and science!  (The week after is so jam packed with field trips and such, we'll be busy enough without).  Please remind your students to bring water bottles as the weather (finally) gets warmer.

4th Grade Math:   We completed a fun mini-project related to percents this week!  With a budget and a timeframe, the kids were challenged to divide up their time and money as they wished, tracking it along the way.  We had vacations to Hong Kong, Miami, and everywhere in between!  It was a lot of fun working through the planning, and the project required practice in multiplication, division, fractions, percents, calculator usage, graphing, and time calculation.  What a way to end our year in math!


Reading:  Most of our book clubs are wrapping up their books.  The kids have really enjoyed their time together; working with other classmates in a small setting has offered opportunities for the kids to model reading fluency, comprehension, discussion, inferencing, vocabulary, sequencing, and group planning.  They've learned to schedule their time in and out of the classroom.  They've also practiced compromise when taking turns reading, offering their opinions, or planning their "homework." 

Next week we'll also finish Tuck Everlasting!  The plot has gotten very exciting during the last few chapters: our main character was kidnapped and a stranger bribed her family with the promise to bring her home if they sold him their woods!  We've enjoyed discussing the ideas of living forever within a whole society that drank the pond water.  The kids have realized that not all pros and cons can be listed as separate line items:  in some cases, a pro can actually also be a con!

Miscellaneous:
The kids only need to earn 7 more class paws to reach their goal of 60!  We're hoping they'll achieve their goal by end of next week so we can celebrate their collaborative effort to remain a respectful, responsible 4/5 class.