Yay! We're half way done with our STAAR assessments!
The kiddos were perfect last week as they were put through the wringer. By Friday their poor brains were completely fried. I think some of us are still a little on the fritz :)
Here is what we're covering this week...
Language Arts
We are wrapping up our summarizing unit this week. We've been reading and writing summaries for fiction and nonfiction text. This is a skill that students have been working on for quite some time, but still struggle with regularly. Students have a tendency to retell a story instead of focusing on just the important information. We are also going to review the difference between fact and opinion. Sometimes the difference isn't as obvious as you would think.
Math
Everyone did a great job on their math assessment last week! This week we are moving on to combinations and probability. Today we learned different ways to find out how many combinations we can made with a given set of data. We will continue to look at combinations until Wednesday, when we'll switch gears to probability.
Science
This week we are going to wrap up our animal and plant adaptations unit. We are working on an adaptations book where students will pick an environment and write about how plants and animals use their adaptations to survive there. The book is due on Friday. Next week we will start life cycles and food chains.
Texas History
We are reading our Texas Weekly in class during reading. Students are using the articles to help them practice summarizing and identifying fact and opinions. This week we are reading about Texas after the Civil War.
Homework
Students have a regular round of homework this week. Their word sort this week focuses on Greek and Latin roots of words. Students are responsible for memorizing the meanings of the prefixes and root words. Email me if you have any questions.
Fourth Grade 411
Spelling test, library, buddies, and an assembly on Friday.