Weekly Updates February 2024
Week of January 29th-February 2nd
Upcoming Dates:
Dodgeball Fundraiser - 2/8/24
No School for Students - 2/9/24
Health and Safety Lessons - 3rd Grade 2/15-2/23
No School - 2/19/24
4th Grade
This week 4th graders learned to identify Symbolism in stories. They were able to identify and explain symbolism used on The One and Only Ivan. They published their descriptive writing essays. Since we completed our descriptive writing on Wednesday, the students were given options for the rest of the week. They could write a play or a newspaper article based on one of the court cases we are reading about in Social Studies.
3rd Grade
We focused on Point of View in a story. We decided that the POV of Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is important. It's told from Edward's pov so it's a fantasy story. If it had been told from Abilene's pov, it would be realistic fiction. We discussed character traits and how characters can slowly change throughout a story. We used context for unfamiliar words. Third graders published their research papers about their animal of choice. They learned to focus on a topic and research that topic into subcategories.
Week of Feb 5th-9th
Upcoming Dates:
Valentine's Day
Health and Safety Lessons - 3rd Grade 2/15-2/23
No School - 2/19/24
4th graders had a minilesson on how the setting of a story can effect the mood. We had an excellent discussion about the setting of One and Only Ivan and how Ivan's perception of his setting changes as the story continues. We also found ways the author set the mood for the reader using the setting. We are working on expository writing. Students selected their topics and will learn to use trusted sources. We finished Social Studies unit 3 and will begin Unit 4 which focuses on the Midwest (the best!) region.
3rd graders are having awesome discussions about Edward Tulane and how his character is slowly changing. They are learning to identify his emotions and what causes them. The wonderful Ms. Busch is leading a lesson on writing biographies. They selected their person of study and will work on the steps of writing a biography in the next few weeks. We will start personal healthy and safety next Thursday. Thank you for reaching out if you do not want you child to participate.
3rd grade students may bring Valentine's for our homeroom celebration on Wednesday. They are not required to bring them but if they do, they should bring one for each student.
Week of February 12th-16th
We had a very fun Valentine's Da this week. Both classes passed out Valentines to their classmates.
4th Grade
We completed section 6 of The One and Only Ivan. Students led a discussion about symbolism and setting. We also worked on our expository writing and research. I am going to learn a lot about classic video games and Taylor Swift!
3rd Grade
We continued working on our writing unit on Biographies with Ms. Busch. We also continued our study of Edward Tulane. Students learned to use text evidence to make inferences. We also began our student health and safety lesosns.
Week of February 26th -March 1st
Upcoming Dates:
Decatur Together Party - 3/16
IAR Testing 3rd-5th - 3/19-3/21*
* headphones will be provided for students testing, but they may also use their own from home.
4th Grade
This week students reviewed different types of conflict in stories. They were able to identify the conflict in One and Only Ivan. This lead to interesting conversations about Man vs Nature when the main protagonists are technically part of nature. We switched the Point of View to the human characters to identify the conflict. We also published out expository writing projects. Students learned to write a thesis statement, include nonfiction text features in their writing and cite their sources. We finished lesson 3 in Unit 4 in our social studies unit. We read about the steel and auto manufacturing in the Midwest and what prompted people to migrate to the Great Lakes cities.
3rd Grade
This week students continued working on their biographies. They created topic sentences for each section and started drafting their paragraphs. We read more of Edward Tulane and had lessons on inferencing and drawing conclusions based on what we know about the character. In Science we continued our exploration of Balance and Motion. Students have been making chain reactions using multiples types of force.