Reminders:
Please sign and return the permission slip your student is bringing home for the field trip to the Oakland Museum of California on Thursday, January 19 from 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
Please sign and return the permission slip your student is bringing home for the field trip to the Oakland Museum of California on Thursday, January 19 from 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
Homework:
4th grade math homework, due tomorrow
4th Grade Purple group: Complete JUMP packet 3
Option 1 (plum); also practice multiplication facts using your multiplication cards
Option 2 (periwinkle)
4th Grade Purple group: Complete JUMP packet 3
Option 1 (plum); also practice multiplication facts using your multiplication cards
Option 2 (periwinkle)
4th Grade Blue Group: Blue group homework pages.
Science homework (due tomorrow): Ocean Zone vocabulary homework is due tomorrow. Use of a dictionary, ocean resource book, and/or the Internet will be necessary for this assignment. The following are sites with ocean zone diagrams that may be helpful. There are many more available online.
Ocean Research Project: Today the students began the initial step of beginning research projects about an ocean related topic. Many students chose ideas from the letter they wrote to us in December about topics. Students were introduced to the research notebook and folder in which they will keep track of information, store print outs and any other collected information as they pursue their topic(s). Some students may study more than one topic. Our main goal right now is collecting and recording information and sources. As we progress the students will write short essays about their research, draw maps or diagrams and culminate with a student designed project to teach others about their topic.
California Gold Rush: Today was also our kick off for a Gold Rush simulation activity. While we are studying the Gold Rush, we are also reading By the Great Horn Spoon, by Sid Fleischman following the journey of two characters from Boston to the gold fields of California in 1849.
Fourth grade math: In the blue group today, the students reviewed subtraction, addition, factors, multiples and multiplication with "carrying." Students are learning to apply the multiplication algorithm to solve word problems discussing sets of items, which will help us gear up for division.
The purple group today counted around the class by 7's as a warm up, then explored today's questions: How can we tell when to use division versus multiplication? What do we do if we can't share evenly? Students looked at a variety of word problems and situations, to determine what they knew and didn't know, writing multiplication and division equations to solve these. We also looked at situations where the objects can't be divided equally, and a remainder is left behind. Someone pointed out that if the remainder is equal to or more than the number of sets, then you've made a mistake.
Fifth Grade Math: We started off the hour with a fun warm up of a class favorite, "Pico, Ferme, Bagel." Then moved into the tricky class work of converting fractions into percents by creating a fraction ad percents equivalents chart. This should help them with their homework tonight and overall with the rest of the unit.
