Valentine's Day Activities

Yesterday was a busy day in fourth grade. In math we did some candy heart estimating. We talked about how useful the skill of estimating is in real-life. 

A fun Valentine's activity that we worked on the past few days was to make word clouds on the website imagechef.com. The fourth graders typed the things they love and chose the colors and fonts. 

What We're Doing

Today the fourth graders took a quiz in math class, but they also did some math problem solving in the form of word problems, Sudoku and Equato puzzles. 

This week the fourth graders enjoyed practicing their basic math facts 

by playing "Sumology" and "4-Way Countdown".

Dividing and Blogging

Division, specifically "long division with remainders", is the topic of study right now in math for all of the fourth graders. Because the algorithm can sometimes be confusing and pretty abstract, we have been using drawings, chips and base ten blocks to help us with dividing numbers.

Yesterday we used the website mathplayground.com. This is a great website for practicing math skills. We used "Dare to Share Fairly" on our whiteboard to practice division with remainders. It provides a great visual for the students to see the numbers being divided into groups.

Any extra practice at home on division would be very helpful! Division flashcards, math games on the computer as well as apps on iPads, iPods or phones are some suggestions.

Has your fourth grader told you about our Kidblog yet?  They are beyond excited about it! Kidblog is an online blogging tool for classrooms.  I used it with my first graders at Morning Sun Elementary for several years, so I knew the fourth graders at Mediapolis would do very well with it.  I introduced the kids to it last week and showed them how to log in on the iPads and they caught on very quickly!

The exciting thing about blogging is that the students' writing isn't hidden in a notebook in their desks at school. It is visible for others to read and comment on. We talked about reading each other's writings and leaving positive comments for each other. For their first posts the students were asked to use some of their spelling words.  Their writing isn't perfect, but it will give them the opportunity to work on their editing skills. 

I welcome you to check out our Kidblog and leave comments if you'd like! All posts and comments go through me first for approval. So, if you don't see your child's post or a comment you've left, that means it hasn't been approved or published yet.

We will continue to use Kidblog to write about various different topics. Stay tuned for next week's fun Kidblog posts! :)

https://kidblog.org/class/Mepo4-W

Lines and Angles

We have been busy in fourth grade learning about lines and angles. We've learned about parallel, intersecting and perpendicular lines. We've also learned how to measure angles and today we worked on constructing angles. The fourth graders think protractors are pretty cool! 

Below are some pictures from this week in my classroom...

Fourth graders working on the Problem of the Day and some review questions about lines.

MathAntics.com has excellent instructional videos that we use in our classroom.

This is part of the video that we watched on MathAntics.com about angles.

mathplayground.com has a great "game" for practicing measuring angles.

Here's a fourth grader using our new favorite tool...a protractor!

First In Math

Yesterday I introduced all of the Mediapolis 4th graders to the website: firstinmath.  

firstinmath.com

We went to the elementary library computer lab to explore the website. The students were able to check it out and try some of the activities and games. We will use this website throughout the year to get extra practice in math by playing games and completing tasks. Your child has his/her log in information and may access this website from home for more practice in math.

Be sure to ask your favorite 4th grader about firstinmath.com!

I'm Learning Too!

What have you been doing while your student teacher is full-time teaching in your room the past few weeks? In one word...READING! :) I have kept busy reading books and researching Math Workshop and Guided Math groups. I'm excited to get back into my classroom and apply what I've learned from all of my reading!

Words Their Way

As you probably know, we have begun a new spelling curriculum in all of the fourth grade classrooms. We are using "Words Their Way". Each student was pretested to determine which "word sort" they were developmentally ready for. For right now, we will spend two weeks on each "word sort". 

The fourth graders spend time sorting their words, writing sentences, looking up definitions, playing games (http://www.spellingcity.com/mepo4/) and highlighting spelling patterns in their words. By the end of the second week your child should be able to sort and spell all of the words in the sort.

Practicing words with a window marker.

Using the iPads to look up word definitions on dictionary.com

Playing games on Spellingcity.com to practice words.

Highlighting spelling patterns