Samarkand Trip!

Happy Navruz Everyone! 

Spring  has sprung, flowers are blooming, and we are finally eating outside again!

4P has been busy.  We are working on two mathematics units at once:  Solids and Silhouettes, dealing with 3-dimensional shapes in our world, and Sunken Ships, which works the coordinate grid and plane geometry.  We are using our technology time for the Sunken Ships, and Mr. DiMatteo is doing a great job teaching us.  These units will be coming to a close next week.

We are also closing out our Artifact Unit, and working hard in Publisher to create our book. The kids are doing a great job adapting to their different situations in their research. They should be proud of themselves with this! Books should be ready to build by the end of next week: our collaborative artifact.

Our trip to Samarkand was a great success. The students observed and learned about carpet making from the first to last steps. Mr. Abdullah was a fabulous host, showing us around his workshop and his gallery. The ladies who make the carpets also kindly allowed us to make some knots in some very valuable carpets! We took a different point of view at the Registan as well, looking at the buildings mathematically and as pertains to our categories of artifact study. Kids had fun; the fast train was very fast, and we are hoping that they returned home tired and satisfied. Students are now working on their Samarkand books and they are nearly ready to send home. 



Here are some pictures of our trip!

Happy New Year!



The ABC's of Thinking

4P were the stars of the January Assembly!  We gave a short but important presentation about the attribute of Thinking.  Each student took a letter of the alphabet and found a "thinking" word for that letter.  The whole WAS greater than the sum of its parts and the show was well received.  Students spoke loudly and clearly, without microphones.

Mathematics:  Introducing Division

Students have worked with division before, of course, but this year we will dive deeper.  We are currently exploring real-life division situations and are working on our own division stoies in groups.  Students are understanding that division is related to multiplication and Fact Families have reared their heads!  The lesson:  it's always important to know your multiplication facts and it's NEVER too late to learn them!  Please work on multiplication facts at home.  Mathletics is a great thing to do on the weekends and a super way to review, as are the games that were sent home last month.

Weather

Students are inquiring and learning about the many variables that affect weather.  We have discussed and demonstrated the causes of the seasons and are learning the difference between climate and weather.  We have also read some Pourquoi (why) stories which give reasons for natural phenomena.  In our book groups we read the Greek and Roman versions of Persephone, or Prosepina, and the Seasons.  We will be writing our own Pourquoi stories next week during Language Arts.  We will also be building anenometers to measure the wind and barometers to measure air pressure next week.  We have hung thermometers around school and are recording two readings a day in order to make a double-lined graph on Excel when we are finished our data collecting.  Students will culminate the unit by writing a collaborative book with 4H called One Day in January, in which we research weather all around the world on the same day.  Each student will choose a city and create their own page of the book!

Activity Moves Inside in January. . .

I was lucky enough to watch students perform a short gymnastics routine that they have been choreographed in P.E. class.  Your kids sure do like to move!  Here are a few pictures of the routines.  Can you find your child?????

                                           Happy January!  Stay warm out there!

Mysteries and New Beginnings

November, the month of migration movies, rains, and fantasy-inspired puppets is over.  The students performed lively puppet shows during their book presentations:  the Cups o' Characters were a big success!  They were carefully done and visually stimulating.  Students used them effectively to illustrate the characters and action in their fantasy books.

We have officially finished our migration unit.  Students have taken away a deeper understanding of where and how humans migrate, and what the consequences of those migrations are.  Each 4th grader read and reviewed a book about migration.  We shared our reviews with all 4th graders on Monday, when we combined classes with 4H and read and commented on one another's reviews. We then used those reviews to choose a migration book to read that day.

Filip and Neil reviewing reviews.

Maya and Filip use post-it notes to write to the reviewer.

Ryouta, Shunta and James thinking hard!

Fotima chooses Grandfather's Journey.

4H ers, Christen, and Fotima with a wall of books.

November gives way to a short December full of mysterious shadow plays, weather study, and multiplication.  Many students have already finished their mystery novels and are ready to present, while others are reading longer books and need more time.  FYI:  January's book presentations should be based on a book of historical fiction.  I will make sure that students have time to choose one to read over the 3 week holiday!

A New Unit of Inquiry

We will begin our Weather Unit tomorrow.  We will be charting and graphing the weather daily, learning the difference between weather and climate, identifying all kinds of weather, and making a Weather Around the World book in technology.  We will begin our study of weather by analyzing weather folklore from our own countries.  In the U.S., two of our sayings are "Red sky at night, Sailors delight,/Red sky in the morning, Sailors take warning," and "April showers bring May flowers."  Please help your child out by teaching him or her some weather proverbs from your own country! 

We continue to look at how multiplication works and how understanding that can help us remember the basic facts.  We have focused on arrays. We will be using Cuisenaire rods (a new tool that we explored last week).  These tools can help students conceptualize multiplication in addtition to memorizing their multiplication facts!

Cuilsenaire rods

Students know many of their facts but they need to continue to practice at home.  Some good websites for students to practice on are:  http://www.mathsisfun.com/tables.html, http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/multiplication, http://www.funbrain.com/math/index.html, http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/math-trainer-multiply.html, and for a challenge, try

http://www.angelfire.com/me/marmalade/mathtips.html

During the holidays, please consider the artifact that your child will be using for our Artifact Unit.  I have spoken and read to the students about this, and am sending emails with full explanations to parents today.

Happy December!

A Rainy November

As the rain floods the fields outside, 4P takes refuge and comfort indoors.  Kids in 4H and 4P have actually enjoyed gathering with their friends during indoor recess and playing card games, Connect 4, Scrabble, reading, and drawing together.  We are being careful to keep ourselves warm and dry, and to leave in the afternoon with all of the jackets and shoes we brought in the morning!  We do indoor exercise whenever possible, with stretches and balances to challenge our brain/body coordination.

Don't bend those knees!

Alexander, Maya, James and Neil balance in tree pose:  Try both feet.  How long can you hold it?

Pumpkin Love

Pupkin the pumpkin is enjoying lots of attention from 4P!  He started as a pristine vegetable from Askiya Market, and is now undergoing many changes.  We are observing and measuring these changes in our Pumpkin Journals, as well as using Pupkin as a writing prompt to explore descriptive writing and parts of speech.  Some pumpkin adjectives generated by 4P on day 17 of its life are:  fuzzy, withered, soft, moldy, stinky, ugly, and gross.

Day 1

Day 17 - fuzzy and moldy!

Austin enjoys his pumpkin journal.

Pen Pals

We have just received letters and photos from a 4th grade class in Chicago, Illinois.  They were beautifully written and we are working on our own masterpieces to return the correspondence.  The kids were really excited and are now sharing the details of their very foreign life in Tashkent.  It is great to have communication with people so far away and in such a different situation.  The kids are quite satisfied with this project.

James enjoys his pen pal.

Ms. Gulnoza

Ms. Gulnoza has take Ms. Sevara's place temporarily.  She is an experienced teacher and is an enthusiastic assistant.  She knows all of the children's names so far and is sharing her many talents with them.  We welcome her happily to TIS fourth grade!

Ms. Gulnoza, having a serious moment!

That's it!  Have a great week!  We can't wait to see you on Friday at 2:45 in Lab C!

Most photos by Christen Kim!

Students in 4P Explore and Inquire!

Taking a quick look back, 4P has done some cool stuff.  Check out our Body Systems Unit activities, and along with other happenings. . .

Boys blow air into the lung models.

Girls can, too!

Filip and Shunta demonstrate upside eating, and peristalsis!

Edel teaches us a thing or two about our brains.

Tanya keeps an impeccable reading journal.

Neil gives 110%  on his homework.  Yum!

Uz News: 4P Is Now On the Move

                            Hello 4P students and parents!  Time for blogging!

A great class!

       We have now graduated with high honors from our Body Systems Unit.  The children enjoyed it and learned a lot.  A huge thanks for support at home and attendance at the health fair!  Body Systems folders are coming home this weekend along with the first mathematics assessments.  Both should be signed by parents and returned to school!  I encouraged you to discuss these with your child and ask meaningful questions about their learning experiences.

Working on posters!

       Our next Unit of Inquiry is On the Move:  Human Migration Transforms People and Places.  Students will inquire into their own moving or non-moving situations and the effects that it has upon their lives and surroundings, and will interview a person in our community that has made a permanent migration.  Each child will create a documentary about that person, which will be shown to all during our "film festival" in late November.  We will incorporate Lanugage Arts into this unit, as well as Geography.

  

       Our new math unit, The Shape of the Data, is an introduction to collecting, representing, describing, and interpreting data.  We have already collected some data at home and school and are working on effective ways to represent it.  As a final project, classes will create a set of information collected about their grademates, and try to come up with statistics that represent and "average" 4th grader.  You might find that therr are many opportunities to collect data around your home.  Which color or make of car is the most common on your street?  Why might that be?  Are there more dogs or cats in your neighborhood?  Collecting and thinking about data and what it means can be pretty interesting!

Recess friends


Happy November, Everyone!