Mrs. Williams - 4th Grade Homeroom

Math, Science, Religion

• An Amazon Classroom Wishlist link is now included under useful links. The items requested are ones that students frequently ask for and are used to enhance our learning and make our free time more exciting. We appreciate any contributions, but please do not feel obligated. New items will be added mid-November - I appreciate all of your generosity and support! 
• Many of our exciting, engaging activities used in the classroom to extend student's learning come from a collaboration website that we use to purchase materials/files. As you can imagine the cost of this does add up over time. Under useful links, you will find a Class Fund link that explains more. Any contribution would be greatly appreciated! 

Math: We are continuing to work on multiplication strategies - learning ways to solve larger equations using a variety of methods! Students will continue to receive homework nightly that coincides with the lesson of the day. They will also bring home either notes or their textbook to refer back to for support when completing homework. Please make sure that all books come back to school the next day and also take a quick scan at their homework. It is becoming more of an occurence that they have answers for all questions, but no work to back them up. Perhaps the homefront can reinforce the need to put forth best effort. Thank you!

Science: We are currently learning about Ecosystems and how organisms interact within them. Students will participate in a research-based activity where they'll create food chains from various ecosystems. We will also be learning good study habits and strategies to help them be more productive and successful when independently reviewing for assessments. 

Religion: We can't wait to show you our Saint Bloom balls! We learned so much about so many saints, as well as developed computer research skills that will help in other content areas too. We also learned that many of our students have outstanding artistic abilities!
We have been busy preparing our hearts for Jesus' arrival too! 

Math: We will continue to review order of operations, division with 2-digit divisors, and volume. Students who do not have strength in their math facts need to set aside time at home to build fact fluency. So often they are competent at the steps to solve a question and make errors in computation resulting in lower assessment grades then they'd like. 
We are currently beginning an extended time of fraction work. We have learned to make common denominators to add/subtract and will be moving into working with mixed numbers and improper fractions soon too. Students will master the skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with fractions before the winter is over!  

Science: In science, we are learning more about how living things grow and reproduce. This unit expanded on topics learned last year and students are much more comfortable with the material. Students will also be assigned their  second Scientist of the Month report which is due by Wednesday, December 21st. All pertinent information about this months project will be found in their science google classroom. 

Religion: Our fifth graders will be receiving religion instruction 3 times a week from Ms. Marino. Updates on topics they will be focusing on will be posted here, as well as, any important due dates for projects or assessments.