Print this Page | 
- Our Family
4th Grade
LANGUAGE ARTS – Mrs. Ledergerber
A big thanks to all of you who were able to attend the Open House. It was wonderful to see you, and I hope you enjoyed your child’s work that was displayed throughout the building.
It’s amazing to me that the fourth quarter is already upon us and the school year will be winging down. I’ve enjoyed being a part of your child’s educational journey.
Our “Cocoa Breaks” have been a lot of fun. The children said they enjoyed doing them except for the times that they had to get up and talk about their book to the class.
I have shared some wonderful picture books, and I especially have enjoyed the projects. A big thanks to our parents who donated the hot cocoa for them.
Read, Read, Read! That has been our focus this last month since March is National Reading Month. Continue to send in those yellow slips each week. We are doing lots of extra reading in the classroom too! At the end of March we will gather to wrap up reading month and some lucky “readers” will be the recipients of some prizes.
April is poetry month, so we will be doing more with poetry. We will continue to do our “poetry passes” which the children enjoy.
In the month of May the children will be taking the Gates MacGinite test, which tests comprehension and vocabulary. The results will be sent home with your child’s final report card. I will let you know the exact date of the test so that you can make sure your child gets enough sleep the night before, and has a healthy breakfast.
Continue to encourage your child to keep up with their reading and their reading response journals. Often as fourth quarter begins some children get spring fever and begin to ease up on their work and the quality of their work is not there. Let’s stay focused because we have lots of learning to do.
MATH – Mrs. Anklin
Unit 8: Perimeter and Area --In previous grades, your child studied the perimeter (distance around) and the area (amount of surface) of various geometric figures. This next unit will extend your child’s understanding of geometry by developing and applying formulas for the areas of figures such as rectangles, parallelograms, and triangles.
Unit 9: Percents -- In Unit 9, we will be studying percents and their uses in everyday situations. Your child should begin finding examples of percents in newspapers and magazines, on food packages, on clothing labels, and so on, and bring them to class. Students’ collections will be used to illustrate a variety of percent applications. As we study percents, your child will learn equivalent values for percents, fractions, and decimals. For example, 50% is equivalent to the fraction ½ and to the decimal 0.5. The class will develop the understanding that percent always refers to a part out of 100.
Unit 10: Reflections and Symmetry -- In this unit, your child will take another look at geometry, with an emphasis on symmetry. Many objects in nature are symmetric: flowers, insects, and the human body, to name just a few. Symmetry is all around—in buildings, furniture, clothing, paintings, and so on. The class will focus on reflect ional symmetry, also called line symmetry or mirror symmetry, in which half of a figure is the mirror image of the other half.
SCIENCE – Mrs. Knape
Science projects were great. What a variety! Hope you had the opportunity to visit the Science Lab during Open House to see the displays. Students continue to share their projects with their classmates during oral presentations. We are learning many new things.
Final topics will include electricity, rocks and minerals, and the Solar System.
To celebrate Earth Day, a special celebration will take place April 22 from 3-5pm. More information will be coming soon.
SOCIAL STUDIES – Mrs. Machniak
The state of Michigan has recently made changes to the content curriculum of 3rd and 4th grade students across the state. We are being asked by the state to shift Michigan history to the 3rd grade. The fourth grade will continue with learning the location of their states, capitals, and abbreviations and to finish the year with the continued focus on the geographic regions of the states, highlighting geography, economics and trade, movement of goods and ideas, and the interpretation of different maps and graphs.
COMPUTER – Mrs. Still
The students will take digital pictures of each other and make trading cards to exchange with classmates. The cards will be made in Word, with two tables, one for the snapshot, and one for important personal information. This project will show students how to download pictures from a memory card and introduce them to the Picture formatting toolbar in Word.
The final project of the year will be creating Escher-like tessellations in Paint. This project will introduce them to the Free Form Select tool which is used to take nibbles out of a geometric shape that tessellates. They will also use the Copy/Paste editing command to create duplicates of their tessellation and save the completed project as a .jpg file.
SPANISH – Mrs. Machniak
The fourth grade will be finishing sports and the verb gustar. They will move to verbs and then finish the year with a study of Venezuela. This will include a general study of location, vocabulary, culture and literature.
RELIGION – Mrs. Wisniewski
Our religious education will continue to build upon the Faith Concepts of Christianity, with special emphasis the Church Liturgical Cycle and the role that Easter plays in that cycle. As a community outreach project, students are holding a fund-raiser to purchase fleece to make lap quilts for the local nursing care home residents. Students will continue using the Peace Education program.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION – Mrs. Anderson
Students have now begun a unit on hockey. We are working on the skills that are used to play through a few lead up games.
ART – Mrs. Machniak
It was wonderful to see everyone at the open house with their families. The fourth grade is finishing their origami villages incorporating texture, space, form and repetition. They will be moving to pattern as the element of study after break. We will be working with mosaics and looking at Italian and Islamic mosaics.
The fourth grade will finish the year with the principles of repetition and movement. The students will be working with bookmaking, mandalas and sculptures highlighting Haring, Calder, Moore, and Asian mandalas.
MUSIC – Mrs. Wisniewski
Fourth graders are working on reading music skills and continue to develop their ability to play the recorder this quarter. Recorder music is gradually becoming more complex as students progress through a “Recorder Karate” program. Students are being introduced to John Towner Williams among other composers in the upcoming quarter.
[ back to top ]