Fourth Grade News

December 2023
A Peek at our Month
Upcoming Dates Reading
Our focus in reading this month is to practice stopping
December 5-7: MAP Testing to ask questions to help us understand what we are
(Reading) reading. We are also reading myths and using story
elements like plot, setting, and characters to help us gain
December 12-14: MAP Testing a deeper understanding. We will also be completing
(Math) our winter MAP testing.

December 21: Winter Class Party Math

In math this month we will study polygons,
December 22-January 2: NO SCHOOL quadrilaterals, triangles and all their attributes. We will
(Winter Break) be working on many vocabulary words such as point,
Reminders line, line segment, ray, angle, parallel, and
perpendicular. We also work on acute, obtuse, and right
-DRESS FOR THE WEATHER: Please angles. We will also be completing our winter MAP
make sure your child is dressed for testing.
the weather! Thanks!

-Assignment Notebooks: Please make

Science
In science we continue investigating how light allows an
sure you are checking students’
animal to see and survive in their environment.
assignment notebooks weekly as we
Throughout this unit we are working as conservation
write in these on Fridays.
biologists and we are trying to figure out why the
Tokay Geckos are unable to find their food and why
they are dying. Our goal is to come up with a solution
to save them!

Spelling
Week 11 Spelling Test - December 1
Week 12 Spelling Test - December 8
Week 13 Spelling Test - December 15
Week 14 Spelling Test - December 21
“To appreciate the beauty of a
snowflake it is necessary to
stand out in the cold.”
– Aristotle
Writing
This month we will do a “practice” performance
assessment focusing on narrative writing. We will read
an article, a journal, look at a map, collect notes and
write a narrative from that information about the
westward movement and the pioneers. We will do most
of this together to learn how to use the evidence from
the text to write a narrative story. We will start our unit
on opinion writing. We will listen to a couple essays to
determine the author’s opinion. We also generate a list
of the students’ opinions to write about!