Learning About Our World

One of the many things I love about Phillips is the Core Knowledge Curriculum and as part of Core Knowledge we have been learning about the mountain systems of our planet.  Mountains cover one fourth of Earth and are found on every continent.  We spent more than three weeks studying mountains through our Mountain Trek webquest.  You can see that at www.mountain-trek.wikispaces.com.  

We spent a long time reading, learning how to take notes, and writing.  We learned about organizing the information by main idea and supporting details.  Then we created our Mountain Trek Field Guides.  You will be able to see them when you come to parent/teacher conferences this week.  I have been doing this project for three years, and these are the best field guides I have seen.  

Our science unit, Earth Materials, is a perfect compliment to the Mountain World Geography unit.  So we have also been reading and learning about rocks and minerals.  On Friday, we observed mineral samples of quartz, calcite, fluorite, and gypsum.  Then we conducted scratch tests to determine the hardest mineral of the four.  Ask your student what they learned.

Next week we will be conducting experiments to determine which rock samples contain calcite.  

We have a lot going on in 4th grade.  Come to Parent/Teacher Conferences this week to check out some of the things we have been doing.  Also, don't forget about the PTA book sale that will be going on in the gym.

Books and Calendars

Last Friday we completed our big Mountain Trek Webquest when we turned in our Mountain Field Guides. This week we took a reading post test for our first unit in reading and the pretest for unit 2. Our classroom is always busy. To help parents know more about the things we are doing. I created a class calendar for important dates. Notice the tab labeled Calendar at the top of this page. I will do my best to keep this updated.

 Did you notice the Shelfari Bookshelf on the right hand side of this blog? Watch this shelf fill up with the books we are reading. The first read aloud book of the year was Fourth Grade Rats by Jerry Spinelli. To go with our mountain unit, we are now reading the classic book, Heidi by Johanna Spyri.