Traveling Teddies

On November 18th, the furry members of Team Gibbas began their quests to explore various parts of the United States and to help us learn about the different regions of the United States. Students' teddy bears will be traveling to different states from now until April.  Teddy bears may report back to students about their travels via postcards, a travel journal, and/or send pictures and information to be posted on our Teddy Bear blog.  Our furry friends help us learn about the physical features, natural resources, landmarks, and major cities in each region.
Thank you, Teddy Bears for helping us learn.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Click here to follow our Teddy Bears on our Teddy Bear Blog!

Massachusetts Grade 4 Social Studies Common Core Standards Regions of the United States:

4.10 Identify the states, state capitals, and major cities in each region. (G)

4.11 Describe the climate, major physical features, and major natural resources in each region. (G)

Thanksgiving padlet

Essential Question:  What do good writers do to improve their writing?
Team Gibbas students have been working on the writing trait of sentence fluency to improve their writing.  Students have learned that good writing includes sentences with of varying lengths.  For longer, descriptive sentences students learned the useful tool of adding a series of three to their writing. Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on things that we are thankful for.  Today during writing students had the opportunity to express their gratitude and practice their newly learned writing tool of writing a series of three with the proper use of commas.  Students were highly engaged with this activity as they worked on their laptops and were able to see their padlet posts simultaneously appearing on our classroom blog.
Student Challenge - Can you figure out how to add a picture to your padlet post?

Created with Padlet

Bar Modeling Video

Essential Question:  How can we solve multi-step word problems by using bar models?

To learn how to use bar models watch the video below!  On Friday, November 6th, Mrs. Steinberg, our math specialist, led a group of parents in the discovery of how fun and useful bar models can be when solving math problems.



Bar Modeling from Mrs. Klipfel on Vimeo.

Grade 4 Common Core Standards: 4.OA.A.3  3. Solve multistep word problems posed with whole numbers and having whole-number answers using the four operations, including problems in which remainders must be interpreted. Represent these problems using equations with a letter standing for the unknown quantity. Assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies including rounding.

Literature Circles

Essential Question:  How does engaging in conversations enhance our understanding of a text?

Last week students began reading self selected realistic fiction books from several choices offered to the class. Students were assigned a certain of number of pages to read and be ready to discuss by Friday. Students were also asked to choose a passage that was meaningful to them and to describe the main characters with character traits and evidence from the text. On Friday students met with their Literature Circles for the first time and had meaningful and insightful conversations!

Students, comment below, describe how participating in a literature circle discussion deepened your understanding of the text.

Massachusetts Common Core Standards ELA Literacy Speaking and Listening

*SL.4.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

*SL.4.3 Identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points

Math in Focus Long Division

What better way to start the day than with long division the Math in Focus way?

Many parents started their day on Friday, October 30th practicing long division the Math in Focus way with Jen Steinberg, our math specialist.  Mrs. Steinberg led parents and some students through a few long division problems using the Math in Focus method and language which emphasizes place value.  Click on the video below to watch Mrs. Steinberg work through a division problem.

Helpful tip for long division:  Use your hand to cover up the numbers that you are not dividing so that you see only the place that you are dividing.

Massachusetts Grade 4 Common Core Standard
4.NBT.B.6  Find whole-number quotients and remainders with up to four-digit dividends and one-digit divisors, using strategies based on place value, the properties of operations, and/or the relationship between multiplication and division. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models.