December 20, 2024

Fourth graders performed their play, American Beginnings- You’re Right, on Monday. They did and amazing job- and they can ACT!!!  They made all the props, and even had a student director and assistant director. Enjoy!!!

December 13, 2024

Fourth Graders had the BEST time celebrating Indiana’s 208th birthday at the Indiana State Museum today! Ruby did a fabulous job giving her speech, and we all had an amazing time exploring and learning about Indiana!

Students open their Advent calendar every morning after announcements. Each day, students get to give a gift, and also get something special! These pics are Monday’s gift- making a snow scene with shaving cream! (Also served as a creative way to clean their desks)

December 6, 2024

What a wonderful end to November! Our students had a Friendsgiving lunch, read about the Pilgrims, worked on a fun turkey menu for math, and created a “Thankful” poem to surprise their families.

 Students are so excited to begin December with an Advent Calendar. Each day, students will open a door to find a surprise for themselves and a fun way to give back to others.

In Math this week, students are making fraction number lines and learning how to use benchmarks to compare fractions.

 In ELA, students are studying figurative language, and writing similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole, and idioms. Students are learning the elements of poetry and how to interpret poems. They are excited about trying their hand at writing poetry.

In Social Studies, students are preparing to present a play on the American Revolution. George Washington, Ben Franklin, the Sons of Liberty, Betsy Ross, John Adams, Paul Revere and King James lll are just a few of the important historical figures in the play!

November 22, 2024

What a great week in Fourth Grade! Students have worked hard, and have been challenged in learning so many new concepts!

 In Math, students began learning about equivalent fractions, and began comparing fractions on a number line and solving story problems. We will also continue to review division skills throughout the week. Students are finding ways that fractions will come in handy- especially in the kitchen and when building! 

      In ELA, students are finishing up their fun character study and novel, and will be comparing the novel to the movie this week! What a fun way to end the study! Students are learning how to identify  the five text structures that authors use. Students will use this information to write informational pieces on an animal from Charlotte’s Web to share with the class. In Morphology students are concentrating on the prefixes inter-(between) and mid-(middle).

Students have begun their study of the American Revolution. We will learn about the events that led up to the Revolution, including the Boston Tea Party, The Intolerable Acts, and “The Shot Heard Round the World.” We will be performing a play based on these events and key figures in the American Revolution. Every student has a part, and the excitement is growing! 

So many fun things are happening in the fourth grade! We are planning a Friendsgiving Lunch,

And have so many fun turkey activities planned for every subject next week!

We wish you all a very safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

November 15, 2024

Fourth graders have had a great week learning new concepts. In Math, students are experimenting with fractions. Students worked in Math stations to explore equivalent fractions, play a fraction Monster game, and place fractions on a number line. In ELA, students wrote similies and metaphors, and watched a fun personification video. In Morphology, students played a fun Kahoot to practice the new prefixes and suffixes they learned this week.

In Reading, students focused on finding the central idea and finding evidence from the text to support that idea. In Social Studies, students are working on performing a play about the Revolutionary War. These fourth graders are so creative, we can’t wait to see how this unfolds!

6 Fourth Graders are finalists in a student essay competition, “Learning IN Indiana” sponsored by the Library of Congress, Indiana Center for the Book, to commemorate Indiana’s 208th Statehood Day! Over 800 essays were submitted and 119 were chosen as finalists! Congratulations to Noah, Andi, Colton, Ruby, Charlibell, and Tucker! We anxiously wait for November 12, when 4 winners will be selected from these 119 finalists! A special thanks to Emily Tracy and Kelli Bruner for sending this opportunity our way!

November 8, 2024

Another fantastic week in Fourth Grade! Students are catching students being kind, and our kindness chains are growing! 

In Reading, students are concentrating on finding key details in a text that supports the main idea. They are also learning about the different organization structures of a text such as problem/solution and compare/contrast. Students are learning the prefixes over- and sub- this week. They will learn the meaning of each prefix and create word sums using them. Students are learning about homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms and continue to learn 49 prepositions!

In Math, students are dividing four digit numbers by one number using partial quotients. Learning what to do with a remainder has been a challenge, and these fourth graders are always up for a challenge! 

      Students are working in groups in Social Studies to investigate 5 Native American tribes that lived in Indiana. They did a fantastic job researching the tribe’s culture and how they adapted to their environment. Students created a slideshow using their research and presented it to the class. Learning is so much fun in 4th Grade!

Students were sad to say goodbye to the IU Nurses! These ladies did a great job teaching Second Steps to our Fourth Graders! We will miss them! 

Both 4th grade classes earned their Compliment Reward this week! Celebrating their successes is the best part of teaching these awesome students!

November 1, 2024

Such an exciting week in fourth grade! Students participated in a pumpkin STEM activity! Students were given a pumpkin to estimate size, weight, number of seeds inside and more! The students found the actual measurements, cleaned out the pumpkin, and counted the seeds. Most seed estimates were not even close!!  The final activity was making the pumpkin into an exploding volcano! So fun!!

Students have been using figurative language in their writing, and this week students made idiom shadow boxes to display and present. The class had to try to figure out what idiom each box represented. Lots of funny guesses made us all giggle. 

Students are learning how to divide 4 digit numbers by one number using partial products. It is so fun to see each student conquer this, and see the “lightbulb” of understanding turn on!

In Social Studies, students are in groups making a slide presentation on their Native American Group. They will teach the class about their tribe’s culture and way of life here in Indiana. 

Today, students came dressed in their Halloween costumes and are excited to be in the parade this afternoon. Fourth grade is a blast!

October 25, 2024

Blue Spring Caverns field trip was a HUGE success!! Students rode a boat through the cave, mined for gems, and had a fabulous time learning about life under the ground! 

In Math, students are learning how to divide multiples of ten to create equal groups. We will also work on solving division problems with remainders.

Students will be reading realistic fiction this week and focusing on determining the main idea and key supporting details in a text. We will also be learning about non-fiction text structures. Students are enjoying reading about Native Americans, and  finishing their novel, Charlotte’s Web as well!

In ELA, students will learn about types of figurative language including similes, metaphors, hyperboles, and idioms. This week, students are excited to begin working on their idiom box project.

In Social Studies, we are learning about 5 Native American tribes that lived in Indiana. Students will work in groups to research one of the tribes. They will create a presentation on their assigned tribe and share what they have learned with the class.

October 18, 2024

Fourth graders had a fantastic week back after Fall Break! Students came back refreshed and excited. One reason Fourth graders are so excited is they are going to Blue Spring Caverns today! Another reason they are excited is Helmsburg is having their Trunk orTreat Movie NIght tonight! 

Students are also excited about studying the Native American tribes that lived in Indiana long ago. Students will work in teams to research and display a poster and present a slide show about their tribe. 

Fourth graders love Morphology. They played a fun team game to review all the morphemes they have learned so far. Fourth graders also enjoyed identifying idioms by playing a matching game. Students will create a STEM project by designing a shoe box diorama to represent an idiom. 

So much fun in Fourth Grade! We are so proud of their first quarter effort, fabulous grades and amazing attendance! We are so excited to see the growth they will make this next quarter!

October 4, 2024

Fourth graders had such a fun week! First, fourth graders took a virtual field trip to a pig farm in Northern Indiana! Students were asked questions and had to answer with “Truth”, “Opinion”, or “Hogwash”. Students were surprised to learn all the careers associated with a Pig Farm! 

Students were excited to continue our character study of Charlotte’s Web. Using text evidence to support their claims about Fern’s character was a big hit! Students worked on identifying new words for Morphology, and started learning their prepositions in ELA. Learning about the Mound Builders in Indiana kept these Fourth Graders asking lots of questions about the past.
Students are ready for Fall Break! We wish everyone a safe and relaxing break!

September 27, 2024

Our fabulous Fourth Grade students are reading Realistic Fiction and identifying themes, finding supportive text evidence for those themes, identifying the plot, making inferences, and summarizing stories. Students are writing their rough draft for their persuasive paper. Writing compound sentences, using coordinating conjunctions and semicolons, and identifying run-on sentences and rewriting them correctly are goals we accomplished this week in ELA.Students combined ELA, Science, Health and Math to check out sodium levels in the foods and snacks they eat. Students graphed and compared sodium levels and even checked out serving sizes. Students also combined ELA and a STEM project to use perimeter and area to design a barn for Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web. Learning is fun in Fourth Grade!

September 20, 2024

This week was an eventful week! Fourth Graders were the first to take the ILearn Benchmark test for Reading and Math. Way to go Fourth Grade!!

In Reading, students were excited to begin an in depth novel study of Charlotte’s Web. Students are discovering character traits about themselves, and the characters in our novel. Realistic fiction is definitely a favorite fourth grade genre. 

In Math, students can identify and use the commutative, associative and distributive properties to solve problems, and are mastering their multiplication tables! They enjoyed playing a concentration game of matching a math problem to a specific property. 

Students are working hard in ELA,  identifying compound sentences and coordinating conjunctions. Just ask them about FANBOYS!  In Morphology, students are learning the prefixes  mis-, dis-,  and fore, and getting quite good at decoding meanings of words. Students learned how to take notes while reading informational texts, and are just about ready to begin their persuasive essay.

Social Studies is about to get interesting, as students begin to learn about the native peoples in Indiana. Understanding the geography of Indiana will help students piece together the history of the first peoples, along with their cultures, successes and difficulties.

September 13, 2024

In Math, students are understanding patterns to learn their 4 and 6 multiplication families! Commutative, associative, and distributive properties and multiplying patterns with 10’s, 100’s, and 1000’s are being conquered this week!

In Reading, students presented a Public Service Announcement about a natural disaster, and did a super job! Students are now reading realistic fiction passages and using text evidence to write summaries, and to determine the theme and the setting of the story. 

In ELA, students identified sentences with compound subjects and compound predicates. Students are challenged by working on their first persuasive writing of the year. Students are learning to take notes, write outlines, and use evidence to support their claim. In Morphology this week, students used prefixes and suffixes to create new words, and reviewed spelling rules with suffixes. 

Social Studies was exciting this week, as students used their knowledge of the three regions of Indiana to create a map of Indiana out of graham crackers, icing, twizzlers, candy corn, and M&M’s. During World of Work, students are looking at their own character qualities and seeing how this pairs with their RIASEC score. 

We were so excited to have the IU nurses come and teach Second Steps to our fourth graders!   Fourth graders are growing, learning, and building stamina, and we are super proud of them!

September 6, 2024

In Math, students are excited about passing their multiplication tables to earn a gumball machine! Students practiced finding the factors and multiples of numbers, and determined if they are prime or composite numbers.  Math stations, die, and games helped make Math fun this week! 

In Reading, students worked on their final project for our unit, Natural Disasters, by writing and presenting a Public Service Announcement about a natural disaster of their choice. Students did a fantastic job! Students also worked on identifying text features in nonfiction articles.

In ELA, students identified compound subjects and compound predicates, and practiced identifying fragments, clauses, and compound sentences. Students are working on their first persuasive writing of the year. Students are learning to take notes, write outlines, and use evidence to support their claim. In Morphology this week, students used prefixes and suffixes to create new words.

Social Studies was exciting this week, as students learned what makes up the biosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere in Indiana. Students will be identifying the three regions of Indiana, and will be making an edible map of Indiana! Yummy!!

August 30, 2024

In Reading, students have been studying natural disasters this week. Students were so excited to become a meteorologist!  They had to  create a public service announcement to inform and warn citizens about a possible disaster. They also created a backdrop and poster with the steps citizens should take to be safe! What an awesome culmination of this unit!   

In ELA, students are fantastic at identifying the four types of sentences, identifying the subject noun and verb in a sentence,  and recognizing the complete subject and complete predicate in a sentence! In Morphology, students are writing words with suffixes such as -er, -or, -est,  and  writing the prefix -un.  

In Math, conquering our multiplication facts, working with factors and multiples are this week’s challenge! For fun,  every student will get a paper gumball machine to fill in as they conquer each set of multiplication tables up to 12. When they know them all, they will get their very own gumball machine to take home. We will also be learning the distributive, associative and commutative properties of addition and multiplication this week.

  In Social Studies, map skills have been the focus this week in Social Studies. Next we will learn all about glaciers, landforms, major cities and water forms in Indiana- all of this will culminate in creating a MAP of Indiana’s three regions out of yummy things, and then EATING it! Students are so excited!

August 23, 2024

What an exciting week of learning and fun in Fourth Grade! In Reading, students worked on nonfiction text structures while learning about natural disasters. They read expository texts on volcanoes, erosion, and earthquakes. Students used their new knowledge about the job of a civil engineer, and the engineering design process to build structures that would withstand an earthquake! 

In Language Arts, students started their journey in Morphology, learning spelling rules for adding suffixes. Students also reviewed types of sentences and dissected and labeled the subject, verb, complete subject and complete predicate in a sentence. 

In Math, students excelled at place value, using fun manipulatives and place value Bingo to practice! 

In Social Studies, students learned about maps. Students learned how to use a map scale, a map legend, a compass rose, lines of latitude and longitude, to locate major cities in Indiana. 

Students were so excited to go to Parkview Church to watch the play, Mooch the Magnificent!  This has been an amazing week!

August 16, 2024

Fourth Grade!! Wow! These fourth graders have had a tremendous start to the new school year! One full week in the books, and we have accomplished so much already! Students have practiced routines, participated in Olympic competitions, created classroom rules, and have already had Gym, Music and Art!  

In Reading, students have picked out their good fit books, and are beginning their new Reading series called Wonders.  In ELA, students are practicing writing four kinds of sentences, and learning to identify a fragment from a sentence. In Math, these students have had fun playing Place Value Bingo Math, writing numbers to 1 million in standard, word, and expanded form, and practicing their multiplication facts. Students in Social Studies have already learned the names of the seven continents, 5 oceans, latitude, longitude, equator, prime meridian and bordering states of Indiana. Indiana History is going to be so much fun! 

We are so excited for this year, and proud of these hard working 4th grade students!