The Marble Champ

As you're reading "The Marble Champ" by Gary Soto, study the moves Gary Soto is making. What does he do as a writer that makes his piece so strong? Leave your ideas in the margins.

FGA News Launch (Student Entry)

The fourth graders are having an election, and we've created a news program to follow it! We're called FGA (Fourth Grade Adventurers) News, but it's still in development. The election is on November 5th and only fourth graders can vote (The fifth graders also have an election, but we're not covering that). Well, that's all for now, but remember: This is Fourth Grade Adventurers: Where the adventure begins!

Here's our network's official logo!

POW/WWP

I just discovered a whole stack of POWs and WWPs, so the POW/WWP sheet might not have made it to you. If it didn't and you want to get started tonight, here are the two problems:

Problem of the Week: 

Weekly Word Problem

Sample Weekly Word Problem

Last week we solved our first Weekly Word Problem for homework. There will be a WWP almost every week from now on. Here's a sample of how to solve the WWP. All six steps should be completed and clearly labeled. If you have any questions, email Katie or post them in the comments!

Creating Campaign Posters About Our Values

Last Friday, we were delighted to welcome so many families into our classroom for our first Family Friday! As part of our election study, we looked at campaign posters from past presidential campaigns and the ways those posters showed what candidates valued. Then, we selected the values that were most important to us. We created posters showcasing those values, which we revealed through the symbols, colors and slogans we put on our posters.

Here are some of our finished posters! If your poster is not here, it might be because it has your last name on the front of it! We're not posting last names on our blog! To see any poster larger, just click on it!

Multiplication Combinations

One of our big fourth grade goals is learning all of our multiplication combinations up to 12 x12 so well that we know them in a snap.

There are lots of different ways you can study your facts so you can memorize them.

• Play Multiplication War with a friend. Deal out half of a deck of face cards (1 through 10 or 1 through 12) to each player. Both players put down two cards (the factors). Multiply the two cards together to get your product. The player with the higher product captures both cards! The winner is the player who captures all the cards!
• Play Dice War with a friend. Each player gets two dice. At the same time, roll your two dice. Multiply the two numbers on your dice together. The player with the higher product gets a point. The first player to 20 points wins! To switch up the game, have the player with the lower product win!
• Play games online to learn your multiplication combinations. Here's one game online from the BBC. You can choose the multiplication combinations you want to be quizzed on.  
• Have someone quiz you with flash cards! Set a timer each time you are quizzed. See if you can beat your time each time you are quizzed!
• Figure out which facts are the trickiest for you to learn. Place the facts on doors around your house. Before you enter the door, say the fact and the product out loud! You have to get the product correct to enter the room!

How do you study your facts? Leave your ideas here!

Personal Narrative Revision Strategies

We had so many different ideas for strategies we could use to revise our personal narratives. Here are some of them:

• Find the heart of your piece (the most important part). Stretch the heart of your piece, showing everything that happened at that time. 
• Look for times you are just telling your emotions (ex. I was angry). SHOW how you felt instead (ex. I clenched my fists. My heart beat hard against my chest. I glared daggers at him.). 
• Look for times you are just telling what happened in your piece (ex. It took a long time to get to the mall.)  SHOW what is happening instead. 
• Revise your piece to make sure each scene includes a variety of details and not just one type of detail (dialogue, internal thoughts, small actions, and setting details).
• Revise to include the internal and the external stories! Tell about where times you character ran, jumped and played, but also tell about times your character wished, hoped, thought, yearned and desired.
• Write a stronger lead to your piece, trying out a few different versions until you find the one that works.

You can also look at our Writing Rubric under the "Writing" tab to get more ideas for how to revise your piece. As you revise, remember that revision is about making MAJOR changes that improve your piece, not about editing for capitalization, punctuation, spelling or paragraphing.   
Do you know another revision strategy? Add it here in the comments!