Busy weeks ahead for 4B!

Next Tuesday is our Grandfriend's hour from 9:30 - 10:30.  Students are encouraged to invite their grandfriends or friends who ARE grand, to join us in 4B!  We will be completing a STEM challenge this morning that is sure to be great fun!

Next up is DECEMBER (can you believe it?)  December brings lots of great activities to our classroom.  First up, is the Hour of Code.  I have included a short video to give you a little information as to what this is.  It takes place during Computer Science Week.  It is an exciting program aimed at introducing our students to the concepts of computer coding and computer science.  The hope is to interest young minds that may one day chose a computer science field.  I participated last year and this year my class will be reaching out to other classes throughout the school as mentors.  Parents are invited to join us during 4B's Hour of Code on Monday, Dec. 8th and 9am.  Please let me know if you would like to come so I can make sure to have enough devices available.

Later, fourth grade will be having our first Innovation Day on Friday, Dec. 19th.  More information will be coming on this.  We are going to organize this a bit differently than in the past (engineering focus!)

The final days before the holidays will find us celebrating, crafting, exchanging gifts and reading great books (of course!)

Now, I need to ask for a few things from families. While you are out to eat during the next few weeks, if you could pick up take-out menus and send those in, I would really appreciate it.  We are going to use them for our multi-digit multiplication math unit.  Also, store flyers and catalogs too!

Finally, thank you to all who took the time to meet for conferences.  It was great to talk to you about your wonderful children.  I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to teach, learn and grow with them each day. 

Have a fantastic Thanksgiving and enjoy your family time!

~Lisa

ps.  If you are looking for some holiday gift suggestions, I have included the link here of a great site suggesting the "best toys for building stem skills.  

October is a WONDERful month!

RJ Palacio visits Exeter and 4B was there!

How WONDERful it was to start the month off with a visit from author RJ Palacio.  So many 4B and former 4B students were able to take the time to listen to Mrs. Palacio speak and some even got a chance to get a book signed.  She was great and shared how she got the idea for writing such an amazing book that we all have come to LOVE!  If you still haven't had a chance to read it, please try to find the time.  It has such an incredible message and was a special way to kick off our year in 4th grade together.


During this month we also continued to work on "Paragraph of the Week" and have now started our unit on narrative writing.  We are using our own small moments to help spark fictional stories.

We are closing in on the end of first quarter and the end of our first book challenge.  Each student picked a challenge number of books they were going to read during the quarter.  We have kept track of both our home and school reading.  Some of us fell short while others underestimated ourselves.  Some of us chose l-o-n-g books, while others selected smaller ones.  It is all part of the process of self-reflection and building reading stamina.  In addition, we are continuing to work on comprehension strategies in small groups and just introduced Reader's Theater to improve our fluency.

Currently we are working on our weather unit and building weather instruments for our weather stations.  We will be wrapping up our NH settlements/geography unit following our trip to Strawbery Banke this week (Yes, we are going in the rain!)

Unit 2 in math is under our belt and we are moving on to Unit 3 Measurement and elapsed time.

Coming up:  Book Character Day is next Tuesday.  Students should dress as their favorite character and try to bring in a copy of the book that day.  Orange and Black Day is next Friday, Oct. 31st.



Thank you to everyone who join us on our trip to Mt. Major.  What a beautiful day!

I look forward to seeing everyone soon as parent conferences are just around the corner.  I am sending a link to our sign-ups for Nov.

Stay dry during the upcoming week!

~Lisa

4B learning extends beyond our classroom walls

Science doesn't get much better than when you get outside and put it into action.

Currently, 2R and 4B are working collaboratively on a science project called, Square of Life.  This is an internet-based project where students observe their local environment and then share that information with students from across the country.


At this time, our classrooms have gone out and staked out 1 square meter areas for observations.  Yesterday we were able to get outside and work together to document what we had found in each of our spots.  Future meetings will involve students organizing data, sharing, creating, and posting.  There has been a lot of great teamwork and learning going on!

In math, we are hard at work on our unit on place value.  The most challenging concept at this time is the relationship between each place value as 10 times the value of the place to the right.  An example of this would be to understand and demonstrate that the 3 in 300 is 10 times the 3 in 30.  Keep practicing those basic math facts at home.

Writing and Reading Workshops are in full swing.  The workshop model consists of a brief mini-lesson, followed by practice or work, and concludes with a share, a debrief, and reteaching time.  We are currently working on "Paragraph of the Week" during writing and using our social studies topic of New Hampshire to focus on guided reading activities.  These reading passages are building our background knowledge for two of our upcoming field trips; one to Mt. Major and the other to Strawbery Banke.  Both trips are scheduled for Oct. and as soon as plans are finalized, forms will come out.

We are continuing with our read aloud of Wonder, by RJ Palacio.  So many great conversations have come from this book.  I highly recommend this read.  It has so much to teach us all!

Again, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at lbrown@sau16.org

Enjoy the day!

~ Lisa

Welcome to 4B!

Hello and Welcome 4B Parents!

I wanted to blog this evening to welcome you to 4B and to remind you that our Open House evening is this Wednesday at 6pm.  We will be meeting in the gym where Mr. Kew will address the group and introduce all the teachers there that evening.  Following this meeting, we will all be heading down to the classrooms where you will get the opportunity to see our room and learn more about the upcoming year in fourth grade.

See you on Wednesday.

~ Lisa Brown

The Countdown to Summer has begun!

It is hard to believe that the end of the year is already here.  This year has gone by so quickly. 

 I wanted to just touch base one more time to let everyone know what exciting things will be going on in 4B (We keep working right to the bitter end!)

First, I would like to start with thanking everyone for making Tacky Tourist Day a great success!

The kids loved sharing their foods with one another.  Everything was so delicious.  Look for their cookbooks to come home tomorrow.

Now, we are off on our journey across the Oregon Trail.  Students are traveling the trail with fellow pioneers in wagon trains.  Journals are being kept and STEM activities include designing wagons and creating rafts for those wagons to cross the river.  Quilts will be created and lots of reading is being done.  Oregon Trail day will be next Friday, June 6th.  Students will dress up again and spend the entire day outside on the trail.  Westward Ho!

In math, we have just completed Unit 12.  We will continue to focus on angles with measurement beginning tomorrow.  Students will be learning how to use protractors to measure angles.  Then, we will end the year with word problems and review of long division and multi-digit multiplication.

Our last science unit returns us to plants.  We will be looking at seed dispersal and parts of the plant and leaves.

Social studies will end with NH Survivor.  We team up and play a friendly game of Survivor for the remaining days of school.  This game requires us to use all our knowledge of NH to compete against one another in games both mental and physical.

4th grade will head to Camp Lincoln on Thurs. June 12th, have Innovation Day on June 13th, travel to UNH on Monday, June 16th, and say goodbye for the summer on Tuesday, June 17th.

Wow!  How much can you pack into 14 days?  4th graders are master packers and we plan to "Do it all!"  

(Cross your fingers that the weather improves for our trip to Concord on Friday.)

Sleepless at Swasey,

~Lisa

Tacky Tourist Day and 4B's American Grub

Here in 4B we are in STATE Overdrive.  Students have just completed their US tests and are now working to complete their state reports and Microsoft Publisher pages for our class cookbook, 4B's American Grub.  

BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP!  Students need to pick a recipe (one that they can make and share with the class next Tuesday) and one that has a main ingredient that grows in their state.  An example would be Apples for Rhode Island.  Apples are RI's number one food crop.  My recipe might be apple fritters. 

I believe that the students should have a good understanding of the agriculture of their state and should be able to share that information with you.  However, they need your help picking a recipe that you feel comfortable making with them and sharing.

I am asking that students check and confirm their ideas as soon as possible (Friday at the latest).  They each have an editable recipe card in their Google Drive that they need to use to write down the recipe and directions.  They will then share this back with me so that I can print them off for our cookbook.  Cookbooks will be organized and distributed to all families on Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday is Tacky Tourist Day in 4B!  Your children are to dress like those crazy tourist we all see when we are on vacation.  Socks and sandals, mismatched clothes, hats, ...the works.  Then, at 2:30 that day, parents are invited to join us for a tasting of all the "4B American Grub."  However, parents will not be allowed through our doors unless they too are dressed as tacky tourists.  It is so much fun!

Parents may send their child's food to school on Tuesday morning or bring it with them when they come at 2:30.

 I thank you in advance for all your help with this project.

~Lisa

MFA lunch forms

Buying a lunch for the MFA!

If you would like to purchase a lunch from the school for our upcoming trip to the MFA, please visit my homework site and print out a lunch form.  Please return this form on Monday, April 28th so that we can make sure all lunches are ready for our early morning departure.

If you are packing a lunch from home, I suggest packing a little extra.  We will eat before going in the museum and then once again as we get back on the bus.

Thank you in advance,

Lisa