Your goal for earning Student of the Month for March is to practice responsibility.  Responsible students do what they are supposed to do.

Responsibility means a lot of things, because when you are in fourth grade, you have lots of different responsibilities.  They include:

1. Doing your homework
2. Bringing your homework to school
3. Doing your classwork
4. Bringing home your homework to do
5. Organizing your papers into the correct folders
6. Following classroom rules
7. Reading your notes to study for tests
8. Wearing sneakers on gym day
9. Bringing your recorder on music day
   
10. Bringing your lunch or money and coat with you at lunch time
11. Bringing pencils to school
12. Getting a paper to start your morning work
13. Treating everyone with respect all the time

Responsible students do all of those things. 

The secret is, before they leave home, the classroom, or school, they stop and think, "What do I need to bring with me?"  When they get papers or other materials they stop and think, "Where should I put these?"  Before they say or do something to someone they stop and think, "Should I really say that?"

If you want to be more responsible, all you need to do is stop and think, and make a good choice. 

In math this month, we have been drawing a figure with the area of each date.  On February 4, we drew a figure with 4 square centimeters.  On February 5, we drew a figure with 5 square centimeters.

Next, we found the perimeter of each figure.  To find the perimeter on graph paper, we can count each line on the outside edges of the figure.  If you count each line around the 4, you'll find that there are 8.

A different way to find the perimeter is to add up the sides.  If you can see that the figure for day 4 has a top that is 2 centimeters, a right side that is 2 centimeters, a bottom that is 2 centimeters, and a left side that is 2 centimeters, just add 2+2+2+2 and you know that the perimeter is 8 centimeters long.























That's a lot of figures!

You can practice finding equivalent fractions on ABCya! 

This is a great website for fourth grade math concepts; just scroll down to where it says "numbers."

If you want to practice equivalent fractions, just go to the icon for "Fraction Tiles."  This site has the same exact fraction bars that we have at school, but you can use them on the screen!  It's not a game or even an activity, it's just literally the bars, on screen, that you can move around.  It's a great tool to use to answer questions on your homework when you're stuck.

Once you are feeling confident in your understanding of equivalent fractions, if you want to play a fraction game, check out Equivalent Fractions Bingo.  It's really more like Tic Tac Toe, but you have to find all the equivalent fractions for a given fraction.  The challenge version has no pictures, but the easy mode does.  Try it out! 

To keep in touch with what's going on outside of school with everyone in our classroom, we've all come to enjoy sharing and hearing "the news."

Since almost everyone has something to share nearly every day, we decided that in order to save some time but still hear from everyone, we will share on our classroom "Twitter Board!" 

It can be challenging condensing our news to fit on a single sentence strip, but of course it's only meant to be a conversation starter.  Follow up with friends at lunch and recess about any news you want to hear more about!

When I listed the fractions in orange, most of you knew right away, without looking at models, that 4/6 is not equal to 1/2, but the rest are. 

But HOW did you know?

There were many different strategies you came up with on your own.  Some were the same idea, but phrased very differently, and some were just very different, but they all work!

Which is YOUR favorite strategy?

The next day, I asked you to memorize one of the fractions you drew for homework, one that is smaller than half and one that is larger.  Then you quizzed me!  You stuck them to the board randomly, and I sorted them out.

Some of you were surprised how quickly I did it. 

But once again, after taking the time to examine the numbers in each fraction you were able to come up with several different ways to figure it out without drawing.  Drawing can work too, but only if you are very exact!  Which way do YOU like to use to figure out if a fraction is greater or smaller than 1/2?

In science, we are learning about the states of matter.  Many different molecules, like water, metal, and rock, can be turned into a solid when they are cold enough, and liquid when they are hot enough.  In fact, keep heating up liquids like water and they'll turn into a gas!  Even metal, when heated up enough (like on the sun) turns into gas!

Here are more things you should know about matter and different states:

Gas:   These molecules don't need to stay close together.  They can spread out and even float.  Gas molecules move fast.

Liquid:  These molecules mold to the container they're in, except if they spill, they spread out on the ground.  They don't move as fast as gas.

Solid:  These molecules are usually hard to break apart.  They are stuck close together and don't move much. 

What better way to spend 100s day, than with a math game?

In order to practice 2 digit by 2 digit multiplication, you got 100 problems to solve.  The class was split into 2 teams, red and blue.  Each team had a mix of kids who wanted help with the steps for multiplying two digits by two digits, and those who can do it on their own.  Everyone picked a problem to solve, got it checked, and if they got it right, it was colored with their team color.  If it was wrong, they had to give it to a person on the opposing team. 

Here are the results:

Before we had our tie-breaker, I asked everyone to think about why we did this activity, instead of plenty of others that feature the number 100.

• It let you practice 2x2 digit multiplication.
• It got you ready for the math MCAS.
• It made you practice working as a team.
  

So for the tie-breaker, I wanted to see which team had members who really took the time to teach their teammates who needed help learning how to multiply. 

Everyone was given 1 problem to solve independently.  And the team who gave the most help to each other, and had the most members who could solve that problem correctly was the blue team!  Congratulations!

Just like we did with 1/2, we can find equivalent fractions for 1/4.  Look at the orange figure at the top.  It is cut into 4 pieces, and 1 is colored.  Then, each of those pieces is cut in 2.  If you could all the little boxes, you'll see that 1/4 is equal to 3/12.

Can you list 4 fractions that are equivalent to 1/5?

So far this year you've learned how to write a narrative when you want to tell a story, and you've learned how to write non-fiction when you want to share information.  Each type of writing is different, yet the process for writing is mostly the same!

Good writers:
1.  Analyze the question (or prompt) that they have to write about.
2.  Create a plan (either a T chart or an outline).
3.  Write!  Skip lines so if you need to change something later you have room.
4.  Revise using ARMS.
5.  Copy over your final draft and edit using CUPS.

Here are those ARMS and CUPS that help you remember what to do when you revise and edit:

On Thursday, we practiced coloring half of a rectangle.  We found 4 ways to fold it in half before coloring it.

After coloring half of the rectangle, we folded some more (and traced our folds so they're easier to see). 

We learned that although the amount colored stayed the same, the total number of pieces changed, and the number of pieces that are colored also changed!  There are lots more little pieces, but still 1/2 of the figure is colored. 

Sometimes when we tried folding, the pieces did not end up equal sizes.  Figure z did.  Figures y, x, w, and v had different sized pieces so they were not correct fractions.

Look at figure U.

Do you think it is correctly divided into 2/4?  Why or why not?