Tales of Our Fourth Grade

Classroom


I believe a teacher needs to recognize children as unique creations of God, accept each child’s potential and provide experiences that will allow them to fulfill their spiritual, emotional, educational, social and physical needs. I feel we should provide our students the opportunities to grow in their relationship with God, their peers and the world around them as they learn in an environment of academic excellence.
 
I want my students to be actively involved in their own education. I try to encourage, support, and most importantly, motivate my students to care about their academic future. I believe students learn best in a fun, safe, non-threatening environment. I think they learn best through real-world experiences. Students are encouraged to bring their own stories, experiences and ideas into the classroom. Opportunities are provided for them to work together and learn to respect one another’s differences. Since children have different abilities and unique personalities I believe it is my job to be passionate in the way I teach so my students will be able to do their best.
 
February Update – Happy Valentine’s Day

Division and measurement will be our focus in Math this month. Order of operations, finding the mean and dividing money will be new concepts. It will be fun studying customary units as well as temperature and time. Problem solving is an ongoing part of our math curriculum.

We continue to learn about ways to use adjectives in our writing and will be learning more about punctuation and capitalization. We continue to write stories using the traits of writing. We are concentrating on voice and organization. The children enjoy hearing stories written by their peers.

Science lessons will help us learn more about the properties of rocks and minerals and the processes that formed them. We will differentiate among igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks and identify some common rock-forming minerals.

California ranchos and the journey of people to the west coast keep us occupied in Social Studies. We will learn about the trappers and trailblazers who traveled hundreds of miles across deserts and mountains with the hopes of finding a better life.

Next month we will spend three days traveling through Sacramento and San Francisco. We will visit the Capitol, Placerville, the Sacramento History Museum, the Railroad Museum, Sutter’s Fort, the Exploratorium and Alcatraz. We are looking forward to exploring these areas and watching history come alive!

Mary Ann Friedrich