An Awesome Couple of Weeks

Greetings,
First of all, I love teaching your children. We are having a wonderful time and getting a lot done. I am really enjoying 4th grade and I, like your children, seem to be making a smooth transition from 3rd grade. Here are the highlights of the last couple of weeks. I hope to add some photos soon. Don't forget to check out Ms. Earhart's blog as well to see what the kids are doing in Language Arts and Social Studies.

Math:
As you know we spent a good amount of time on place value and rounding. We have now moved on to more complicated addition and subtraction. I am really pleased with how well both classes have been catching on. I hope you have had a chance to see the Champion Football Rankings that were previously posted. This is a math project that we will work on throughout the college football season. We will be learning about statistics, graphing, and other skills as the students track and rank a select group of college football teams. We had a great discussion about what some of the issues are with the "human" polls (biases, misinformation, etc.), so we decided to use statistics to make a more objective ranking system.

Science:
The terrariums are a huge hit and I am very pleased with how careful and responsible the children are being as they observe and care for their terrariums. Today and Monday the students are sharing the posters their Paper Airplane Experiment groups designed to show the scientific process they followed during their experiments. I have been unbelievably impressed with the quality of work each and every group has put forth. They have really set the bar quite high for themselves.

Thank you again for everything you do and have a wonderful weekend.