Magnetic!

I hope everybody had a nice break. Mine was too short and after spending all that money getting the house painted, there was nothing left to go on a trip anywhere. Oh, well. We did start by sharing our vacation experiences this morning, and as some of the students discussed going to Hawaii, Mexico, and Russia I felt like I had traveled a bit through their experiences!

We began some of our test prep today in place of the usual journal writing. After that, we went to the auditorium where the students did some Music Man rehearsal. It was a bit painful to discover how much they had forgotten, but I am sure they will quickly remember some of the lines and songs which they used to know so well.

We are starting on our magnetism and electricity unit in Science. The students began today by testing various materials to discover if they were attracted to magnets or not. They came quite quickly to the conclusion that only objects containing iron were attracted to magnets.

They also went around the room and tested everything they could find to see if these things contained iron. They liked being iron detectives!

We began reading By the Great Horn Spoon! today. This is a fantastic novel about the California gold rush.

We also started learning about Cartesian coordinate graphing in math today. Amazing what these fourth graders learn these days, isn’t it?

Homework:  (1) Do spelling words 1 – 5 in the usual way. (2) Do “Phonics” on page 290 of the Practice Book. (3) Do the study sheet for chapter 1 of Great Horn Spoon. (4) Do “Graphing” on pages 402-403 of the math book and the “Treasure Map” activity on the back. (5) Do the Weights and Measurements practice sheet.