Terrific Tuesday

A couple of our very creative patent medicine advertisements.

There are always new students at the beginning of each January, and we have several in fourth grade this year. We received a new student, Heejin, from Korea today, and Mrs. Cha received two students yesterday. So we started the day moving a couple children and me giving up my extra desk so that room 18 could have another table. It was a little hectic, though hardly chaotic, in room 19 this morning.

Our day has been quite predictable. But, as I've pointed out, predictable and boring are often good things in school. These kinds of unmemorable days are when the most learning takes place. We read and responded in journals. We checked our homework. We began assembling our latest Concept/Question board. We read a little from this week's Open Court selection. We worked on our Writer's Workshop compositions.

We continued to work a little more on the Open Court Unit 2 test. We corrected a couple sections today and did some vocabulary review. We also discussed the importance of estimating answers when solving big multiplication problems like 2,879 time 8, and students decided when exact answers were necessary and when only an estimated answer was required. Not interesting stuff, but the sort of things they will need day to day as adults.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Open Court vocabulary review sheet. Think carefully about the meaning of each word. (2) Do "Estimate Products," Math, pages 188-189, all problems, and "Multiply Three Digit Numbers," Math, pages 193-194, numbers 2-41 only. (3) Do "Connect Main Ideas" and "Apply Skills," Social Studies, pages 162 and 163. Be sure to copy the "Connect" section. No need to copy the questions in "Apply", but answer in complete sentences.