Saturday, October 3, 2015

Welcome Fourth Grade Friends!

The first month of school has quickly flown by, and we are settling into our routines. During this first month, we've been doing some partner and group activities to get to know each other, and develop strong collaboration skills. 
   Students looked for classmates who had things in common with them in the activity"Find Someone Who..."
                                One of the favorite activities the first week was the Cup Challenge.
Each group started with their cups in the formation on the left, and had to try to make the right formation using only a rubber band attached to string. They could not touch the cups with their hands.
While frustrating at times, no one gave up!
Success feels ever sweeter when you have to work for it!
Once groups were successful, they had to return the cups to the starting formation, again with no hands. Wonderful teamwork all around!

Great partner work has been happening in math as well, as we have explored factors, multiples, and arrays. Partners created array posters for a pair of related factors, proving which numbers were prime and which were composite. 
Student also played partner games such as Factor Pairs and Multiple Turnover, which help them see the connection between factors and multiples, as they build fluency for multiplication facts.
Practicing multiplication cards with a partner helps students see which combinations they know and which they still need to work on. 
    Pattern block construction, geoboards, and tangrams were fun activities as we practiced how to do rotations for math workshop.
We're off to a great start in 4th grade!