The B Hive 12.15

Happy Friday!  I hope I am finding everyone healthy and well.  We had several students out today with colds so I hope that the weekend rest helped.  We had a shorter week than normal, but we were still pretty busy.  Check out what we've been up to:

Reading - We spend the week continuing to read Rules and learn more about the major and minor characters.  We also spent more time talking about the author's message and how we could apply that to our own life. Next week, we are going to spend the week learning about plot and how authors use plot to develop the story.

Writing - We are continuing on our personal narratives.  This week we focused on using paragraphs to organize our story,  using dialogue to tell how the characters feel, and using conventions to make our stories easy to read.  Next week we will focus on a few more things and then when we return after break, we will begin to publish one that we will share with you at our Author Celebration. 

Math - We spent the majority of the week on 2 digit times 2 digit multiplication.  Students are using three different strategies to multiply those numbers.  You can see examples of all three below:

Partitioning is the most popular method for our class.

Partial Products is the next step.  This is challenging for many of us, but students will typically leave 4th grade able to use this strategy well.  

Standard Algorithm for Multiplication

PBL - We began a super fun Energy Unit about force and collisions.  Students are asked to find a way to help Mr. Egghead travel down a ramp safely.  They had to learn about seatbelts, bumpers, and potential and kinetic energy.  This week, they will build their cars and use what they know to design a restraint system to keep him. safe.  Look for pictures on twitter!