Welcome to Mrs. Venable's 4th Grade Webpage

5/17/24

**Please see "Important Dates" to plan ahead for the last weeks of school and the planned activities!

We had a great time at the zoo on Wednesday!  Thank you parent helpers for coming along and helping out!  Next week, we have a half day on Friday and no school on Monday for Memorial Day.  

Camp Half Blood shirts: To clarify, on June 4th students can wear a Camp Half Blood Shirt for our first day, and on June 5th they can wear ANY tie-dye or Hawaiian style shirt. (It doesn't need to be a Camp Half Blood shirt, just one that they may have at home.) The orange Camp Half Blood shirt can be purchased on Amazon- this is voluntary.

Please see updates below for the morning and afternoon block.

Next week:

Tuesday: Hot Lunch; Last Library today!

Thursday :Theme Thursday: Red, White and Blue Day & Info Summative 

Friday: 12:00 Dismissal

Block 1 (Homeroom):  

We are working on standard RI4.9 which is our highest level of comprehension with informational literature. Finding main idea, providing relevant text evidence, and constructing an analysis to explain a new understanding of the topic all come together with this standard.  We will be taking the summative on Thursday and the Outcome Assessment next week.  Our class will also be finishing up Percy Jackson next week.  I am encouraging our kiddos to continue the series this summer- it would be great summer reading!  Sea of Monsters is the next book if you're interested in checking it out.

Block 2 (AdvELA):  

We are working on standard RI4.9 which is our highest level of comprehension with informational literature. Finding main idea, providing relevant text evidence, and constructing an analysis to explain a new understanding of the topic all come together with this standard.  We will be taking the summative on Thursday and the Outcome Assessment next week. We are starting our last round of book clubs as well- students have their titles and will begin reading today.  There will be a daily journal with these readings in readers response journals here at school.  

Essential Question: How does perspective shape a society?

In the last quarter, ELA students will be developing an understanding of heroes and the journey they take to become such. We will make connections to real life heroes and heroes of literature, specifically in mythology. Our novel will be The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. In this novel, we will study the main character Percy and his journey of heroism while making connections to Greek Mythology.

In the second half of the quarter, Advanced ELA students will again participate in a Book Club about Mythology from Around the World with their peers. We will use mini lessons related to our Book Clubs to help us dive deeper into our novels while building a deeper understanding of the stories with rich conversations.

Literary Skills: being able to determine an unknown word or phrase with specific connections to Greek mythology, studying characters, settings, and events, analyzing visuals and text connections, and finding and supporting a common theme among different stories.

Informational Skills: inferences, determining the meaning of unknown words and phrases, revisiting text structures, being able to explain procedures, ideas, and concepts within an informational text, and integrating information from two or more texts to write about a topic. 

In writing, we will develop strong, evidenced based opinions to write essays.

We will be focusing on the following skills for ELA this quarter:

Literature: making inferences while quoting details from the text, using context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words and phrases, reading a text to summarize and determine the theme of a story, and lastly analyzing the point of view included first person and third person.

Information: making inferences while quoting details from the text, determining the main idea and details while writing a summary, choosing the best summary from a group of summaries, analyzing the meaning of unknown words and phrases in nonfiction text, and lastly, analyzing an author’s reasons and evidence for writing a nonfiction piece.