Welcome to Mrs. Venable's 4th Grade Webpage

5/10/24

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

This week, students worked on mini-research projects on Olympians and Endangered animals.  We continued Percy and worked on the nonfiction standards for 4th quarter.  Next week, we will be watching the chorus show and going to Brookfield Zoo.  Please be sure your child eats a healthy breakfast and brings a hearty snack- we will be eating our snack AT the zoo and our lunches when we return.  Students WILL NOT be able to buy food or anything from the gift shop while there.  Please have them dress comfortably and pay attention to the weather.  Also- please speak with your child about appropriate behavior and cooperation with our chaperones.  

Camp Half Blood Updates: Thank you for all of your donations and for the offer of helping out!  We have enough volunteers at this point- I will be reaching out to you on Monday to let you know how, when and what we will need help with!  Also- some students are purchasing the orange "Camp Half Blood" shirts to wear the first day, and either tie dye OR Hawaiian style shirts for the second day- this is our Cabin theme for Dionysus.  This is voluntary.  

Field Day- A note went home Thursday for Field Day volunteers- check your child's folder if you are interested in helping our PE teachers with this event.

Please see updates below for the morning and afternoon block.

Next week:

Tuesday: Hot Lunch; Library Today; Chorus Show

Wednesday: Brookfield Zoo Trip- please read the reminders above!

Thursday :Theme Thursday: Tie Dye Day

Block 1 (Homeroom):  

We are several chapters into Percy Jackson.  Next week we will be working with RL 4.7- Making connections between the text of a story and a visual or oral presentation of the text. Students will also be summarizing and RL 4.9- Comparing Themes, Plot, or Characters in literature.  In writing, we will work on journal writing with open ended prompts. 

Block 2 (AdvELA):  

We are several chapters into Percy Jackson.  Next week we will be working with RL 4.7- Making connections between the text of a story and a visual or oral presentation of the text. Students will also be summarizing and RL 4.9- Comparing Themes, Plot, or Characters in literature.  In writing, we will complete and record our student myth writing.  

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.