Hello fourth grade friends and family!

We have been discussing Jamestown all week long in social studies. Students have learned that Jamestown was founded in 1607 and was the first successful English colony in North America. We have studied the roles of Christopher Newport, John Smith, King James, Pocahantas and the Powhatans. Students worked on two online explorations to understand the decisions and hardships the early settlers faced. You can explore at home too!

• Make decisions and see feedback on the results of those decisions in this informative exploration here!
• Follow Captain John Smith through capture, hard times, and interactions with natives by watching animated videos and playing mini-games here!

Be on the lookout for study guides and course assignments next week that will prepare students for our upcoming Jamestown test next Friday.

Students also finished writing, publishing, and binding their personal narratives this week. We will be completing a personal narrative transfer task and beginning to look at persuasive writing next week.

We ended our week with SCA speeches and elections this afternoon. Our fourth grade candidates for secretary were INCREDIBLE! We can’t wait to hear who was elected on Monday morning.

Enjoy the fall weather this weekend!

Ms. Becker

Hi fourth grade families!

I hope everyone is gearing up for a rainy weekend. Fourth graders have had a busy week! My writers have just finished their last full week of drafting their personal narrative. Next week, we will begin the long road to publishing! We learned about “writer’s craft” and making our writing better using dialogue, sensory details, figurative language, and positive/negative emotions words. We also discussed the revising and editing processes that get us closer to our final draft.

In social studies, we took our quiz on the geography of Virginia just in time to start learning about early life in our state. Students created “flipbooks” to demonstrate what they discovered about the three major native language groups in Virginia: Algonquian, Siouan and Iroquoian. Some of their hard work can now be seen on the bulletin boards outside of my classroom! Next week we will finish our unit on native Virginians before beginning to talk about Jamestown, the first permanent European settlement in Virginia.

Next week will be exciting, as we have our science enrichment teacher coming and a visit from the Alexandria Fire Department on Wednesday, and Individual Picture Day on Friday! Don’t forget to turn in picture order forms as soon as possible.

Have a wonderful weekend and stay dry!

Ms. Becker