Pirates, Ice day, and Early Release!!

   What an exciting week!  Students started the week by becoming pirates of published opinion pieces during our opinion essay writing celebration.  It was great to see students sharing their carefully crafted opinion pieces with a pirate-y twist. 
     A special thanks for sending in games for our transition star party.  We had lots of fun on Wednesday celebrating our hard work on transitioning well.   
    More excitement came along yesterday with an unexpected Ice Day (a least it was unexpected to me!).  I hope your ice day was spent in a relaxing and re-energizing way!  It was good to see students back at school today, even if it was only for a half-day.  While students are excited to get out of school early today, I am excited to spend the second half of the day learning and training with other teachers in the district. 

Reminders:
Mother/Son bowling: Blue sheet is due on Monday.

Here is what we learned in 4th grade this past week:

Writing: 
I can tell elements of an essay.

I can compare essays and narrative writing.

I can read a book, think about it, and find the big idea.

I can find evidence of big ideas in books.

Science:  

I can define energy.

I can define heat.

I can use the scientific method to perform an experiment using heat energy.

Math: 

I can use inverse operations.

I can write situation and solution equations.

I can use factor pairs and variables to create equations.  

Reading:

I can read informational text and think about how to construct a response about it.

I can practice paraphrasing sections of my informational book.

Important Dates:

January 20th: Popcorn Friday
January 21st: Mother/Son bowling 
January 26th: Skating party at 6:30
February 3rd:  Early release day; School ends at 12:15
February 6th: Winter break; no school