The Farmland Fourth
Fourth-Grade Newsletter: First Quarter 2014-2015
WELCOME BACK!
To those families who have been at Farmland,
it’s great to see you again. To our new families,
we’re pleased to have you join a terrific
community where teachers and families work
together to provide our children with a wellrounded education.
The fourth-grade team is “departmentalized”
– that is, each teacher will provide instruction on
several core subjects, working together with a
colleague who will teach your child the
remaining subjects. We believe this approach
will allow your child to get the best education
possible, as each teacher will be able to tap into
his/her expertise. Ms. Powelson and Mrs.
Weissenburger are teaching reading/language
arts and writing (including spelling and
grammar). Mr. Trachtenberg and Ms. Peters are
teaching math, science and social studies. Ms.
Powelson and Ms. Peters will share students, and
Mrs. Weissenburger and Mr. Trachtenberg will
share students. Your children will still enjoy a
traditional “homeroom” experience, as they will
attend assemblies, “specials,” lunch and recess
with their homeroom class, as well as extra
academic time with their homeroom teachers at
the end of each day and on non-special days.
You’ll learn more about our team-teaching
approach on Back-to-School Night.
Each quarter, the fourth-grade team will send
home a newsletter outlining important dates and
information about our curriculum. In addition,
individual teachers will communicate regularly
with you via e-mail to keep you informed.
Finally, several important forms are coming
your way as we begin the new school year.
Please check your child’s take-home folder and
backpack on a daily basis for any forms that
must be returned to school.
BACK-TO-SCHOOL NIGHT
Please join us Tuesday, Sept. 2, for Back-toSchool Night. Two sessions have been
scheduled to accommodate families with more
IMPORTANT DATES
Sept. 1
Sept. 2
Sept. 24
Sept. 25
Oct. 13
Oct. 17
Oct. 30
Oct. 31
Nov. 4
Labor Day: NO SCHOOL
Back-to-School Night
6:30-7 p.m., PTA meeting;
7-7:45 p.m. and 7:50-8:35 p.m.,
presentations in the classrooms
Early Dismissal – 1 p.m.
(teacher grading and planning)
Rosh Hashanah: NO SCHOOL
Open House/Parent Visitation
Teachers’ Convention:
NO SCHOOL
Halloween Parade/Parties;
First Marking Period Ends
Professional Day: NO SCHOOL
Election Day: NO SCHOOL
CONTACT US
By e-mail:
Christina_M_Peters@mcpsmd.org
Terrie_L_Powelson@mcpsmd.org
Jeffrey_S_Trachtenberg@mcpsmd.org
Ashley_G_Weissenburger@mcpsmd.org
By Phone:
(301) 230-5919; best times to call are
immediately before or after school, or during the
lunch/recess hour (12-1 p.m.).
than one child: 7-7:45 p.m. and 7:50-8:35 p.m.
You will have a chance to look around your
child’s homeroom classroom, leave a note for
your child and sign up for a parent/teacher
conference in November. Then, you will have
the opportunity to hear from your child’s
reading/writing or math/science/social studies
teacher. As a reminder, Back-to-School Night is
for parents only.
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UNIFYING QUESTIONS & TASS
Each marking period, students work toward
developing responses to a series of “unifying
questions” that apply to all subject areas. During
the first marking period, the unifying questions
are:
 What criteria can
we use to make a
good group
decision?
 How do I know
when I have a good
generalization of
the facts?
 How can I put ideas
together to form a solution?
 When should we compromise and when
should we stick to our ideas?
Also during each marking period, teachers
provide explicit instruction on important
Thinking and Academic Success Skills (TASS)
that will help students thrive not only in fourth
grade but in college, throughout whatever career
they choose, and as a contributing member of
society. This quarter’s TASS skills are
collaboration (working effectively and
respectfully to reach a group goal) and synthesis
(putting parts together to build understanding of
a whole concept or to form a new or unique
whole).
In the articles below, you’ll find specific
information about what your child will be
learning in each subject area.
READING
We are starting the year by getting to know
your children as readers. We asked
them to complete a “Reader Profile”
telling us about their reading habits and
preferences. We also are in the process
of conferencing individually with each
child. We will be developing an
independent reading program where
each child will learn how to choose a
“just right” book, use the classroom library, and
build stamina in the amount and speed of
independent reading.
During the first few weeks, students will read
historical fiction, focusing on the characteristics
of the genre and analyzing the setting and its
relationship to an event in history or time period.
(Students will use their knowledge of historical
fiction for a writing project later in the marking
period.) In addition, students will take a closer
look at similarities and differences between the
points of view from which different stories are
narrated (i.e., first- and third-person narrations).
About midway through the quarter, students
will read informational articles to build
background knowledge prior to reading a Junior
Great Books realistic-fiction selection. The two
reading selections will provide an opportunity
for students to explain concepts in a scientific
text about the interactions of organisms in a
habitat and describe a character’s thoughts,
feelings, and actions in depth. Other reading
skills and strategies for the quarter include
synthesizing background knowledge with text
evidence; making inferences; paraphrasing and
summarizing text; determining the main idea of a
text; and examining how text structures – such as
chronology and cause/effect – help to
communicate information clearly.
Toward the end of the quarter, students will
read a variety of texts (e.g., biography, articles,
and firsthand journal accounts) to compare
information presented about the same event -events that occurred prior to the Civil Rights
Movement and events that relate to the Powhatan
Native American tribe. As you can see, many of
our reading lessons will incorporate texts and
other resources related to science and social
studies concepts your child is learning.
In addition to whole-group lessons, students
will meet in guided reading groups to
practice and demonstrate their
understanding of these skills and
strategies.
Finally, students are expected to
read for 20 minutes (or more, if they
wish!) each night and record what was
read on a weekly log. This log should
be signed by a parent and turned in
each Monday to your child’s reading/writing
teacher.
continued on next page
Essential questions for reading in the first
quarter include:
 How does reading prose and poetry, fluently
help you understand increasingly challenging
text?
 How do using text evidence and interpreting
information lead to inferring an author’s
message?
 How does comparing the theme and firsthand and second-hand accounts in a text
clarify information about a topic?
 How does explaining the relationships
among a series of events, ideas, concepts, or
technical procedures using academic and
domain-specific vocabulary demonstrate
understanding of text?
 How can using and employing a range of
strategies clarify the meaning of unknown
and multiple-meaning words and phrases?
 How does understanding figurative language,
word relationships, and nuances deepen
reading comprehension?
 How does understanding the theme or main
idea of literary and informational text clarify
the author’s message?
 How does comparing first and third person
point of view deepen text interpretation?
 How does preparation for and participation in
discussions contribute to the understanding
of ideas?
WRITING
Students will be writing on a daily basis
throughout the school year! As part of our
morning routine, they will write a “blog” about
an assigned topic each morning in their
homeroom class. Ms. Powelson and Mrs.
Weissenburger will collect the blogs regularly
from students to offer feedback.
We’ll begin our writing instruction by
reinforcing some basic foundations: writing an
organized paragraph that includes a topic
sentence, details, and a conclusion; using
“awesome adjectives” and “vivid verbs” to
elaborate on ideas; and understanding the parts
of speech to improve sentence construction and
fluency.
Next, students will
research and write an
informational piece
about a time period in
history that interests
them. Then, using
this newfound
background
knowledge and their
previous knowledge
of character
development in stories, your children will create
fictional characters, develop the setting, and
determine the problem, events and solution for
an original story. When their drafts are complete,
students will revise and edit their writing for
clarity, word choice and conventions using
feedback from their peers and teachers. Finally,
they will publish and share their historical fiction
stories.
Essential questions for writing include:
 How does using facts and concrete details
strengthen opinion pieces?
 How does the application of the writing
process change when constructing extended
writing vs. short compositions?
 What are the benefits of drawing information
from literary or informational texts?
 How do writers choose words and use
sensory details to convey specific thoughts,
ideas, or experiences precisely?
 Why is it important to investigate
information from print and digital sources?
 How do writers organize information for
audio recordings or use visual displays to
enhance the theme of a presentation?
 How does integrating the writing traits make
writing effective?
 How do standard English conventions make
communication clear?
SPELLING
We’ll use data from the pre-assessment of
third-grade word-wall words to begin personal
spelling lists for each child. Throughout the
year, these lists will be used to supplement our
study of fourth-grade word-wall words, patterns,
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prefixes, suffixes and
special types of words –
for example, compound
words and homophones.
Our spelling lessons
will be based on the
Words Their Way program, which begins by
assessing each student to find his/her stage of
spelling development and understanding. During
their reading/writing block, students will meet
regularly in spelling groups to work on patterns
and rules that specifically address their needs.
Students will explore the focus pattern or rule;
develop their personal lists; complete a variety of
activities – including homework assignments –
to help them learn their words; and take a test.
Generally, spelling tests will be given every
other week.
MATH
In fourth grade, students will extend their
understanding of place value to read, write, and
compare numbers to 1,000,000, and make
generalizations about the relative sizes of
numbers in each place of multi-digit numbers.
They will use these place value understandings
to round numbers less than or equal to 1,000,000
to any place. Hands-on activities will help
students reach the critical understanding that a
digit in one place represents ten times what it
represents in the place to its right.
Building on strategies and algorithms learned
in third grade to fluently add and subtract
numbers within 1,000, students will extend their
understanding to add and subtract multi-digit
numbers using the standard algorithms. They
also will be expected to use their knowledge of
place value and the properties of operations to
explain why the standard algorithm works.
Later in the marking period, students will
apply their computational fluency to solve a
variety of multi-step word problems involving
addition and subtraction, representing the
problems using equations with a letter for the
unknown quantity. Students will assess the
reasonableness of answers using mental
computation and estimation strategies, including
rounding.
Finally, students will interpret, represent, and
solve word problems involving “multiplicative
comparisons.” These are situations in which the
underlying question is what factor would
multiply one quantity in order to result in the
other. Students will distinguish between
multiplicative and additive comparisons, with
which they should be familiar from third grade.
Throughout the
school year, many
students will benefit
from extra practice
with their basic
addition, subtraction,
multiplication and
division facts. We
want students to know their facts automatically –
no more counting on fingers in fourth grade!
A great website for practicing math facts is
www.aplusmath.com.
Essential questions for math include:
 What strategies can be used to read, write
and compare multi-digit whole numbers?
 What generalizations can be made about
place-value patterns?
 How does understanding place value help in
rounding multi-digit whole numbers?
 What are efficient strategies for adding and
subtracting multi-digit whole numbers?
 What are the relationships among factors,
products and quotients?
 How is a multiplicative comparison different
from an additive comparison?
 How can you model, represent and interpret
addition, subtraction, multiplication and
division situations?
SCIENCE
Life Sciences and Engineering &
Technology concepts are addressed as students
explore ecosystems. Applying their knowledge
of the engineering design process, your children
will construct and refine terraria and aquaria to
model both a land and a water ecosystem. Over
the next few months, students will use these
continued on next page
models to explore the concepts of
living things, their basic needs, and
the relationships between living
organisms to each other and to the
non-living components of an
ecosystem. Students will observe
their terraria and aquaria regularly to
collect both qualitative and
quantitative data to develop an
understanding of the flow of energy
and matter through food chains and food webs.
The Life Sciences curriculum includes a study
of plant and animal classification systems both in
terms of their features and their roles as
producers, consumers, or decomposers in their
ecosystems. Students will describe the
interactions between various organisms and
identify sources of energy required by organisms
to grow and survive. Finally, they’ll identify and
describe the features that make organisms wellsuited to a specific environment.
Before our work with ecosystems, however,
we’ll start the marking period with a short unit
on mental and emotional health concepts.
Students will practice collaboration skills – one
of our TASS objectives – as they demonstrate
healthy ways to communicate needs, wants,
emotions, opinions and information. They will
describe and relate the six components of
personal well-being – spiritual, physical,
intellectual, emotional/mental, social and
environmental – to personal life situations.
Finally, we’ll address the topic of stress and help
students identify sources of stress and effective
strategies to manage it.
Essential questions for science include:
 How can you demonstrate healthy ways to
communicate needs, wants, emotions,
opinions and information?
 How do emotions influence behaviors?
 What do living things need to grow and
survive?
 How can organisms be classified?
 How do organisms interact with each other?
 What affects the survival of an organism?
 How can the engineering design process
address a problem or improve an idea?
SOCIAL STUDIES
The first marking period begins with a study
of the effects of geography on North American
Native Americans before the establishment of
the 13 British colonies and on Americans today.
During the first few weeks, students will use
geographic tools to locate and describe
natural/physical and human-made features of
Maryland and the U.S. today. They will analyze
information to determine relationships among
geographic characteristics and settlement
patterns. Students also will begin a timeline of
history to which they will add throughout the
marking period and year.
Next, we’ll explore how Native Americans
adapted to the environment of Maryland and how
the cultures of these eastern woodlands tribes
were derived from the environment. Students
will apply what they have learned by identifying,
describing, and defending ideas related to
relationships between humans and their
environment today and long ago.
We’ll conclude with students developing
inquiry questions and using primary and
secondary sources to examine how regional
geographic characteristics impacted the
development of Native American cultures in the
Great Plains, Southwest Desert and Pacific
Northwest.
Essential questions for SS & health include:
 How do geographic characteristics influence
settlement patterns?
 How does the natural/physical environment
affect choices that people make?