The Lebanon Lantern The Lebanon Lantern Winter 2019 final | Page 9

will include 3-digit addition and subtraction. They will also learn to regroup with zeros. In science, we have been exploring
plants. The class did some investigating with seeds and leaves this fall. One activity that we did was a leaf rubbing activity
to determine which types of trees we have in our neighborhood. They will begin learning more about animals and the animal
kingdom in our next unit. In social studies, the class has been learning about the Native Americans and the colonists. They
enjoyed celebrating with the first grade class for our annual Thanksgiving activities. They are currently working on a
research group project about the Native Americans in different regions of the United States. The three groups that we are
focusing on are the Woodland, the Southwest, and the Plains. They will be creating a keynote presentation to share with the
class. Each group will also construct a small version of a Native American shelter from their region.
Third Grade
Our first trimester has been a wonderful season of learning. Students have become excellent readers and writers,
and have produced many different written pieces, including Fairy Tales with elaborate plots and enchanting
characters full of magical powers! We have also completed compare and contrast essays and multiple poems of
different styles. In ELA, students continue to read “good-fit” chapter books, and are spending shared reading time
with exciting stories that have taken us around the world and introduced us to many different types of people and
places.
In Math, students continue to learn about and work with mental-math algorithms, such as decomposing numbers.
These strategies are useful for emphasizing values of digits within a number. We can now break apart our numbers
and add or subtract with place values. We have also learned multiplication facts through the six times-tables, and
we are learning the distributive property of multiplication so that we can strategize to find unknown products. We
are also trying our best to make sense of math words problems and persevere in solving them by focusing on key
words.
In Social Studies, we are examining communities of different sizes and comparing aspects of daily life, such as
transportation styles, businesses, and recreation. We now understand that no matter the size, communities are all
connected to each other. For our Character Education we have focused on “Caring Tickets” with our classmates,
which is something we share with friends when we are impressed by their compassion and kind acts.
In Science, this month we began a unit of study called “Animals through Time.” We have explored the idea that
the rock under our feet sometimes contains fossils. Students are learning that fossils reveal how habitats have
changed through time. For example, fossilized shark teeth and starfish found in the center of North America are
evidence that what is grassland today must have been an ocean in the ancient past. This week we are focusing on
dinosaurs, and how we know what they looked like based on fossil bones. We have learned how to infer what the
outside of an animal may have looked like by using clues about their skeleton. We are also exploring how the
structure of an animal’s teeth says something about what kind of food the animal preferred to eat.
Fourth Grade
It has been a busy fall! We have learned how to multiply 2 digit by 2 digit numbers, and are rolling into winter
with division and remainders! In Math, after learning about factors, we are learning how to divide with
remainders. Now, we are hard at work interpreting our answers to apply them to real work situations. As we move
forward, students will be learning how to do long division and then we will begin our work with multiples and
fractions!
In ELA, we have finished a wonderful read aloud called “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane”. This novel
has been many students' first time feeling real feelings during a book. They expressed this and were surprised by
it! It is a beautiful and sad story about a rabbit’s emotional and physical journey. We have advanced at drawing
conclusions, exploring characters, and making predictions from the context clues. If you have not read it, you
need to! As we move forward into winter, we will learn to write thesis statement and use them in an opinion
essay! We will study the novel “Wonder”, and continue to working on comprehension skills such as identifying
theme, comparing texts, character development and using context clues!
In Science, we have wrapped up our study of Energy through roller coasters, and have started our exploration of
Rocks. Ask a fourth grader if a volcano is likely to pop up in our area! They will tell you all about that after
exploring and learning about the Ring of Fire. We can also identify which types of lava go with exploding
volcanoes. We will continue our study of Rocks to see what happens to them over time and we will learn if we
would be able to survive a landslide.
In Social Studies, after studying the early people in America and New Jersey, we wrote our own books about the
Lenape. We took a virtual field trip to Waterloo and were able to learn about the Lenape from the area. We will
soon be talking about the European Explorers and the early settlements in our area. From there we will move into