Mr. Blanc's Class

Next week will be the final week of the school year. It will be hard to say goodbye to this group of students, but I look forward to seeing them as the leaders of the school next year! Inquiry Next week students will finish up the field guide they are making on an animal found in our local watershed. Their final piece will be a watercolor painting of the animal and a paragraph of written information. Ask your student what animal they are working on for their project. Idiom of the week : all good things must come to an end Preventing Summer Slide Parents have asked me what their child do to over the summer to prevent the academic summer slide. One recommendation I have is to give your child the expectation to read every day. Build in a half hour time of day in which they always read. Then, talk to them about what they are reading. Have them tell you about the characters and the problem in the story. To help your student with their math, I recommend having them play an online ...

I can't believe we are down to the final two weeks of the school year. I have really enjoyed working with the students in this class! Hopefully we'll have a great last two weeks together. Watershed Field Trip I hope you have had a chance to look at the pictures from our field trip to our local watershed last Thursday. Initially, I was concerned about the weather, but we may have ended up with the best weather of the week. Thank you so much to the chaperones who made the trip possible! Math  We completed our final math module last Friday. Our final two weeks of math will give students a chance to do some inquiry problem solving, coding, and games. Lego WeDo  On Tuesday, 6/13 and Thursday, 6/15 we will be visited by an Innovation Strategist from the District who will lead the class in robotics lessons using Lego WeDo. Have your student tell you about what they make on Thursday. Field Day West TV Field Day will be on Wednesday, June 14th. Fourth grade will participate...

 The field trip to the Cedar Mill Wetlands was lots of fun! I was at the water testing station the whole time, so all of the pictures you see below are from there. I did my best to get pictures of all of the student groups, but unfortunately, I didn't get all of them. Have your student tell you whether their data suggests that we live near a healthy wetlands.   

Reading Most of the groups have now finished their historical fiction book. Once they completed their book they had a written assignment to turn in. Groups that finished their first book then selected another book to begin reading. Ask your student which book they are reading now.    Idiom of the week: hold your horses Math Next week we will wrap up our final math module of the year! Students will take their assessment on module 7 on Friday, 6/9. You can help your student prepare by making sure they are completing their daily homework and going over the practice materials they come home with on Thursday evening.  Inquiry We are right in the middle of our inquiry into the structure and function of natural resources. The natural resource that we are focusing on for this inquiry is watersheds. Last week we spent time exploring what watersheds are and why they are important. On our field trip next week students will be collecting some data to determine whether a l...