Thursday, March 31, 2011

Spring Break!

Hey fourth graders!

Take a few minutes to think about your Spring Break. Write a short summary of your week off and tell your classmates your favorite part of your break. Be sure to use quality writing skills using correct punctation and well written sentences.

Once you have written your summary. Read about some classmates break's and comment on them.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Current Event: Disaster in Japan



Last week Japan suffered the largest earthquake in its history. The earthquake triggered a tsunami wave that destroyed coastal cities in Northern Japan. Now, Japan is facing a nuclear threat because the reactors were damaged during the quake.

The video shows some of the images of the disaster in Japan. Please watch the video and reflect on these three questions. Write a response answering these questions with complete sentences and proper spelling/punctuation.

1. What do natural disasters teach you?
2. What do you think are some next steps in rebuilding the cities that were destroyed?
3. What other thoughts do you have about the disasters in Japan?

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Reflection on Writing Commentaries



This commentary by Andy Rooney was one example of a commentary that we watched before we began our unit. Now that we have just finished one of our biggest writing assignments of the year. We can look back and reflect on what we learned. The commentaries that you wrote gave you experience in persuasive writing. For this week’s post, please answer the following questions about the commentaries that you wrote and heard from classmates.


What did you learn from writing a commentary?

Which commentary did you learn the most from after hearing it?

What was your favorite part of this assignment?