Field Trips: Wednesday, Oct. 1st Oakland Museum of California http://museumca.org/global/naturalscience/permgall.htmlshapeimage_4_link_0
Current themes and supporting websites . . . First Novel: Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar. From the back cover: Is your school just a little too… normal? Maybe you should go to Wayside School. You'll meet Bebe, the fastest draw in art class; John, who only reads upside down; and Sammy, the new kid-- he's a real rat. Come on! Hurry up! If you're late for class, Mrs. Gorf will turn you into an app… Oops. Sorry about that. Wayside School is a crazy place—but the craziness of the school allows us "normal students" to get a new perspective on our own school lives. Each chapter gives us an insight into problems and issues many students face in their classrooms. Louis Sachar is a wonderful author with many excellent books, and I encourage you to visit his website. What's Your Story? The kids began the year by focusing on themselves and their ideas about fourth grade. We wrote autobiographies. California Geography: We are reviewing map-reading, and geographic features before we focus on California specifically. Here's a link from Netstate that shows some of the landform regions of California and fun geographic facts. The US Geological Survey is a great resource. http://www.louissachar.comhttp://www.netstate.com/states/geography/ca_geography.htmhttp://USGS.orgshapeimage_6_link_0shapeimage_6_link_1shapeimage_6_link_2
Family Excursions: Try visiting the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito for more information about the geography of our region. There's a reconstructed Coast Miwok Village in Point Reyes. There's another Coast Miwok site near Novato, at Olompali State Historic Park.http://www.badm.org/http://www.nps.gov/pore/historyculture/people_coastmiwok.htmhttp://parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=465shapeimage_8_link_0shapeimage_8_link_1shapeimage_8_link_2
Suggested Reading I also suggest viewing Louis Sachar's website for great school & friendship-related novels & stories. Andrew Clements is another author who writes wonderful books about school experiences.http://www.louissachar.com/http://andrewclements.com/shapeimage_9_link_0shapeimage_9_link_1
Recommended Resource Sites: Interactive Skill Builders has help in both math and language arts. This site indexes a lot of interactive practice games and activities. There's also one called AAAMath that has plenty of practice games and drills. http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills_4th_original.htmhttp://www.321know.com/grade4.htm%22%20%5Cl%20%22topic97shapeimage_10_link_0shapeimage_10_link_1