Science fair, Valentines Day, and fractions

Congratulations!  You made it to our environmentally friendly newsletter.  As mentioned before, this blog and the wiki will serve as communication tools for our classroom.  The students are excited about becoming familiar with the set-up of a blog.  Perhaps there is a future blogger or two in our midst.
We had another overwhelming amount of entries to the science fair. Learning from each other is powerful. There is no better way to compliment a fellow scientist than by trying their experiment out or reading up on their topic.
Our Valentines Day party is this Monday.  Students, did you bring home your invitation?  Did you see the dress attire for the special day?  It's going to be a Valentine luau.  Special thank yous to all parents who are helping out.  Some of the students wanted to have a Valentines Day box contest.  The kids will be in charge of this.  Making a Valentines Day box is optional. A bag with their name on it will also do.  Please look at the wiki for some of the valentine box ideas.
In math we have been exploring the concept of fractions within a whole and fractions of a group of objects.  This is a developing concept for fourth graders.  Mastery of fractions will be expected later in fifth grade.  Cooking and baking to learn fractions might be an "old" idea but it often works.  Being able to see, create, cut and share a tray of brownies is still a memorable way to learn fractions.  In class the students are asked to visualize their favorite baked treat. Visualizing this yummy delight may work but baking and eating it is even more powerful.  If baking is out of the questions than perhaps a box of crackers will suffice.  The more we work with fractions the better we become.
Thank you for reading my blog and hope you have a great weekend.