By Paisley Nieman
Tylyn Henry and her fourth grade students are always busy!
Right now, in reading, the fourth grade students are working separately on decoding closed, complex, words in a text they read for the week. During the reading block they are learning about animal adaptations. In math they are learning a new skill on being able to divide three- digit numbers by a one digit number. In social studies, they are learning about Nebraska history, diving into early explorers and how Nebraska was shaped.
The writing activities are a particularly fun part of fourth grade. For Halloween, students wrote a persuasive article about selling a haunted house. When Christmas comes around, students will pick a fictional villain character, write a letter to Santa as that character, and explain why they should not be on the naughty list this year because what they did was a huge misunderstanding. Henry says the students love these kinds of projects because they are able to be creative with their writing. They are also doing a project called “The Great Mail Race,” where the students write to one fourth grade class in each of the 50 states and try to get a letter back from each school.
A special event that happens each year is our county 4-H office brings in chicken eggs so the students can learn about the cycle of how the chickens grow. Then for a week, they get to take care of the chickens that hatched in the classroom.
Henry says the main challenge this year is the students' handwriting and making it look eligible. She says they are working on slowing down when they write and trying not to speed through what they are writing on the paper.
One of the main students strengths are helping each other out. Henry says they do really well at working in groups.
“It doesn’t matter who they are placed in a group with, they all do their part and help each other grow,” she explained.