Week in Review

Happy Fall!  This kind of weather makes we want to curl up on my couch with a quilt, a cup of tea and a good book!  I hope your enjoying the cooler weather and gorgeous colors on the trees!

NECAP Testing begins on Monday, October 1st and ends on October 9th. Makeup testing for kids that miss a section due to absence begins on October 10th. There will still be homework during testing, but it will not be as regular.  I will be unable to fit all of the regular lessons into next week. There will be a spelling packet for this upcoming week, but there will be no spelling packet the week of Columbus Day. Students are allowed to chew gum during testing and may bring packs into school next week.

This week we read a short story called "The Gold Coin" by Alma Flor Ada.  In the story Juan, the thief, goes through many changes.  We spent time identifying when the changes were made in the story, gathering evidence of the changes and discussing whether the changes were good or bad.  Next week, the students will write a short essay about why Juan gives away his gold coin at the end of the story.

In Math we have been working with sets of data. We learned about sample size and accuracy by counting and recounting boxes of raisins! In fourth grade we'll focus on the maximum, minimum, range, mean and mode for statistical landmarks.

Thank you to everyone who brought in supplies for our insect project!  We will be working on creating our imaginary insects next week.  I can't wait to see what the kids come up with!  Our class pets are thriving.  The caterpillars are eating nonstop.  Many students have predicted that we'll have some chrysalis' when we return on Monday.  Many of our meal worm pets have already begun the pupa stage!  We're hoping for some beetles some time next week!

Book Orders will be in sometime this week.  Thank you!

Upcoming Dates to remember:
Picture Day - October 2nd
No School October 8th - Columbus Day
Parent Teacher Conferences - October 24 and November 1(reminder slips coming home soon!)

Extra Recess!!

Week in Review

It's only been three weeks, but everything is in full swing upstairs in room 31!  We have been working very hard this week. The students' effort did not go unnoticed and I received many compliments from specialist teachers and administrators this week about the great behavior and positive attitudes they have.  Way to go, kids!

During our Language Arts block this week, Mrs. Shaw joined us for a great discussion about our short story, "Thank you, Ma'm" by Langston Hughes. Be sure to ask your child about why they think Mrs. Jones had Roger come into her room and why she fed him dinner. It was interesting to hear the different reasons a lot of them came up with!  

In Writing, students wrote a letter from the perspective from one for the main characters of our short story.  We're learning how to use evidence from the story to support our ideas.  Look for these letters to come home next week!

We have started Unit Two, Numbers and Data.  Earlier in the week I sent home the Unit Two Family Letter.  Keep that letter in a safe place! It will help with homework and vocabulary for this unit. I also have some Student Reference Books available for kids to keep at home. Let me know if you'd like one sent home! We also started our multiplication facts practice today. Any practice you can do at home with flashcards or iPad apps (list coming of great educational apps soon!) would be a great thing for your kids.  We need to know our facts!!  Unit One Assessments will be graded and progress reports will be sent home next week. Just a reminder: Math Assessments are graded using the Beginning, Developing and Secure scale. 

Insects have taken over our classroom! In a good way, of course! Ha!  We have meal worms we have "adopted".  We'll be watching them over the next few weeks to observe metamorphosis. Right now, our meal worms are in the larva stage.  We also have a new batch of caterpillars! We are very hopeful these caterpillars eat and eat and eat and eat!  

Our NWEA testing is finished for the fall.  We did great!  There are a few kids that missed a test due do an absence or need to finish a test because of our limited schedule.  I will share the results with you at our parent teacher conference next month. The class results will really help me with my planning and instruction. I'll be able to greater meet the individual needs of the students in our class.

Upcoming Dates to Remember:

Walk to School: September 28

Picture Day: October 2

NECAP Testing: October 1-9

Columbus Day (No School): October 8

Inspired by "If..." by Sarah Perry

This free digital slideshow created with Smilebox

Week in Review

Phew! This week was jam packed with lots of things to do! Thanks to all the parents who came out for Open House. It was great to see so many of you again! For those of you that didn't make it, I sent home a conference sign-up sheet with your child. Let me know if you didn't get one. Conferences will be held on October 24 and November 1 from 3:15-7:00pm. Soon, I'll be sending home a pre-conference sheet with your child. This sheet will help us make some goals for your child at our conference.

In Reading we began our Junior Great Books with "Thank you, M'am" by Langston Hughes. So far, students have come up with some great questions and connections to the story! We will study the story even further next week and see if we can answer some of the questions we have.

We also read several picture books this week. We read "The Greedy Triangle" by Marilyn Burns in Math. The triangle changes into lots of different shapes before realizing it wants to be a triangle again. In writing, we read "If" by Sarah Perry. We used her words and pictures to inspire our own class "If" book. I'll be posting pictures from our class book this weekend.

We are almost all the way through our first math unit! This week we learned how to draw circles with compasses. The class worked so hard on this! It's a hard skill to learn. We also learned what a radius is. There is a lot of new vocabulary words within this unit; we'll be posting them on our math word wall next week! We will also have our first math assessment next week. There is no need to study for this assessment at home. We will review the unit in class the day before the assessment. The review will come home if you'd like to review it with your child.

Thursday and Friday we finally started our insect unit! We talked about what we knew about insects and what we hope to learn from our unit. Today we talked about reading to learn vs. learning to read. We practiced highlighting the important information in a paragraph, the first steps to learning how to take notes. We also learned about the head, thorax and abdomen of insects.

We will start NWEA testing on Monday afternoon. Due to some (more) technical issues, we were unable to start this week. I will be able to share the results of the first assessment window with you at conferences.

Have a great weekend!

Our First Week in Photos..

Week in Review

Wow!  I can't believe how quickly the first week of school went by.  The students and I spent the week getting to know each other, the room and the school!  Their little brains took in a lot of new information this week.  Time for two days to relax.

We were able to complete three math lessons this week. We introduced the Student Reference Book and learned all the different parts the book has. Ask your student about the Table of Contents, Index and Glossary!  We also reviewed lines, line segments and rays and also played with straws to create shapes and angles. Math Study Links will be homework each night we complete a math lesson (except Fridays).

Our class has 15 minutes of Quiet Time each day. This is choice time for students.  They may read, draw, doodle, relax, start on homework, etc.  If a student finishes homework during quiet time, they will place a check mark next it in their assignment notebook. The assignment should still go home with them, however, in case you want to check it or they choose to look it over.

We will start Spelling, Reading and Science next week!

I look forward to seeing you at the Open House on Tuesday, September 11 at 6:30.

There will be an Instrumental Open House with Mr. Miller on September 14 from 5:30-7:00pm.