September 30th- October 4th, 2013

Hello 4th Grade Parents! Happy Monday! I hope you are all having a great start to your week. Here is a sneak peek of what we will be working on in class this week.

Reading: We are starting Unit 2 with the Big Idea of: We express ourselves in many ways. Our essential question for the week is "How are old and new fairy tales alike and different?" Our main selection this week, Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude, combines traditional fairy tales with modern stories in a fun and unique way. I can tell the students are already excited to read it! Our comprehension strategy this week is comparing and contrasting and working on using details to make inferences within a text.

Writing: We are drafting and publishing our final copies of fictional narratives! What budding authors these 4th graders are! It has been so much fun to read and edit the work of such creative minds. :)

Spelling: This week's pattern focuses on various ways we hear the vowel u. ("You" in refuse, "ooh" in fruit, and "uhh" in bunch)
1. bunch
2. fruit
3. argue
4. crumb
5. crew
6. tune
7. juice
8. refuse
9. truth
10. young
11. clue
12. trunk
13. amuse
14. suit
15. rude
16. trust
17. dew
18. stuck
19. rescue
20. brush

Math: This week we are finishing Unit 2 on Data and Multi-Digit Addition and Subtraction. We will spend the next two days reviewing and will have our unit test this Thursday. Students will be given a review sheet in class tomorrow.

Science: This week we will be continuing/wrapping up our Earth Materials kit! We had a special guest visitor today who graciously shared his knowledge and amazing rock finds with us! Thank you Chuck Hix, Noah's grandpa! The students light up at the sight of a shiny, interesting, or sparkly rock! :)

So cool!!! :)

Friendly reminders:

Book orders are due next Monday, October 7th! Simply go to Scholastic Book Clubs and enter in our classroom code: LLQB3 to buy books for your child and help the classroom earn rewards!

Your child's September reading log is due TOMORROW. Please help them add up the minutes and sign the sheet so that we can work toward our class goal of 10,000 minutes by December! Thanks and have a great week! :)

-Ms. Shapleigh

September 23rd- 27th, 2013

Hello 4th grade parents!

What a beautiful fall day outside! I keep hinting at Matt that I want to visit Wilson's Orchard soon and enjoy this fall weather- hopefully you all get a chance to get some time outside this weekend. I had so much fun at the Carnival on Friday- (How about those whistles!?) It was great to see some of you! It always fills me with joy when I see how excited the kids get about events like that- I even remember mine from elementary school, we called it the "Fun Fair!" I looked forward to it all month! Here is a quick update on what we will be working on in class this upcoming week:

Reading: Our essential question, "What motivates one character to help another?" continues to influence discussion about our big idea for this unit: Helping brings out the best in us. Our main selection, Stormalong, is a traditional folktale that will help us better infer the motivations of a story's characters. We will also be focusing on predicting the events of a story and reading with expression.

Writing: Students will be starting rough drafts of their very own fictional narratives! Last week we discussed and brainstormed various ideas for creative stories and started pre-writing. This week we will be starting the writing process by revising, editing, and publishing our work! :)

Spelling: Our spelling pattern this week focuses on homophones! These are tricky because they are words that sound the same but mean something different. Here is the list:

1. wait
2. weight
3. heard
4. herd
5. days
6. daze
7. heel
8. heal
9. peek
10. peak
11. sent
12. scent
13. cent
14. feat
15. feet
16. vain
17. vein
18. vane
19. miner
20. minor

Phew! If you practice words with your child, emphasizing the sentence or context that they are in is extremely important. It is a good listening activity, too! :)

Math: This week we will continue learning about various aspects of displaying data and be reviewing terms such as median, mean, mode, and range. We are also going to spend significant time on addition with three digit numbers! If you attended curriculum night you may remember that I mentioned there are various ways to compute addition and subtraction problems. Our goal is to give students many methods for their "toolbox" so to speak, but Iowa Core Curriculum stresses knowledge and usage of the standard algorithm. (The way we all learned in grade school, which is "carrying over" a place value). Please keep this in mind as you help your child with homework these next few weeks! Thanks for all your support! :)

Science: This week we will be testing various minerals based on properties. We will be completing a "scratch test" to test for hardness and also trying to see which minerals have calcite in them! We are studying four different minerals but students don't know which ones are which. We are classifying them by completing various experiments, just like geologists do! Here are some pictures of our geologists at work! (Some of my other ones didn't save!) :(

We also did a Reader's Theater last week with our small group books- The students love these! I was a part of one of them but I got a snapshot of the other two groups!

REMINDER: Picture day is tomorrow!! Send your child to school with their order form and looking great so it can go without a hitch! :)

Have a great week everyone!

-Ms. Shapleigh

September 16th-20th, 2013

Hello everyone!

Finally, some rain! My parents were in town this weekend to look at reception sites for the wedding and today was not a very beautiful day to look at them, however we really needed it! I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. Here is a sneak-peak at this upcoming week in terms of curriculum:

Language Arts: Our target comprehension skill this week focuses on identifying the important themes in a story. Our main selection, The Power of W.O.W.! pairs with the essential question of the week: How can characters' actions inspire us to do good things? We will also be focusing on analyzing and evaluation different aspects of a story.

Spelling: Our spelling pattern this week focuses on the long "o" versus short "o" sound. (octopus vs. oval) Your child's spelling tests were sent  home with them this past Friday. Here is this week's list:

1. block
2. shown
3. oatmeal
4. wrote
5. fellow
6. scold
7. coast
8. odd
9. locate
10. slope
11. throat
12. host
13. online
14. shock
15. solve
16. known
17. remote
18. stock
19. boast
20. globe

Writing: This week we will be discussing, planning, and drafting fictional narratives.

Math: We will be starting Unit 2 in math this week. The Unit 2 Family Letter was sent home this past Friday with your child. Unit 2 is called Using Numbers and Organizing Data. In this unit we will be discussing various aspects of data (analyzing graphs, mean, median, and mode, etc.) as well as reviewing place value concepts. Unit 1 tests will be sent home with your child sometime this week!

Science: We will be finishing up our investigations with our "mock rocks" and moving on to observing crystals and testing/categorizing different types of rocks based on various properties. Many students have been very excited about this unit and have brought rocks to share with the class- At the end of the unit we will have a day devoted to sharing rocks that students have either made, bought, or found. If your child is super excited about showing the class their rocks please remind them that there will be time later on to share! :)

I hope you all have a fantastic week!

-Ms Shapleigh

September 9th-13th, 2013

Hello 4th Grade Families!

Thank you all SO much for attending Curriculum Night last night. I know life can be busy and hectic but it means a lot to show up for your child and support their education (and teacher!) I know there were a few who couldn't make it due to other obligations, which is completely understandable, so I'd like to share my presentation with you if you are interested. I sent your child home with the papers today if you were unable to make it, so check their Leopard Books! :)

Curriculum Night Presentation

I am also so impressed with the volunteer sign-up and the willingness and support you all have shown me these past few weeks! I am so grateful to have such supportive and caring parents! Here is a quick curriculum update of what we've been doing in class this week:

Reading: Our main selection this week, How Tia Lola Came to Stay, ties in with our big idea for the month with the essential question: What happens when one person helps another? Our comprehension strategies include visualizing as we are reading and discussing cause-and-effect relationships.

Writing: This week we are discussing dialogue and how it presents itself within writing. We are also completing lots of writing during reading rotations that center around our readings from the week.

Spelling: This week's pattern focuses on the long "i" and short "i" sound. (icecream vs. igloo) You should have gotten your child's spelling test sent home on Tuesday. Students are completing a graph individually in their Leopard book to track their progress, so if the lists mysteriously go missing you can always check the graph out to see their scores week to week!

Math: We have finished up our work with polygons and have spent this week reviewing for the test tomorrow! This week students should have completed their practice test and were sent home with more review materials today.

Science: We are moving a bit slower in science due to the early releases, but today student finally got to work with their "mock rocks" again! Students took time to break apart the rocks with "picks" like real geologists. They sorted the materials that were found inside the rocks and identified them as minerals. I spent the day today at the Grantwood AEA Center learning about our next science unit- Physics of Sound! All of these kits are so fabulous and fun- I am excited for students to get going on these!

Have a great rest of your week and stay cool! The weather looks like it is going to finally calm down a bit- what a relief! I am so excited!

-Ms. Shapleigh

September 3rd-6th, 2013

Hello parents! Hopefully you are having a relaxing and enjoyable holiday weekend! It seems the weather is finally cooling down, which is exciting for me. I love fall! Here is a quick curriculum update on our plans for this upcoming week:

Reading/Writing: This week our comprehension strategy is discussing an author's purpose for writing a particular story. Our main selection, "My Brother Martin" discusses the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. This ties in with our essential question for the week: How can an author show what it takes to be a leader? While writing this week we will be focusing on word choice.

Spelling: Our spelling pattern this week focuses on words with the short "e" sound as well as the long "e" sound. (Ex: eel vs. egg). You should have received your child's spelling test results this Friday in their Leopard Book. Here are this week's words:

1. west

2. steep

3. member

4. gleam

5. fresh

6. freedom

7. speed

8. steam

9. beast

10. believe

11. speck

12. kept

13. cheap

14. pretend

15. greed

16. shelf

17. least

18. eager

19. reason

20. chief

Challenge

1. release

2. restaurant
3. creature
4. echo

They will also receive a hard copy of the words tomorrow. Starting this week, students will only be tested on ten spelling words, however they are expected to study all twenty words, as they will not know which ten will be chosen for the test. There will be four challenge words every week, which are optional (and encouraged) to study but not required. Thank you for your continued support in helping your child prepare for these tests!

Math: We are continuing our work in geometry by discussing polygons. This week will focus on using compasses to draw circles as well as work with parallelograms. We have been having a blast in this unit by coming up with fun ways to remember geometry vocabulary. Last week we explored different shapes and their properties with straws and twist ties!

Science: This week we start our work in science! Our unit focuses on rocks and earth materials. The students are so excited!

Other news/announcements: Please check your child's Leopard book for a sheet on the classroom homework policy, as well as their September reading log. Many of you have experience with the reading logs, as students participated in 3rd grade. We ask for your support in making sure your child is reading at home every night and recording it. At the end of the month they are expected to add up their minutes, ask you to sign their sheet, and turn it in for credit and fun rewards! I have very high hopes for the class for homework completion and responsibility with the logs- they are doing so well already!!! If you have any questions about these items do not hesitate to contact me. 

Thank you and enjoy the rest of your week everyone! :)

-Ms. Shapleigh