Hello 4th grade parents! Here is a quick curriculum update of what we will be covering in class this week:
Reading: Our main selection is called Dear Mr. Winston, which is a story from a larger compilation of stories called "When I Went to the Library." Our essential question this week is: Why would someone make an insincere apology? Our comprehension strategy is forming generalizations and conclusions about a story and also questioning events that happen along the way.
Spelling: Our spelling pattern this week centers around vowel + r sounds.
1. spark
2. prepare
3. cheer
4. tear (as in crying)
5. scarf
6. scare
7. repair
8. earring
9. scarce
10. weird
11. sharp
12. rear
13. spare
14. gear
15. hairy
16. compare
17. alarm
18. harsh
19. upstairs
20. square
Writing: Last week the class did an AMAZING job writing spooky Halloween poems! They are hanging in the classroom as we speak! :) This week we are focusing on writing a response to a prompt or question.
Math: We are in full swing of Unit 4 on decimals. This week we will be focusing on estimating and comparing with decimals. This weekend's homework was to find examples of decimals at home or in the community! This helps student's conceptual understanding of decimals and helps put it into the context of real life. Unit 3 tests were sent home this weekend- Please sign them and return them with your child tomorrow so that we can put them in our data binders! :)
Social Studies: We finished up Chapter 2 on map skills and geography and have started Chapter 3 on "The Peopling of the United States." In this chapter students will learn about the contributions of five different ethnic groups and how they influence culture today! We will be completing a class collage on diversity as well.
Other events/reminders:
Reading logs will be due this Friday. Please help your child total up their minutes and sign their calendar. The goal was 200 minutes this month! We have 15,000 minutes as a class but would love to add a couple thousand more!
Halloween is this Thursday! The Halloween parade will be at Lemme at 1:00pm and we will march outside. After that we will have a classroom party. Students may bring their costumes to school and will change into them right before the parade! :)
Have a great week!
-Ms. Shapleigh
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
October 21st-25th, 2013
Hello 4th grade parents! What a crazy week- Iowa Assessments AND a special visit by a famous author: Jacqueline Davies! AND, forecast tomorrow: SNOW!? It can't be winter yet, can it? Remind your little ones to come to school with hats, gloves, and proper outerwear so we can all stay warm! :) Here is a quick overview of what we will be doing in class this week:
Reading: Our whole group Language Arts resumes this week with the essential question: How would you make someone comfortable in a new place? Our main selection, Me and Uncle Romie, centers around our big idea: We express ourselves in many ways. Our comprehension strategy this week is all about understanding characters' motivations and actions.
Writing: This week we will be writing our own poetry! We will focus on using sensory words, metaphors, and personification to help our readers visualize our poems.
Spelling: This week's pattern revolves around vowel sounds.
1. aloud
2. bald
3. hawk
4. south
5. faucet
6. proud
7. claw
8. tower
9. stalk
10. couple
11. howl
12. false
13. dawn
14. allow
15. drown
16. pause
17. fault
18. cause
19. amount
20. cloudier
Math: Tomorrow is the Unit 3 test. The students have been working very hard this unit! Later this week we will begin Unit 4 on decimals. Students will be sent home with family letters tomorrow night- this is filled with important concepts, vocabulary, and answers to home links. Though we are moving onto decimals, it is still recommended that basic facts (fact triangles, flashcards) are practiced on a daily or at least weekly basis. Repetition is key in automatic recall of facts, even later in the year! :) Just a reminder- Students may take a Student Reference Book home for a period of time or particular unit that they struggle with- all they have to do is ask and we can check it out in their name.
Social Studies: We have been practicing various map skills and concepts this past week! Students have practiced finding specific points using latitude and longitude and completing geography "challenges." These are fun, interactive activities that involve the use of elevation, population density, and annual rainfall maps. This week we will be finishing up Chapter 2 by reading about the Mississippi River.
That is all for now! Conferences are in a few weeks- You will be getting a confirmation slip sent home soon to ensure that we are all on the same page and ready to meet. Thanks everyone and have a great week!
-Ms. Shapleigh
Reading: Our whole group Language Arts resumes this week with the essential question: How would you make someone comfortable in a new place? Our main selection, Me and Uncle Romie, centers around our big idea: We express ourselves in many ways. Our comprehension strategy this week is all about understanding characters' motivations and actions.
Writing: This week we will be writing our own poetry! We will focus on using sensory words, metaphors, and personification to help our readers visualize our poems.
Spelling: This week's pattern revolves around vowel sounds.
1. aloud
2. bald
3. hawk
4. south
5. faucet
6. proud
7. claw
8. tower
9. stalk
10. couple
11. howl
12. false
13. dawn
14. allow
15. drown
16. pause
17. fault
18. cause
19. amount
20. cloudier
Math: Tomorrow is the Unit 3 test. The students have been working very hard this unit! Later this week we will begin Unit 4 on decimals. Students will be sent home with family letters tomorrow night- this is filled with important concepts, vocabulary, and answers to home links. Though we are moving onto decimals, it is still recommended that basic facts (fact triangles, flashcards) are practiced on a daily or at least weekly basis. Repetition is key in automatic recall of facts, even later in the year! :) Just a reminder- Students may take a Student Reference Book home for a period of time or particular unit that they struggle with- all they have to do is ask and we can check it out in their name.
Social Studies: We have been practicing various map skills and concepts this past week! Students have practiced finding specific points using latitude and longitude and completing geography "challenges." These are fun, interactive activities that involve the use of elevation, population density, and annual rainfall maps. This week we will be finishing up Chapter 2 by reading about the Mississippi River.
That is all for now! Conferences are in a few weeks- You will be getting a confirmation slip sent home soon to ensure that we are all on the same page and ready to meet. Thanks everyone and have a great week!
-Ms. Shapleigh
Sunday, October 13, 2013
October 14th-18th, 2013
Good afternoon 4th grade parents!
Thank you all SO much for donating pizza money and/or helping out with the party on Friday! It makes my job so much easier! You all have been such a great support to me this year. The kids had a blast in their PJ's, too! As you know, this upcoming week is Iowa Assessment testing. We will be testing Monday through Friday morning. Thank you all so much for signing up to bring snacks! If you need it again here is the link:
IA Assessment Snacks
This will remind you what to bring when! We also are in need of 2 more slots filled, just for gum on Thursday and Friday. The kids love the snack part of the testing! :)
This week in math we will be continuing with multiplication and division and delving further into word problems and number stories. Thank you for your continued support in making sure homework is turned in on time and that they are practicing some type of flashcards every night! The test will be next Tuesday, October 22nd so they will still be receiving homework this week.
We will not have spelling this week or a regular Language Arts schedule. We will be starting our Social Studies: Alive! curriculum this week as well! It has been a very busy couple of weeks so thank you all for your continued participation in your child's education! More updates to come soon- Have a great week! :)
-Ms. Shapleigh
Thank you all SO much for donating pizza money and/or helping out with the party on Friday! It makes my job so much easier! You all have been such a great support to me this year. The kids had a blast in their PJ's, too! As you know, this upcoming week is Iowa Assessment testing. We will be testing Monday through Friday morning. Thank you all so much for signing up to bring snacks! If you need it again here is the link:
IA Assessment Snacks
This will remind you what to bring when! We also are in need of 2 more slots filled, just for gum on Thursday and Friday. The kids love the snack part of the testing! :)
This week in math we will be continuing with multiplication and division and delving further into word problems and number stories. Thank you for your continued support in making sure homework is turned in on time and that they are practicing some type of flashcards every night! The test will be next Tuesday, October 22nd so they will still be receiving homework this week.
We will not have spelling this week or a regular Language Arts schedule. We will be starting our Social Studies: Alive! curriculum this week as well! It has been a very busy couple of weeks so thank you all for your continued participation in your child's education! More updates to come soon- Have a great week! :)
-Ms. Shapleigh
Saturday, October 5, 2013
October 7th-11th, 2013
Happy weekend 4th grade families!
I finally got out to Wilson's Orchard this weekend! It was a bit overcast and chilly when I went but not too bad where I couldn't pick up some yummy goodies and pumpkins to decorate the classroom with! :) Here is a quick curriculum update of this upcoming week:
Reading: Our essential question this week is, "How can movies express facts and opinions?" Our main selection, Coming Distractions: Questioning Movies, will center around all things cinematography! This will help us practice our comprehension strategies in a fun way. We will be working on finding fact versus opinions within a text as well as summarizing a piece of writing.
Writing: This week we will be focusing on writing responses to literature and drafting opinion pieces. After two weeks we have finished our fictional narratives! Some student's final pieces of work were up to 12 PAGES! Amazing work. The stories are now published in a giant binder and are a part of our classroom library! :)
Spelling: Our spelling pattern this week focuses on vowel sounds with the letter o. ("ooh" sound as in bloom and the sound in cook) Students have been performing fabulously on spelling tests- thank you for your continued support at home! Here is this week's list:
1. bloom
2. cookbook
3. tool
4. shampoo
5. put
6. wool
7. stool
8. proof
9. prove
10. group
11. brook
12. foolish
13. bush
14. crooked
15. booth
16. raccoon
17. hook
18. groom
19. roof
20. soup
Math: We will be starting Unit 3 this week. Unit 3 has four main sections/goals:
1. To review strategies for solving multiplication facts and to help students work toward instant recall of multiplication facts
2. To continue to practice interpreting data and units of measurement
3. To practice solving number stories and word problems
4. To provide practice with number sentences
In this unit we will focus the majority of time on multiplication and facts and word problems. Both of these concepts can be tricky for some students because it involves higher-order thinking, logic, as well as extending on knowledge of basic facts. We ask for continued support at home for practicing flashcards- triangles will also be sent home every night with students. After initial pre-tests of the unit, the facts that are the most difficult for students are 6's, 7's, 8's, and 9's. Ultimately automatic recall of facts is important, but also conceptual understanding. (Teaching the "trick" with 9's, 7 x 8 is really the number 7 added up 8 times, etc.) A family letter will be sent home with students on Monday with basic information about the unit as well as answers to home links. Students will be sent home with Unit 2 tests mid-week- We ask that you sign these and return them so that we can graph our scores in our data binders and see our improvement from the pre-test!
Science: Tomorrow marks the end of our Earth Materials unit! Students received an assignment this weekend to pick some rocks to bring to school on Monday to share with the class. There is also a riddle assignment with it- After your child picks some rocks out, they will write a riddle for you describing one of them (describing basic properties) and you have to figure it out! Any family participation would be much appreciated, they can do it with friends as well!
We will not be having science tests this year, rather "3, 2, 1" checks. (Three things I learned in this unit, 2 questions I have, 1 of my favorite science activities was...) The standards of our science unit are based upon their participation in investigations and ability to record data accurately- Memorizing vocabulary is not the goal of these hands-on investigations! We will be starting social studies next week- More details to come soon!
Other events/reminders:
Thank you SO much for supporting your child with their reading logs! We had 24/25 students turn in their calendars- Such a fabulous improvement. As a class, we have read 15,322 minutes for the month of September and 22/25 students met their goal of 200 minutes! (Obviously many went way over their goal!) Our class goal was 10,000 minutes, so to celebrate we are going to have a PJ Day this Friday! (I haven't told them its next Friday yet!) This will be the same day as our Lucky 7 Pizza Party! Thank you to our room parent, Julie Gros-Louis for making a sign-up sheet on bringit.com in order to make this happen! Any donations you can submit would be much appreciated. It means so much to the students to know that their fabulous behavior and hard work can be rewarded and recognized in fun ways.
Phew! I know this was a long one but there were lots of items to cover. Thank you for all that you do and have a fabulous week.
-Ms. Shapleigh
I finally got out to Wilson's Orchard this weekend! It was a bit overcast and chilly when I went but not too bad where I couldn't pick up some yummy goodies and pumpkins to decorate the classroom with! :) Here is a quick curriculum update of this upcoming week:
Reading: Our essential question this week is, "How can movies express facts and opinions?" Our main selection, Coming Distractions: Questioning Movies, will center around all things cinematography! This will help us practice our comprehension strategies in a fun way. We will be working on finding fact versus opinions within a text as well as summarizing a piece of writing.
Writing: This week we will be focusing on writing responses to literature and drafting opinion pieces. After two weeks we have finished our fictional narratives! Some student's final pieces of work were up to 12 PAGES! Amazing work. The stories are now published in a giant binder and are a part of our classroom library! :)
Spelling: Our spelling pattern this week focuses on vowel sounds with the letter o. ("ooh" sound as in bloom and the sound in cook) Students have been performing fabulously on spelling tests- thank you for your continued support at home! Here is this week's list:
1. bloom
2. cookbook
3. tool
4. shampoo
5. put
6. wool
7. stool
8. proof
9. prove
10. group
11. brook
12. foolish
13. bush
14. crooked
15. booth
16. raccoon
17. hook
18. groom
19. roof
20. soup
Math: We will be starting Unit 3 this week. Unit 3 has four main sections/goals:
1. To review strategies for solving multiplication facts and to help students work toward instant recall of multiplication facts
2. To continue to practice interpreting data and units of measurement
3. To practice solving number stories and word problems
4. To provide practice with number sentences
In this unit we will focus the majority of time on multiplication and facts and word problems. Both of these concepts can be tricky for some students because it involves higher-order thinking, logic, as well as extending on knowledge of basic facts. We ask for continued support at home for practicing flashcards- triangles will also be sent home every night with students. After initial pre-tests of the unit, the facts that are the most difficult for students are 6's, 7's, 8's, and 9's. Ultimately automatic recall of facts is important, but also conceptual understanding. (Teaching the "trick" with 9's, 7 x 8 is really the number 7 added up 8 times, etc.) A family letter will be sent home with students on Monday with basic information about the unit as well as answers to home links. Students will be sent home with Unit 2 tests mid-week- We ask that you sign these and return them so that we can graph our scores in our data binders and see our improvement from the pre-test!
Science: Tomorrow marks the end of our Earth Materials unit! Students received an assignment this weekend to pick some rocks to bring to school on Monday to share with the class. There is also a riddle assignment with it- After your child picks some rocks out, they will write a riddle for you describing one of them (describing basic properties) and you have to figure it out! Any family participation would be much appreciated, they can do it with friends as well!
We will not be having science tests this year, rather "3, 2, 1" checks. (Three things I learned in this unit, 2 questions I have, 1 of my favorite science activities was...) The standards of our science unit are based upon their participation in investigations and ability to record data accurately- Memorizing vocabulary is not the goal of these hands-on investigations! We will be starting social studies next week- More details to come soon!
Other events/reminders:
Thank you SO much for supporting your child with their reading logs! We had 24/25 students turn in their calendars- Such a fabulous improvement. As a class, we have read 15,322 minutes for the month of September and 22/25 students met their goal of 200 minutes! (Obviously many went way over their goal!) Our class goal was 10,000 minutes, so to celebrate we are going to have a PJ Day this Friday! (I haven't told them its next Friday yet!) This will be the same day as our Lucky 7 Pizza Party! Thank you to our room parent, Julie Gros-Louis for making a sign-up sheet on bringit.com in order to make this happen! Any donations you can submit would be much appreciated. It means so much to the students to know that their fabulous behavior and hard work can be rewarded and recognized in fun ways.
Phew! I know this was a long one but there were lots of items to cover. Thank you for all that you do and have a fabulous week.
-Ms. Shapleigh
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