Please be sure to read through all that's going on this week, including the miscellaneous section!!
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We have A LOT going on in Language Arts! This includes read aloud, independent reading time, word study (spelling, vocabulary, grammar), and writing.
Reading: We continued our read-aloud titled "Love that Dog" by Sharon Creech. It is written in verse and is narrated by a boy who doesn't like poetry when he begins. He finds he can be a poet with his regular thoughts and words by the end. We've been reading the poetry that he references in the book and the kids are loving it. We will start studying various forms of poetry and writing our own. I'm excited to see what develops! Talk to your kids about the narrator, Jack, and how he feels about poetry. How is he changing? Do your kids like poetry? Do you have any favorites you can share with them?
Biography Project: This week I introduced the fourth grade Biography project. At this point your child should have shared the packet with you. There is a sheet in the packet that needs to be filled out, signed, and returned on Monday, indicating what book your child has chosen. The packet itself should remain in your child's take-home folder or assignment notebook. S/he should it home and to school every day so that it can be worked on in either place. Several kids have said "my mom wanted to look at it..." or "my dad wasn't done reading it..." but I've reminded them that it is their responsibility to have with them. Please see the links at the top of this site- there is a new link called biography project with all sorts of resources and information. I will explain it to the kids as we arrive at each check-in point.
We did our first note-taking mini-lesson on Friday. The main point of the lesson was to learn how to organize information by labeling the chapter that they're taking notes about, and bulleting the information. This is not natural for the kids yet. We talked about writing it in their own words and will do a follow up lesson on this next week. I'm REALLY looking forward to working with you and the kids, they've chosen awesome people to study! Talk to your kids about the examples of the projects I showed them this week. What do they think they might choose? *Ask your kids how we practiced taking notes on Friday. Ask them to show you the notes they've taken so far.*
Word Study: We are doing a mini-unit on figurative language right now. We watched a great video compilation of examples of figurative language in movies; now we are studying each technique that an author can use. These include similes, metaphors, onomatopoeias, idioms, personification, etc. Ask your kids the difference between a metaphor and a simile. (Hint: For a metaphor you'd say "My brother's room is a pigsty." For a simile you'd say "my brother's room is as messy as a pig pen!")
We are also finally starting spelling! Many spelling programs are a challenge because they don't accurately target the needs of individual learners and oftentimes the work that the kids complete isn't meaningful. After a lot of research and work, the 4th grade team has developed a plan for the year that we believe will effectively target your individual child's spelling needs without adding busy work for them or for us. I gave your kids a pretest this week. There are over 200 lists of spelling words in our program and based on the spelling patterns that your child needs support with, they will start at different list numbers. Each week they will get their list, write their words for practice, sort them by spelling pattern, and find other words that fit the pattern. They will take their test online, screen-shot it, and email it to me. I will teach them this process and send home more information next week. It is already posted on the blog (in the Language Arts links) and on the homework site.
Writing: The kids worked on writing littles stories (also called anecdotes) as support for their reasons for their opinion pieces this week. It's going a little slowly right now with MAP testing, Dibels testing, and several other guest speakers, assemblies, and institute day next week. We'll look forward to getting back into the swing of things the following week! Ask your kids about what stories they chose to support their reasons.
Math: This week we continued to work on long division. We started each math class off working together and solving a few long division word problems. Then we were able to break into small group and partner work to gain extra help on long division. Many students have worked very hard on either the long division algorithm or solving long division through the place value chart. Mrs. Spring is now helping co-teach our math class. She will be teaching with me on Tuesday and Thursdays to enable more small group work. Ask your child which method they like to use and how they can solve 2034 divided by 6.
Social Studies: We learned a lot about the Northeast section of the United States! We finished taking notes and reading about the Northeast and will begin to learn about the Midwest next week. Please send in any pictures of your kids (family) visiting the Midwest (not Chicago though) so we can add them to our regions photo board. Ask your child one interesting fact they learned about the Northeast.
Science: Our class meets with Mrs. Darley for science. They are learning about magnetism. Ask your student how their science class went this week and what they are learning about.
Miscellaneous:
- The kids had their math MAP test this week. On Monday they'll take their mid-year reading test and on Tuesday they'll take their mid-year fluency DIBELS test. It'll be nice to see their progress and adjust our learning accordingly!
- We enjoyed a fantastic visit from Dr. Kupperman through Science Alliance again this week. We learned about sound waves. Ask your kids about our bottle band!!
- We sent a link for our conference sign up this week. Please click here to sign up. We look forward to meeting with you.
- Laurie Conley, our teacher librarian, recommends books from this list, check it out.
