Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Monday, December 19, 2016
Friday, December 16, 2016
We had a great week! Only 3 more days until break!
We had fun doing a multiplication break out experience today in the innovation lab!
We will have our unit test over force and motion/simple machines on Wednesday. Students will be bringing home their journals and some other resources they can use for studying.
Please join us for our class party on Tuesday from 11-12! :)
We had fun doing a multiplication break out experience today in the innovation lab!
We will have our unit test over force and motion/simple machines on Wednesday. Students will be bringing home their journals and some other resources they can use for studying.
Please join us for our class party on Tuesday from 11-12! :)
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Monday, December 12, 2016
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Monday, December 5, 2016
Friday, December 2, 2016
We had a great week! The kids had so much fun playing with the virtual reality glasses. If you didn't get to see a video of your child wearing the glasses, make sure you have connected to Seesaw!
Next week we will have a quiz over multiplication, point of view, force and motion vocabulary and our spelling words.
We will be starting division next week!
Next week we will have a quiz over multiplication, point of view, force and motion vocabulary and our spelling words.
We will be starting division next week!
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Monday, November 28, 2016
Welcome back!! We hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving Break!
Tonight's Homework:
Math- Multiplication Sheet
Non-Read 180 students
Holes weekly HW- Read chapters 11-14 and discussion questions
We are beginning our study on Point of View. A Point of View study guide was given today! We will have a test next week over POV.
Six Flags Read to Succeed forms will be going home on Wednesday! :)
Tonight's Homework:
Math- Multiplication Sheet
Non-Read 180 students
Holes weekly HW- Read chapters 11-14 and discussion questions
We are beginning our study on Point of View. A Point of View study guide was given today! We will have a test next week over POV.
Six Flags Read to Succeed forms will be going home on Wednesday! :)
Friday, November 18, 2016
We hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving Break! Thank you to everyone who donated items, or volunteered for the Explorer's feast today! Thank you for helping your children create super awesome explorer projects! We posted a video of each child in Seesaw doing his/her presentation! If you have not connected to Seesaw yet, we are sending a second sheet with directions on how to connect today. This is a great time for students to begin planning/preparing their second Book Celebration project that is due before December 16th. Enjoy the break!
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Monday, November 14, 2016
Friday, November 11, 2016
We hope that everyone will sign up for Seesaw! Many of you are already enjoying seeing pictures and videos of your children at school!
We are still shocked that we are starting our last week before Thanksgiving Break! We have a busy week ahead with our Explorer Feast coming up! Don't forget to sign up to fix a breakfast dish or to come in and help us set up, serve or clean up!!
When we return from Thanksgiving Break, we will be taking the Reading and Math Inventories again to measure gains. We will update you on the scores as soon as we take the assessments.
We have been getting some emails asking for strategies to help improve grades. We hope that you are encouraging your student to use the Moby Max site that Kemp purchased for student practice. Login information is in the front of your child's agenda. This site provides practice for ALL subject areas! Making sure your student is reading EVERY night and practicing their multiplication facts will help more than you realize.
Read Below for Important Upcoming Dates!
Monday 11/14: Mellow Mushroom in Hiram Kemp Spirit Night! Sparkles permission slips go home
Thursday 11/17: Progress Reports go Home; Explorer's Test
Friday 11/18: Explorer Feast and Explorer Projects Due;Sparkles permission slips due!
Reading
Fourth grade standards require students to describe a character in a story using character traits and evidence from the text. Character traits are characteristics that describe a character's personality based on repeated behaviors throughout the story. The students have already placed lots of information in their reading journals and we will be focusing closely on this standard next week. A common mistake that 4th graders make is confusing a character's feelings about an event with traits that describe their personality. For example, "Sad" would describe a character's feelings about a particular situation, but "curious" would describe a trait that character shows repeatedly over a long period of time.
We will also be practicing the skill of using transition words to sequence events in a story. This is a pretty easy standard for most fourth graders. I am attaching a site with some cute videos and games for the kids to practice sequencing.
Character Traits LearnzillionScience:
Math
As we continue to practice factors, multiples, prime & composite....we will begin to use the distributive Property to solve 2 digit x 2 digit multiplication problems. We will use a "box" to organize the partial products the same way we did for 1 x 4 digit problems. We are attaching an anchor chart and videos for you and your child to use at home.
Writing & Grammar
The students are finishing up an informational writing piece about life in Ireland. We read two separate passages and wrote to a prompt that required us to use evidence from both texts. We will be looking for written responses that directly answer the question, use appropriate topic and conclusion sentences and writing that is organized by transitional linking words and phrases. As always, students have a rubric/checklist to follow to self-monitor their writing.
We are working on Relative Pronouns!
We will be moving on to Forces and Motion and Simple machines when we leave our Explorer Unit. We are attaching some videos for you to preview with your child.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Monday, November 7, 2016
Today we got to Skype with an expert from the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Wyoming about the Lakota Native American tribe! We spent an hour talking with her about how the tribe used the land and animals to survive. The kids really enjoyed asking her questions and seeing all the parts of the buffalo! During our NA unit, we talked about how tribes used ALL parts of the buffalo. It was super interesting to see exactly what that meant. The expert even showed us a canteen that was made from a buffalo bladder!!!
Tonight's Homework:
Prime and Composite Numbers
No school tomorrow!
Students who are not participating in the Read 180 Program have begun book clubs. Students will be reading Holes by Louis Sachar. Even if students have read this book before, we will be reading to identify important fourth grade standards such as theme, character traits, conflict, etc. Each week students will receive a book club schedule that outlines the reading assignments/homework assignments and quiz dates. Students must keep up with their reading. Students are responsible for their books, and should bring them to and from school each day. If a student is absent, he or she is still expected to complete the reading on time, because we will be doing activities in our daily lessons that revolve around the completed reading.
Tonight's Homework:
Prime and Composite Numbers
No school tomorrow!
Students who are not participating in the Read 180 Program have begun book clubs. Students will be reading Holes by Louis Sachar. Even if students have read this book before, we will be reading to identify important fourth grade standards such as theme, character traits, conflict, etc. Each week students will receive a book club schedule that outlines the reading assignments/homework assignments and quiz dates. Students must keep up with their reading. Students are responsible for their books, and should bring them to and from school each day. If a student is absent, he or she is still expected to complete the reading on time, because we will be doing activities in our daily lessons that revolve around the completed reading.
Friday, November 4, 2016
We hope everyone is recovering from staying up late to watch the Cubs win the World Series!
We know all of our baseball fans were excited about this historical win!
This week has gone by quickly and we have been very busy. This is a critical time of the year with lots of new and very important standards being introduced. Please stress to your student the importance of staying on task during instruction, asking questions when needed, and completing homework assignments! We are beginning new standards and homework is important. We are often limited on practice time in class and homework allows your child an opportunity to get in a little extra practice that could make the difference. It also allows you to see how they are progressing with the standards. If your child does their homework in ASP, we encourage you to go over it with them when they get home, so that you can witness their level of understanding.
Our Wonderful Room Mom is putting together a Sign Up Genius for our Explorer Feast on November 18th. Please try to help us out by sending in food or coming in to help serve!
Read Below for other Important Dates!
Monday 11/7: Kroger Math Night
Tuesday 11/8: No School for Students-Teacher Workday
Explorer Feast November 18th!! Don't Forget to Sign Up! Explorer Project Due!
Reading
We are continuing to practice finding the Main Idea of a passage. We are currently using Nonfiction to practice this standard. This is one of the standards in which the students scored the lowest on the Touchstone end of quarter test. Phrases that signal Main Idea are: What statement best summarizes the passage? What detail from the passage best supports the Main Idea? What is the text mostly about?
When your child brings home main idea practice or brings home graded papers, please take a minute to carefully look at any main idea questions and make sure your child is practicing this skill correctly!
We are also practicing how to Close Read a text. This includes marking up a text, and engaging in it by asking questions. We are also learning how to use text evidence to support our constructed responses when answering questions.
Writing
Now that we have practiced writing strong topic and conclusion sentences, and have worked on writing to one text, we are working on writing to multiple texts. This includes comparing and contrasting!
Math
We are continuing with our multiplication and division unit for this 9 weeks. We will continue to practice area and perimeter, and multiplicative comparisons. We hope that you have been reviewing your child's homework with them so you are familiar with what they will be expected to do on assessments. We have also been working on listing factors and multiples, and recognizing prime and composite numbers, as well as using the distributive property to multiply one digit by multi-digit numbers (up to 1 x 4 digits....ex. 2345 x 6=). We cannot stress enough how important it is that your child is practicing their multiplication facts!! This needs to be a daily practice for these students! First in Math, Moby Max and Multiplication.com are great resources to use. Three Corners flash cards that are available at School Box are also great because they practice multiplication and division fact families at the same time!
Here are some videos to use at home to review these standards!
Social Studies
We will take our Explorer Test on November 17th. Students should use their journals, passages and Jeopardy to help prepare for the test. Don't forget our Explorer Project is due the 18th, the day of our feast!
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Monday, October 31, 2016
Happy Halloween!!
We have no homework tonight. YAY!! Today we discussed our explorer project. The directions came home today, as well as the explorer test Study Guide. Please ask your child to explain the project to you. It will be due November 17th. Have a safe and fun evening!!
Friday, October 28, 2016
Thank you to all the parents who donated & helped out with our "Mystery Centers".....The kids had a great time solving the crime!
Important Dates:
Student Holiday: November 8th
Monday 11/17: Explorer Test
Explorer Projects Due: Nov.18th
Explorer Feast (Breakfast): November 18th @ 8:15 (Look for Signup Genius to help with food and to help serve)
Reading
This week, we began our study on "Close Reading". We practiced reading an informational text multiple times, marking up the text, and answering question using specific textual evidence.
We are continuing to read our extended text, Walk Two Moons. The kids are really into the story! It is such a heartfelt book and it seems they are really grasping the plot through our discussions of the text. Please ask your child about this story and see what their ideas are about Sal's and Phoebe's mothers. (Students in Read 180 are not reading this book.)
Math
We have been working on multiplicative comparisons this week. Here are a few videos!
Multiplication/adapted mindMultiplication Practice Games
Commutative Property
Writing and Equation
Modeling Multiplicative Comparisons
Spelling:
Spelling Sort 4:
Focus on the long vowel pairs: oa, ow, oo
TEST: Nov.4th
Social Studies
On Monday, your child will be assigned an Early European Explorer to research and create a historical figure model. The students will be given directions and guidelines for the model. The easiest way to make the model is to use a Coke or Gatorade bottle and a styrofoam ball that can be purchased at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. However, your child can create their model with any materials that they wish or that are available to them. We attached the above picture of a model created by a past student. The students will attach an index card with information about the explorer to the model and bring the model to school on the day of our Explorer Feast. They will present and share their model with the class at that time. PLEASE do not send models to school before the due date as we do not have a place to safely hold them before that time. Please read over the guidelines and directions given to your child and if you have further questions, please let us know! Have fun with this one :)
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
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