Hi,
Be sure that your child washes his/her hands and uses hand sanitizer. We seem to have a little stomach virus going around. Hopefully, everyone can get healthy and stay healthy this week.
We had a great week!
I am so excited that our fourth grade has started forming groups for enrichment and interventions. We have one twenty minute group time from 8:00-8:20 and another from 10:00-10:20. Many children are leaving their homeroom and going to another teacher for a more focused group in reading and math. We can group them by specific objectives that are needed to reteach and/or extend. Some of the groups meet daily and some meet two or three times a week. Ask your child about this. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you so much to the all the Dads who came to school on Wednesday. I am sorry that I missed you. I had a doctor's appointment that had been scheduled quite a long time prior. I hope you enjoyed your time in our classroom and feel free to come again anytime! (Moms can come, also :) )
Thank you for sending in your conference time requests. I will make a schedule and send it to you by Monday afternoon.
Read about our activities and our learning.
Reading: We read an online book about matter and answered some review questions to get ready for our science test. We are beginning some research on Native Americans in Texas and will continue that next week. We read an article about the first moon landing and learned about reading to gain information and answer new questions. We will be praciting this in our Native American research. We are beginning book clubs and each child has a new novel to read for their book club group. Many of the children brought their books home to read chapter 1 over the weekend. We will be reading in class and they are welcome to bring their book club book home also but NEED to have it in class. They will be reading independently, summarizing what they've read, then writing about their questions, connections, predictions, character descriptions and changes, as well as their thoughts and feelings about their book. They will be meeting in groups with me to talk about what they've read. Book clubs are so much fun and it is always wonderful to experience the children getting lost in their books! I can't wait!
Writing: We finished a draft of our first personal narratives in our draft books. We will each choose another personal narrative entry from our writer's notebook to write a draft of in another draft book. Then each child will read both of their draftbooks and decide which one they would like to publish. We will have an Author's Celebration on October 12 at 2:00 in our classroom. The children will be sharing their published work. You are invited to come and help us celebrate their wonderful progress in writing!
Math: Multiplication strategies have been our focus. We practiced multiplying by 10's and 100's a bunch this week and applied that skill to problem solving situations. We also made multiple towers using adding tape and calculators. In partners, we had a starting number and found multiples of that number by repeated adding or multiplication to create our towers. We will be examining them more on Monday and continue with input/output tables and mathematical patterns.
Science: We are learning about changes in matter from adding or taking away heat. We will finish our web surfing activity from today, review vocabulary, and read about changes from heat. We will be having a test on this topic on Wednesday, October 5. The children are welcome to explore the activities and games on this topic on Stemscopes. Go to the Forest Creek Elementary Website, then for teachers, then Stemscopes. Login-Username= bartholomew, password=bats. Click on Bartholomew Bats Fall 2011. Then click on any or all of the activities in the Changes from Heat section. Have fun! Feel free to explore with changes from heat at home. Put an ice cube in the sun (with and without an insulator), put crayons on some foil in the sun and see what happens, put a cup of water in the freezer then put it in a pan on the stove (with parent help) and watch it change. Talk about the changes that happen. Feel different parts of the inside of the car when you enter it after being parked in the sun and talk about them. Notice matter changing around you.
Social Studies: Native Americans in Texas is our topic. We just started and will be continuing researching this week and next.
Dates to remember:
Monday, October 3-Reading logs due
Wednesday, October 5-Science Test-Changes from Heat
Thursday, October 6=Writing Benchmark
Monday, October 10-Student Holiday-Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences
Tuesday, October 11-PTA meeting 11 am
Service Club Meeting-2:45-4:00pm
Wednesday, October 12-Author's Celebration-2:00 pm in our classroom
Individual Photos taken
Monday, October 17-Running Club 2:45
Thursday, October 20-Writing Club (tentative date) 2:45-4:00 in library
Monday, October 24-October 28=Book Fair, Red Ribbon Week
Tuesday, October 25-Service Club Meeting 2:45-4:00pm
Thursday, October 27=Passport to Literacy Night 5:00pm
Have a fabulous weekend! Stay safe and healthy! Hopefully it will rain.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Newsletter
Hi,
We had a great week! We were very busy and had fun.
Wednesday was our first fire drill of the school year and our class did extremely well. On Friday we had a Mad Science Assembly which was very cool. Ask your child about their favorite parts.
Here's what we did:
Reading: We learned that readers ask lots of questions as they read. Some of them are answered as we continue reading but others are not. We read a very interesting book called The Mary Celeste: A Mystery from History by Jane Yolen. This book raised lots of questions and many were answered but some left us wondering. Asking questions is one skill that readers use to help monitor their comprehension and help with understanding. We also read some biographies and continued reading our read aloud book, Out of my Mind.
Writing: We wrote, edited, and revised letters to our pen pals introducing ourselves. We did some free writing while I had conferences with individual students to work on writing leads for the personal narratives that we are writing.
Math: Multiplication strategies! We practiced the "Using Tens" strategy. If you know the product of a number multiplied by ten then you can find out the answer to that number multiplied by five. Since five is half of ten, by halving the product of a x 10, you will get the product of a x 5. For example: 8 x 10 =80, 8x5= (half of 80 which is forty) 3x10=30 so 3x5= 15 (or half of 30). Practicing using place value to multiply by 10s and 100s was easier than we thought. We also practiced the doubling and halving strategy. If you have a difficult problem like 45 x 18, you can double one of the factors and half the other factor to make an easier problem. For example, 45 x 18 (double 45=90, half 18=9) new equation is 90 x 9. 9x9=81 so 90x9=810. We will continue practicing these and many more strategies for multiplication.
Science: We are working on Classifying Matter. We've been exploring ways to identify and classify matter and did an experiment using different items and magnets. We did another exploration using balloons filled with three different substances then tested to see which balloons were more dense by determining if the balloons would sink or float. The balloon filled with air was least dense and floated. The balloon filled with dish washing soap was most dense and sunk. The one filled with baby oil was in-between. It was suspended in the water. We also tested liquids for density using straws and dyed salt water. The water with the greatest concentration of salt was the densest and went to the bottom of the straw. The plain water was on the top layer and the one with some salt was in the middle. We explored some websites also to help us learn more about states of matter. There are some sites on our class website under science links that could be reviewed over the weekend to get ready for our test on Monday.
Social Studies: We worked on reading maps this week. We interpreted an elevation map of Texas and some natural resources and products maps.
Education Go Get it Week:
Don't forget to print out a pennant from the school website to decorate with your favorite college. We will have special guests in broadcast during the week and have a task for each day.
Monday-wear college t-shirts
Tuesday-wear sunglasses
Wednesday-wear tennis shoes and bring Dad to school (FYI-I will not be in class in the morning on Wednesday because I have a doctor's appointment, I will be back in the PM)
Thursday-wear an outfit to represent your future profession
Friday-wear a FCE shirt, purple shirt, or green shirt
Be sure to remember:
Monday, September 26-Science test on Classifying Matter
Tuesday,September 27-Service Club Meeting after school from 2:45-4:00
Monday, October 10-Student Holiday
Friday, October 14-Pen Pal Visit at FCE
Have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We had a great week! We were very busy and had fun.
Wednesday was our first fire drill of the school year and our class did extremely well. On Friday we had a Mad Science Assembly which was very cool. Ask your child about their favorite parts.
Here's what we did:
Reading: We learned that readers ask lots of questions as they read. Some of them are answered as we continue reading but others are not. We read a very interesting book called The Mary Celeste: A Mystery from History by Jane Yolen. This book raised lots of questions and many were answered but some left us wondering. Asking questions is one skill that readers use to help monitor their comprehension and help with understanding. We also read some biographies and continued reading our read aloud book, Out of my Mind.
Writing: We wrote, edited, and revised letters to our pen pals introducing ourselves. We did some free writing while I had conferences with individual students to work on writing leads for the personal narratives that we are writing.
Math: Multiplication strategies! We practiced the "Using Tens" strategy. If you know the product of a number multiplied by ten then you can find out the answer to that number multiplied by five. Since five is half of ten, by halving the product of a x 10, you will get the product of a x 5. For example: 8 x 10 =80, 8x5= (half of 80 which is forty) 3x10=30 so 3x5= 15 (or half of 30). Practicing using place value to multiply by 10s and 100s was easier than we thought. We also practiced the doubling and halving strategy. If you have a difficult problem like 45 x 18, you can double one of the factors and half the other factor to make an easier problem. For example, 45 x 18 (double 45=90, half 18=9) new equation is 90 x 9. 9x9=81 so 90x9=810. We will continue practicing these and many more strategies for multiplication.
Science: We are working on Classifying Matter. We've been exploring ways to identify and classify matter and did an experiment using different items and magnets. We did another exploration using balloons filled with three different substances then tested to see which balloons were more dense by determining if the balloons would sink or float. The balloon filled with air was least dense and floated. The balloon filled with dish washing soap was most dense and sunk. The one filled with baby oil was in-between. It was suspended in the water. We also tested liquids for density using straws and dyed salt water. The water with the greatest concentration of salt was the densest and went to the bottom of the straw. The plain water was on the top layer and the one with some salt was in the middle. We explored some websites also to help us learn more about states of matter. There are some sites on our class website under science links that could be reviewed over the weekend to get ready for our test on Monday.
Social Studies: We worked on reading maps this week. We interpreted an elevation map of Texas and some natural resources and products maps.
Education Go Get it Week:
Don't forget to print out a pennant from the school website to decorate with your favorite college. We will have special guests in broadcast during the week and have a task for each day.
Monday-wear college t-shirts
Tuesday-wear sunglasses
Wednesday-wear tennis shoes and bring Dad to school (FYI-I will not be in class in the morning on Wednesday because I have a doctor's appointment, I will be back in the PM)
Thursday-wear an outfit to represent your future profession
Friday-wear a FCE shirt, purple shirt, or green shirt
Be sure to remember:
Monday, September 26-Science test on Classifying Matter
Tuesday,September 27-Service Club Meeting after school from 2:45-4:00
Monday, October 10-Student Holiday
Friday, October 14-Pen Pal Visit at FCE
Have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, September 16, 2011
Newsletter-Celebrate Freedom Week
Hi,
This was Celebrate Freedom Week! We learned a little about the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, The Constitution-Preamble, Articles, Bill of Rights, and Amendments. The book, America: A Patriotic Primer, was read and discussed. We compared the Pledge of Allegiance to the Pledge to the Texas Flag. The Schoolhouse Rock Preamble song was sung several times this week as well as state song, Texas, Our Texas. We watched Brainpop videos about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Thomas Jefferson. To celebrate Constitution Day (September 17) we read a book called Bartholomew Cubbins and the 500 Hats to show why the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is important and what could happen if they didn't exist. We also listened to an interview on the Scholastic Site of two children interviewing President Obama about the importance of the Constitution. Drawing pictures of "Freedom" was fun as well.
Thank you to all the students who came to our first official FCE Service Club meeting. Our new project is collecting HEB and Walmart gift cards for fire victims in Smithville. We will continue to collect them through next Wednesday. Thank you to those who have already donated. Our next Service Club meeting is on Tuesday, September 28. All 4th and 5th graders are welcome.
Reading: We read books by Patricia Polacco and will be reading her autobiography on Monday to show how she used stories from her life as topics in her picture books. Next week, we will practice more reading strategies and will be examining some biographies.
Writing: We are getting ready to begin revising and editing our first personal narratives. We worked on drafting some leads and will be working on endings next week as well. We will write our drafts into draft books which will help us to organize our stories into paragraphs. We will be conferencing and revising a lot next week. It will be wonderful!
Math: Going to the computer lab to use population numbers to graph was very cool. We also began looking at arrays and practicing multiplication concepts this week. We will continue to review addition and subtraction with regrouping in problem solving as well as more strategies for multiplication.
Social Studies: We completed a huge project this week. We made poster sized maps of Texas and used jewels to mark cities, yarn to mark rivers, and pom poms to represent resources and products in Texas. We did these projects in cooperative groups which was a bit challenging for some but the maps look magnificent. Come and see them in our hallway! Next week we will be learning about matter in science.
Education Go Get it Week!-The week of September 26-30 is week Education Go Get it Week. Be sure to go to the Efolder on the FCE website to print out a banner for your child to decorate with their favorite college. We will be hanging these up.
Dates to Remember:
Wednesday, September 21-Last day to send in Walmart and HEB gift cards for fire victims
Tuesday, September 27-Service Club Meeting-2:45-4:00pm
Monday, October 10=Student Holiday
Tuesday, October 11=PTA Meeting 6:30pm
Wednesday, October 12=Fall Individual photos
Monday October 24-Friday, October 28=Red Ribbon Week
Have a wonderful weekend! Thank you for all your support. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
This was Celebrate Freedom Week! We learned a little about the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, The Constitution-Preamble, Articles, Bill of Rights, and Amendments. The book, America: A Patriotic Primer, was read and discussed. We compared the Pledge of Allegiance to the Pledge to the Texas Flag. The Schoolhouse Rock Preamble song was sung several times this week as well as state song, Texas, Our Texas. We watched Brainpop videos about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Thomas Jefferson. To celebrate Constitution Day (September 17) we read a book called Bartholomew Cubbins and the 500 Hats to show why the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is important and what could happen if they didn't exist. We also listened to an interview on the Scholastic Site of two children interviewing President Obama about the importance of the Constitution. Drawing pictures of "Freedom" was fun as well.
Thank you to all the students who came to our first official FCE Service Club meeting. Our new project is collecting HEB and Walmart gift cards for fire victims in Smithville. We will continue to collect them through next Wednesday. Thank you to those who have already donated. Our next Service Club meeting is on Tuesday, September 28. All 4th and 5th graders are welcome.
Reading: We read books by Patricia Polacco and will be reading her autobiography on Monday to show how she used stories from her life as topics in her picture books. Next week, we will practice more reading strategies and will be examining some biographies.
Writing: We are getting ready to begin revising and editing our first personal narratives. We worked on drafting some leads and will be working on endings next week as well. We will write our drafts into draft books which will help us to organize our stories into paragraphs. We will be conferencing and revising a lot next week. It will be wonderful!
Math: Going to the computer lab to use population numbers to graph was very cool. We also began looking at arrays and practicing multiplication concepts this week. We will continue to review addition and subtraction with regrouping in problem solving as well as more strategies for multiplication.
Social Studies: We completed a huge project this week. We made poster sized maps of Texas and used jewels to mark cities, yarn to mark rivers, and pom poms to represent resources and products in Texas. We did these projects in cooperative groups which was a bit challenging for some but the maps look magnificent. Come and see them in our hallway! Next week we will be learning about matter in science.
Education Go Get it Week!-The week of September 26-30 is week Education Go Get it Week. Be sure to go to the Efolder on the FCE website to print out a banner for your child to decorate with their favorite college. We will be hanging these up.
Dates to Remember:
Wednesday, September 21-Last day to send in Walmart and HEB gift cards for fire victims
Tuesday, September 27-Service Club Meeting-2:45-4:00pm
Monday, October 10=Student Holiday
Tuesday, October 11=PTA Meeting 6:30pm
Wednesday, October 12=Fall Individual photos
Monday October 24-Friday, October 28=Red Ribbon Week
Have a wonderful weekend! Thank you for all your support. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, September 9, 2011
Newsletter
Hi,
We had a busy but fun week! Your kids have been earning individual classroom tickets for showing good behavior (self-control, following directions, working extra hard, etc...) and many have been choosing to use their tickets by bringing in a pet to share. We have seen Sophie's dog, Cayge's dog, Madi's hamster, Morgan's kitten, and Ethan's puppy. We also have a new addition to our classroom. Albert, the hermit crab is now living with us. Madi brought in three other hermit crabs for us as well. It has been quite exciting!
It was so wonderful to see so many grandparents here today. Thanks so much for sharing in your grandchild's education!
Here was our week:
Reading: We read some nonfiction books and magazines and practiced using comprehension strategies. We asked questions and recorded them, we discussed different visual and text features in nonfiction (photos, captions, glossary, table of contents, maps, diagrams, etc...) and how they helped us learn and we noticed words that we said in our head when we learned something new. Some of these words were wow..., I never knew..., yikes..., It's interesting that... then we wrote down the fact or new information that followed. We read some magazine articles independently to practice. Next week we will be studying some picture books by Patricia Polacco and her autobiography to see how she uses stories from her life in her books. We will also look at some other biographies.
Writing: We are working on gathering entries for personal narratives. We wrote about special people, important places, and significant objects. We are continuing to write with details, sensory words, and strong word choice to help the reader get a picture in their head while we read. We will be choosing an entry soon to publish. Lots of interesting writing is going on!
Math: In math we continued to work with place value and some word problems with addition and subtraction. We will always work on problem solving and next week we will focus on some multiplication.
Social Studies: We continued to learn about places in Texas and the four regions of Texas. We are finishing up a postcard project about our favorite regions. Next week we will be making a giant Texas poster and decorating it to identify the regions, cities, rivers, mountains, and resources. It will be a lot of fun and very educational!
Our Service Club organized the donations for the wildfire victims this afternoon. Our school collected 975 items! Wow! Thank you for being so generous!
We will talk on Monday again about 9/11. Share your stories of what you were doing with your child.
Dates to Remember:
Tuesday, September 13-Service Club Meeting from 2:45-4:00pm
Wednesday, September 14- Early Release Day-12:45
Friday, September 16-Robotics Applications are due to Mrs. Ginapp
Monday, September 26-Friday, September 30-Education Go Get It Week
Monday, October 10-Student Holiday
Tuesday, October 11-PTA meeting at 6:30 pm
Have a great weekend! Thank you for sharing your children with me. Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We had a busy but fun week! Your kids have been earning individual classroom tickets for showing good behavior (self-control, following directions, working extra hard, etc...) and many have been choosing to use their tickets by bringing in a pet to share. We have seen Sophie's dog, Cayge's dog, Madi's hamster, Morgan's kitten, and Ethan's puppy. We also have a new addition to our classroom. Albert, the hermit crab is now living with us. Madi brought in three other hermit crabs for us as well. It has been quite exciting!
It was so wonderful to see so many grandparents here today. Thanks so much for sharing in your grandchild's education!
Here was our week:
Reading: We read some nonfiction books and magazines and practiced using comprehension strategies. We asked questions and recorded them, we discussed different visual and text features in nonfiction (photos, captions, glossary, table of contents, maps, diagrams, etc...) and how they helped us learn and we noticed words that we said in our head when we learned something new. Some of these words were wow..., I never knew..., yikes..., It's interesting that... then we wrote down the fact or new information that followed. We read some magazine articles independently to practice. Next week we will be studying some picture books by Patricia Polacco and her autobiography to see how she uses stories from her life in her books. We will also look at some other biographies.
Writing: We are working on gathering entries for personal narratives. We wrote about special people, important places, and significant objects. We are continuing to write with details, sensory words, and strong word choice to help the reader get a picture in their head while we read. We will be choosing an entry soon to publish. Lots of interesting writing is going on!
Math: In math we continued to work with place value and some word problems with addition and subtraction. We will always work on problem solving and next week we will focus on some multiplication.
Social Studies: We continued to learn about places in Texas and the four regions of Texas. We are finishing up a postcard project about our favorite regions. Next week we will be making a giant Texas poster and decorating it to identify the regions, cities, rivers, mountains, and resources. It will be a lot of fun and very educational!
Our Service Club organized the donations for the wildfire victims this afternoon. Our school collected 975 items! Wow! Thank you for being so generous!
We will talk on Monday again about 9/11. Share your stories of what you were doing with your child.
Dates to Remember:
Tuesday, September 13-Service Club Meeting from 2:45-4:00pm
Wednesday, September 14- Early Release Day-12:45
Friday, September 16-Robotics Applications are due to Mrs. Ginapp
Monday, September 26-Friday, September 30-Education Go Get It Week
Monday, October 10-Student Holiday
Tuesday, October 11-PTA meeting at 6:30 pm
Have a great weekend! Thank you for sharing your children with me. Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, September 2, 2011
Newsletter-Hard Working Week
Hi,
Our class worked hard this week!
Thank you to all families who were able to come to Back to School Night. Thank you for helping your child with the decoration of their writer's notebooks. All of the books look fantastic and the children did a great job telling stories about their decorations. Thank you to Grace for sharing her wonderful cello playing with us and to Cayge for sharing his adorable dog, Bruno, with us. Thank you also for sending your child to school each day ready to learn, ready to work, and happy!
Don't forget that we have PE on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays so be sure that your child has the appropriate shoes.
Reading-In reading we began working on some comprehension strategies. We read a book called How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting. It is a book about a family who arrived in America by boat from an island in the Carribean. As we read aloud we listened to our inner conversation. We wrote about questions, wonderings, tricky words, connections, and feelings about content and characters. We wrote our thinking on tons of post-it notes and discussed the theme of the book. We practiced writing about our inner conversations by using magazine articles from National Geography for Kids and shared what we learned and noticed. We also read part of an article about Asian artifacts being stolen and sold. As I read some of the article aloud, I modeled how my comprehension broke down at times and what fix-up strategies I used to help get back on track. We will be practicing this more next week. We will also be using some articles and children's literature on 9/11. This year is the 10th anniversary of that tragedy. We will be thinking through the texts and again leaving tracks of our thinking to help monitor our comprehension. We will also be looking at text features in expository (non-fiction) text and how these features help us to learn.
Writing: We read a poem by Maya Angelou and discussed the figurative language used and the images it created for us. Then we read more poems and books with similes and metaphors and discussed how the writer used these comparisons to describe and help the reader get a picture in his/her head as they read. We then read the book, The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and used the format of that book to write important poems about ourselves. We took our poems through the writing process-drafting, conferencing with teacher, revising, editing, and publishing. The kids did a wonderful job and our descriptive poems are on display outside our classroom. Be sure to stop by and enjoy them!
Math: We continued to work on place value. In fourth grade, the students need to be able to read, write, and use numbers up to 999,999,999. We used our 1,000 books to practice skip counting strategies and practiced adding and subtracting multiples of 10 and 100. Then we found those numbers in our 1,000 book. We used a number line strategy to figure out numbers to 1,000 starting with a number in the hundreds. This strategy allows for getter understanding of number concepts and for less mistakes subtracting a number from 1,000 and regrouping so many zeros. We also added to check our answers. We played some games to practice using and manipulating numbers to 1,000. Next week we will continue to work with large numbers. We will compare them (greater than, less than, and equal), add and subtract them, order them from greatest to least or least to greatest, and estimate using these larger numbers. We will do an activity involving population sizes of states and solve some challenging problems.
Social Studies: We are using a powerpoint with photos of the regions of Texas to go on a virtual bus trip. We are learning about the geography of the region and some cities in each region. We will be doing some activities about each region and work on a post card project. Each student will create a post card about one of the regions and write about it. Some map skills will also be practiced during this time. We are using the photos that you sent in of places in Texas to see examples of some of these regions as well. Thank you for sending them in. Check out our map in the hallway and see all the cool places that we have been.
Thank you for sending a healthy snack each day and a water bottle.
Dates to remember:
Monday, September 5-No School
Tuesday, September 6-PTA meeting/WATCH DOG kick off-6:00pm
Friday, September 9-Grandparent Day during lunch time 11:55-12:25
Wednesday, September 14-Early Release Day
Have a safe and relaxing holiday weekend! Thank you for sharing your child with me! Please contact me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Our class worked hard this week!
Thank you to all families who were able to come to Back to School Night. Thank you for helping your child with the decoration of their writer's notebooks. All of the books look fantastic and the children did a great job telling stories about their decorations. Thank you to Grace for sharing her wonderful cello playing with us and to Cayge for sharing his adorable dog, Bruno, with us. Thank you also for sending your child to school each day ready to learn, ready to work, and happy!
Don't forget that we have PE on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays so be sure that your child has the appropriate shoes.
Reading-In reading we began working on some comprehension strategies. We read a book called How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting. It is a book about a family who arrived in America by boat from an island in the Carribean. As we read aloud we listened to our inner conversation. We wrote about questions, wonderings, tricky words, connections, and feelings about content and characters. We wrote our thinking on tons of post-it notes and discussed the theme of the book. We practiced writing about our inner conversations by using magazine articles from National Geography for Kids and shared what we learned and noticed. We also read part of an article about Asian artifacts being stolen and sold. As I read some of the article aloud, I modeled how my comprehension broke down at times and what fix-up strategies I used to help get back on track. We will be practicing this more next week. We will also be using some articles and children's literature on 9/11. This year is the 10th anniversary of that tragedy. We will be thinking through the texts and again leaving tracks of our thinking to help monitor our comprehension. We will also be looking at text features in expository (non-fiction) text and how these features help us to learn.
Writing: We read a poem by Maya Angelou and discussed the figurative language used and the images it created for us. Then we read more poems and books with similes and metaphors and discussed how the writer used these comparisons to describe and help the reader get a picture in his/her head as they read. We then read the book, The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and used the format of that book to write important poems about ourselves. We took our poems through the writing process-drafting, conferencing with teacher, revising, editing, and publishing. The kids did a wonderful job and our descriptive poems are on display outside our classroom. Be sure to stop by and enjoy them!
Math: We continued to work on place value. In fourth grade, the students need to be able to read, write, and use numbers up to 999,999,999. We used our 1,000 books to practice skip counting strategies and practiced adding and subtracting multiples of 10 and 100. Then we found those numbers in our 1,000 book. We used a number line strategy to figure out numbers to 1,000 starting with a number in the hundreds. This strategy allows for getter understanding of number concepts and for less mistakes subtracting a number from 1,000 and regrouping so many zeros. We also added to check our answers. We played some games to practice using and manipulating numbers to 1,000. Next week we will continue to work with large numbers. We will compare them (greater than, less than, and equal), add and subtract them, order them from greatest to least or least to greatest, and estimate using these larger numbers. We will do an activity involving population sizes of states and solve some challenging problems.
Social Studies: We are using a powerpoint with photos of the regions of Texas to go on a virtual bus trip. We are learning about the geography of the region and some cities in each region. We will be doing some activities about each region and work on a post card project. Each student will create a post card about one of the regions and write about it. Some map skills will also be practiced during this time. We are using the photos that you sent in of places in Texas to see examples of some of these regions as well. Thank you for sending them in. Check out our map in the hallway and see all the cool places that we have been.
Thank you for sending a healthy snack each day and a water bottle.
Dates to remember:
Monday, September 5-No School
Tuesday, September 6-PTA meeting/WATCH DOG kick off-6:00pm
Friday, September 9-Grandparent Day during lunch time 11:55-12:25
Wednesday, September 14-Early Release Day
Have a safe and relaxing holiday weekend! Thank you for sharing your child with me! Please contact me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
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