Dates to remember:
Monday, October 21-Reading/Math logs due, homework packets due
Monday, October 21-Service Club Meeting from 2:45-3:45
Tuesday, October 22-Picture Day
Wednesday, October 23-Writing Assessment
Thursday, October 24-Science Test
Friday, October 25-Word Study/Spelling test
Friday, October 25-Visit with author, Phil Bildner
Thursday, October 31-Writing Club from 2:45-3:45 in Ms. Arnold's Room
Friday, November 1-Movie Night, The Croods, at 7:30-bring canned food
October 19, 2013
Hi,
We have a new student! We are excited to welcome Madison to our bat cave! She comes to us from Oklahoma and has been a wonderful addition to our classroom!
Thank you for your flexibility with the rescheduling of our conferences. The kids also did well, overall, with two different substitutes. I was very excited to be back with everyone!
Next week is Red Ribbon Week! We have a theme for each day.
Monday-Say Peace Out to Drugs-wear tie dye
Tuesday-I Picture Myself Without Drugs-wear your school picture clothes
Wednesday-Say Yes to a Healthy Heart and Body-wear anything and everything RED
Thursday-Too Cool for Drugs-wear sunglasses
Friday-Sock it to Drugs-wear crazy socks
Also on Friday, we will have a Red Ribbon Week assembly. We will be working on essays for the Red Ribbon Week Essay contest on Monday and Tuesday.
Phil Bildner will be at our school! He is the author of several picture books including The Hallelujah Flight, Twenty-One Elephants, Turkey Bowl, and The Greatest Story Ever Told. He will be conducting a writing workshop with all of our fourth grade classes. He is a very dynamic and interesting speaker and the children will learn a lot from him while having a great time. Order forms for his books will be coming home on Monday. He will sign the books bought as well. You can learn more about Phil Bildner by going to his site: http://philbildner.com
Service Club will be meeting on Monday, October 21, 2013 from 2:45-3:45 in our classroom. We will have a guest speaker come to teach us about a childhood illness called OMS and how we can help with a toy drive to support research.
Writing Assessment on Wednesday. All of the fourth graders will be writing to a prompt provided by our district. The children will be independently drafting, revising, editing, and writing their final composition on lined paper. This is to help prepare them for the STAAR testing that will be done in the spring and help us determine strengths and things to work on to improve their writing. Please be sure that your child is in school on time on Wednesday for testing from about 8:00-10:00.
Read about our week:
Reading-We are reading expository text. We ask questions, make inferences, make predictions, make connections, and summarize. We use evidence from the text to prove our answers and support our thinking. We read about the government shutdown in our Time For Kids magazine this week. We will be reading about smoking, drugs, and alcohol from our health book this week to coordinate with Red Ribbon Week. We will also begin new book club books.
Writing-We learned about truisms and how we can use them to inspire and/or conclude our writing. A truism is a statement that is true or the author believes to be true. Friends are an important part of my life. After a storm, a rainbow appears. Life can be unfair. Winter is the best season. All of these sentences are examples of truisms and we practiced putting truisms into our writing. We will work on essays for Red Ribbon Week, finish up our Reflections writing, and gather more entries for essays this week. We will also practice using were/where correctly and words and learn about words with the following word parts- therm (thermometer, thermal), cent (centimeter, centennial), sci (science, scientist), and meter (millimeter, centimeter, kilometer, meter stick) and continue to use correct capitalization and punctuation in all of our writing in all subjects.
Math-We are continuing looking for patterns and using algebraic reasoning. The class is doing very well looking at a pattern and determining a rule for that pattern. We will be applying these concepts into some challenging word problems this week. As always we will continue to work on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts.
Science-We are finishing up learning about matter, changes in matter, and mixtures and solutions. We will have a test on Thursday on these concepts. I will send a study guide by email this week end and also suggest encouraging your child to go to Stemscopes to practice the concepts covered. Stemscopes includes websites, games, interactive virtual investigations, vocabulary, and science rock songs. Go to stemscopes from the Forest Creek website. Go to the For Students link on the right side. Then to stemscopes. User name: Bartholomew. Password: bats. Review the activities related to Classifying Matter, Changes from Heat, and Mixtures and Solutions.
Social Studies-We will continue learning about the tribes of Texas this week.
Have a wonderful weekend. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
No comments:
Post a Comment