This week...9/19/16

Hello Fourth Grade Families!

Please be sure to check the Safety Patrol schedule, as it begins this week.  Also, please write Curriculum Night on your calendar for next Thursday, the 29th.  I'm looking forward to seeing all of you!

Here's what we'll be up to in 4th grade this week:

Over the past week or so, Ms. Bright and I have been working on completing our Beginning of the Year assessments in Reading, Math, and Spelling.  We've almost completed them, and anticipate having all of them done early this week.  Then we'll be able to begin to work with students in groups that will focus on their specific needs :)

Reading:  In reading we've been working on analyzing characters by determining their physical and personality traits.  We'll dig a little deeper this week by looking at how a character shows their traits through their actions, words, and thoughts.

We've been really enjoying our read aloud of The Indian in the Cupboard, and will continue that this week.  We'll finish the story sometime next week and will do a fun project to wrap things up!  I'll send home information about the project with our homework this week.

Language:  I always start the year with a series of "hard and fast rules" for common aspects of language/writing conventions.  Last week we worked on capitalization, and this week we'll be working on proper use of commas.

Writing:  In writing, we're focusing on the many ways that we can develop ideas for our writing.  This week we'll look at examples of authors that have written about special places and special moments.

Math:  In math we're working on adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers, which should be a review for all of the students.

Social Studies/Science:  We'll be alternating Social Studies and Science units and are starting off with a unit on North Carolina geography and history.  This week we'll be looking at the regions of North Carolina and their physical characteristics.

Bible:  In our Bible curriculum, we'll spend much of the year in the Book of Acts, learning about the early days of the Church.  This week we'll look at what happened when Jesus ascended into Heaven.

Our memory verse for the week is:  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to all the ends of the earth.  Acts 1:8

Have a wonderful week!

The First Few Days

Hello Fourth Grade Families!

The first few days with your kids have been SO GOOD!!!  They have been polite, cooperative, and willing to try everything I've thrown at them.  So far we have:

• Set up our Writing notebooks and started learning the procedures for studying Mentor Sentences (we study the writing of published authors and use them as our mentors).  
• Set up our Math Notebooks and gone through all of the types of problems that we'll do each week in the Mountain Math Center (this is a great way for them to regularly review the skills that they've learned in 3rd grade, and will learn in 4th).  
• Gone over 3 days of the Daily Language Review that we'll do during our Morning Work time (they'll do 5 problems every Mon-Thur and each morning follows the same pattern).

• Started our class read aloud, The Indian in the Cupboard (I know they're loving it when I finish a chapter and they're begging for "just one more chapter...please?!?").  
• Set up our Reading Notebooks and learned how we'll format our Reading Responses.
• Looked at what kind of smart we are (with a Multiple Intelligences survey).
• Started building our Reading stamina during independent reading time (I call it Read to Self time).
• Learned about our "I'm Done, Now What?" activities.  The kids can always take out their books and read if they finish an activity early, but these activities give them some other options, such as:  Read It, Write It, Solve It, Draw It, Journal It, and Create It.  This is something new I'm trying this year, and so far the kids are loving it!
• Started working on Math and Reading assessments that will allow me to understand what their strengths and struggles are so we know what to focus on.


Whew...looking at that list makes me tired!  But it also shows me how much we've been able to accomplish in only a few days.  


Your kids have been working hard, but we've thrown some fun in there too.  Ask the kids about a teamwork activity we did called Save Fred.  It's challenging and fun, and the kids will had a ball!


I'm having so much fun getting to know your children, and I can already tell it's going to be a great year!