February 27

Hi, and happy Monday to you....

Don't forget that we have early release on Monday and Tuesday of this week.  Car riders dismiss at 12:45.  In case you have forgotten your conference time, your child will be bringing home the time in their agenda book on Monday.  You can also call the front office.

What's happening in the classroom?

Social Studies-  We have tested on our Government Unit and are moving on to Westward Expansion.  I do not know the test date yet, but this unit will take us to the end of next week and maybe beyond.

Math-  My math  class started a unit on multiplying and dividing decimals.  We are well into multiplying decimals and will work on dividing decimals starting tomorrow.  Because this is just building upon what we already know about two skills, we will not spend a great deal of time on this.  We should be ready to test on Monday of next week. 

Language Arts - We will take an adverb quiz on Friday.  There is not a study guide for this, but these are the types of questions:  circle the adverb in the sentence, Use the correct form of comparative or superlative adverb (ex. fast, faster, fastest), tell if the adverb is telling when, where or how, double negatives.

Have a super week!

February 21

Hello!  I hope you enjoyed the wonderful 4 day weekend.

Last week I posted a link to a study guide for social studies. This was to allow you to studying with your kids before I sent the in-class study guide home (if you chose to do that).  I do hope you took advantage fo that.  All kids came home with a full study packet starting last Wednesday.  The packet was completed for them to take home for the long weekend, and we will test Wednesday.

In Math, my math class will test on decimals on Thursday of this week.  They will bring home a study guide on Tuesday that we completed in class.

These are the two major happenings in class this week, other than a possible science quiz/test from Ms. Howell.  Please check what your students write down in their agenda book for the specifics on this.

Have a great week!

February 12

I hope you had a wonderful weekend.  The weather was a tad chilly compared to the past couple of weekends.  I prefer the sunny weather.  :-)

Don't forget that we are off this Friday and the following Monday.  Yeah for a 4 day weekend!!

Please ask your child if they have basic school supplies.  Many students are lacking in scissors, crayons or colored pencils, and regular #2 pencils.  It would be a huge help if they could keep these things on hand. 

I hope you found your child's progress report in their Friday folder.  Please sign this and return it on Monday.  I made the mistake and stuffed the progress reports in the report card envelopes (not sure what I was thinking), but it's not a big deal, as I can just add an additional line for you to sign when the 'real' report card goes home at the end of the nine weeks.  I was one step ahead of myself. 

You should have also found a conference time for our early release days coming up at the end of February..  Thank you for sending the signed slip back in as soon as possible. 

Valentine Book Report Floats can be brought in tomorrow or on Tuesday.  We will present them on Tuesday. A class list is below for classmates' Valentines. Although the float in mandatory, the kids do not have to participate in the Valentine cards unless they just want to.  If they do bring in cards, please just have your child bring one for each classmate.  Yes, candy can be attached if you would like.  Some kids had asked me about this. 

Here is what's happening in the classroom:

Social Studies:  We are continuing our studies of the formation of the US Government.  I plan to test the kids next Wednesday.  We will fill out a study guide this week and play a review game on Tuesday of next week.  We should then be ready for the test on Wednesday.  It would help your child if you could start reviewing with them now. Click HERE for a study guide with the answers.  This is the same study guide we will fill in together in class.

Reading:  We are continuing figurative language with this week's focus being Idioms.  These are always fun.

Grammar:  We are studying adverbs.

Math:  This week we will work on comparing decimals to the tenths and hundredths place, adding and subtracting decimals, and rounding decimals.  We will not test until the end of next week.  I will know the final test date closer to the end of the week.  This will depend on how easily the kids master the topics.

Class List:

Adisa
Ethan
Brandon
Reese
Caroline
Kennedy
Nima
Andrew
Julina
Ariona
Abigail
Brianna
Lydia
Krystin
Ashwin
Danny
Ruth
Savannah
Owen
Celina
Jorg
Skylar
Lluvia
Jeff
Sean

Have a fantastic week.

February 6

For those of you that attended BINGO Night, I hope you had a fun time!  The place was packed and everyone was so engaged with their cards, making it hard for me to see what students were actually there. 

My math class will not test this week on any topics.  We have moved on to decimals, and will probably test close to the end of next week.  I will be able to gage this better by the end of this week. 

In social studies, we are continuing our studies of chapter 10, which deals with Government (Constitution, Bill of Rights, Branches of Government, and more).  We will probably test on this mid to late next week, also.

As you can tell, that puts two major tests at about the same time.  You can help your child by reading parts of the Social Studies each night.  The test will come from chapter ten.  Remember, the link to the online textbook is on the school's website, so your child does not have to take their SS book home. 

In language arts, we will be moving on to adverbs, which we have actually talked about some in class already. 

In reading, we will continue our studies of figurative language, as we work on personification and idioms.

Is your child taking their time on spelling?  I have had to have many kids redo their sentences and paragraph due to lack of effort.  I do not give an incredible amount of homework, so the homework I do give needs to have 100% effort.  I have discussed this with the class.  When writing sentences, they should be '4th grade sentences'.  For example, they should not say something like this:  He walked down the street.  A '4th grade sentence' gives many more details, and might look like this:  Johnny walked quickly down Elm Street because he was being chased by a furious dog.  Because this is a home assignment, please look over your child's work to make sure they are doing exactly that.  All paragraphs and sentences should have capitalization and proper punctuation.

For spelling tests, your child gets their Greek and Latin word root words on Monday (sometimes Tuesday) of each week.  They need to be studying these each night.  We spend each morning doing a minilesson on the meanings of the prefix and breaking down the words to find meaning.  They are expected to know these by Friday.  This part of the test counts as a daily grade, and the dictated sentences count as their weekly spelling test grade.

We had our Fun Friday movie day this past Friday.  The kids had popcorn and applejuice boxes.  Everyone was able to participate, which means we had great classroom behavior all month long!! Wow!

Have an enjoyable week.