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.

January 30

I do apologize for being a week behind on getting this newsletter out.  Thank you for understanding. 

Let me update you on the happenings up the classroom.

Language Arts:  We are finishing up our studies of adjectives this week.  The kids will take a short test on Friday.  There is not a study guide for this test.  Students also learned adjectives in 3rd grade.  The quiz will require student to underline adjectives in a sentence, choose correct adjectives to complete sentences, choose the correct article (an, an, the) to complete sentences, write the comparative form of adjectives (er, est) and use more and most to compare adjectives. We have been doing activities last week and will continue this week on the listed topics.

Math: We are finishing up our unit on fractions.  The students will complete a study guide in class tomorrow and they will test on Thursday of THIS week.  The test will include applying all of the fraction skills we have learned about, which would include reading word problems with fractions and solving them.  Fraction skills include:  finding equivalent fractions with and without using pictures, writing mixed numbers and improper fractions using pictures, converting mixed numbers to improper fractions (no pictures), converting  improper fractions to mixed numbers (no pictures),  reducing fractions to simplest form after adding and subtracting fractions, comparing fractions using greatest to least or least to greatest, and mixed review questions from any topic we have learned about in the past. 

We will be moving on to the topic of decimals next week.  This will include skills such as adding and subtracting decimals, converting decimals to fractions using hundredths and thousandths, dividing and mulitplying decimals, and more.

Social Studies:    We have finished our studies on the American Revolution, and now we are on to chapter 10, which discusses the formation of the Constitution and our government.  I do not know the test date yet.  It will be at least a week and a half away.

Reading:  We are studying figurative language.  We started this last week working on similes and metaphors.  This week we are focusing on imagery, personification, and alliteration. 

CRCT online log in:  I know that this has not yet been sent home.  The newsletter mentioned it was available to go home last week.  I was out on that Friday and they did not go home in that Friday's folder.  I needed to get the log in information copied down, and now they will be going home.  Your child will have the information starting today.

Conference information will be headed your way soon, so please be on the look out.  Remember, we do the best we can to schedule times with sibling teachers, but it is not always guaranteed.  Unfortunately, conferences have to be kept short in order to get all students in during this two day period.  If you feel the need for more time, we will need to set up a conference for a different day.   Thank you for understanding.

I believe I covered everything, but if not, I will be back to add more if something comes to mind. :-)



January 16

I hope you enjoyed the long weekend.  Having an extra day to sleep in is always nice.

I am a tad late getting this out, but hopefully it will find you by Monday morning.

As you probably saw, report cards went home Friday.  Thank you for returning those in the weekly folder on Monday.

We will not test in SS on The Revolution until next Monday.  We will be finishing up in class this week, and the kids will hopefully bring home their study on on Wed. of this week.  They are welcome to bring home their SS book (there is one online too), and read over chapter 9.  The test is straight from the material in chapter 9.  I would recommend looking over it for about 15 minutes each night.  It is a lot of material, so small amounts of review at a time will be helpful.

We have started out unit on Fractions.  The division tests have been posted on the parent portal, but I can not send them home yet due to test make ups.  They will be sent home when all students in the 4th grade have tested.  I am going to try and break the fractions test into two parts, so the first part will probably be early next week, probably on Tuesday.  This is an indepth unit, as students will be comparing fractions with unlike denominators, reducing fractions, converting from mixed number to improper fractions, and lots more.

In writing we have been working on persuasive writing, which has carried over to our reading lessons on author's purpose.  We will be working on adjectives this week.

Don't forget to check the school's website for important school related events.

Have a great week!

New Year

Happy New Year

I hope you had a splendid holiday break.  I sure enjoyed mine!

Thank you so much for all of the wonderful gifts given to me for Christmas.  I really appreciate them.  I sent home thank you cards with kids on Monday, so if you didn't get one, please ask your child.  I asked them to please share them you parents.

I would like to welcome our new student Sean.

In math we will test on long division with two digit divisors on Tuesday of next week.  We will review on Monday and a study packet with go home Monday night.  I would encourage you to work with your child this weekend.  There are some review sheets you can find from the free website  www.superteacherworksheets.com

In social studies, we are continuing our studies of The American Revolution.  We tested on the events leading up to The American Revolution, and now we are studying the events of the war.  We will most likely test a week from next Monday. 

Report cards will be issued next Friday.

I have a new behavior incentive for the new year.  Students work to earn credit towards movie Friday, which will be the last Friday of the month.  If a child has their choice card marked more than 2 times in a given week, they lost out on the movie. Warnings are over as far as behavior goes.  Example:  Students know they are not to talk in the hall, therefore their card will automatically marked.

We did not have an action for December because we did not have enough donations.  If you can, please send in any trinkets, candy, small toys, etc. that you think kids might like to bid on.  They enjoy this, but it simply can't happen without items. We basically have to stock up after each auction.  Thanks so much.

Please excuse any typos.  Thanks!