Weekly Reminders:*Monday, Jan. 21st - No school to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.
*No spelling pretest this week - review unit.
*Life on the Plains in-school presentation on Wednesday, Jan. 23rd.
*Lesson 17 spelling test on Friday, Jan. 25th. We will use the "find the misspelled word" form.
*First practice "classroom" spelling bee on Friday.
*Spirit Day on Friday, Jan. 25 - wear something from your favorite vacation spot.
*Our second and final "classroom" spelling bee will be on Monday, Jan. 28.
*Fourth grade spell-off on Friday, Feb. 1st. Two representatives from each classroom will compete.
*District spelling bee on Friday, Feb. 8th.
*Teacher Institute on Tuesday, Feb. 5th.
We are now half way through the trimester. Have you checked your child's grades on-line? Progress Reports will be sent home only if your child has any failing grades.
What's Happening in Our Classroom:
English: We will continue our adjective study this week. The children will make comparisons with adjectives with "er" or "est." They will also compare with more and most. Looking Ahead...our test will probably be on Monday, Feb. 4th. We still have a few lessons to cover before the test.
Reading: We will finish Sarah, Plain and Tall this week. The children will also finalize their diary as either Anna or Caleb. Each child will receive a fluency passage on Tuesday. They should practice reading this passage outloud each evening. Please help them focus on fluency - rate, flow, volume, and expression. We will read these outloud on Friday for a grade. Each child will begin with 10 points. I will take points off each time I hear major errors in their fluency.
Science: We had a great time and learned so much during our Mr. Lee Science Magic presentation. Each child brought home an electrophoras. Ask them about the electrons (-) and protons (+) on their electrophoras. Hopefully this hasn't been too "shocking" of an experience. : ) We will finish our electricity lessons this week. The children will learn about series and parallel circuits. We will also create a fuse and an electromagnet. Our electricity test will most likely be on Thursday, Jan. 31st.
Social Studies: Our study of the Midwest will continue this week. We will visit the Badlands and explore the importance of agriculture in the Midwest. The Midwest map test will be on Thursday, Jan. 24th. The children will need to know the location and spelling of each state. They should also know the location of the 5 Great Lakes (even though one of the lakes is not in the Midwest). A great way to remember the 5 Great Lakes is HOMES - Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Superior. Your child can earn bonus points for correctly labeling the state capitals.
Math: We have now started our unit on multiplying by a 1-digit number. The children will need to do extra practice each night to understand these concepts. We are asking that you sit with your child during homework time (as much as possible). Those students who have mastered their multiplication facts should be very successful in this unit. This week we will cover multiplying by 10's, 100's, and 1,000's. We will also work with estimation products by rounding. The children will have a checkpoint review on these two concepts on Friday, Jan. 25th.
Website of the Week: Learn more about the 5 U.S. Regions at:
http://users.tellurian.com/teach/regions/
