Sulima's Scoop - Week of January 5

WELCOME 2009! Can you believe it? We are about half way through our school year. Boy, time flies. I hope to make the rest of your child's 4th grade experience even better than the first half. If we continue to work together, we can surely do this! Please remember to e-mail or call me with any questions or concerns.

I hope you all had a wonderful winter break and are relaxed and refueled for the remainder of this school year.

Weekly Reminders:

*Lesson 15 spelling pretest on Monday.

*Open book science quiz on chapter 1, lesson 1 will be on Wednesday.

*Lesson 15 spelling test on Friday.

Plan Ahead:

*IOWA Basic Skills testing during the week of January 12. Please make sure your child gets plenty of rest and eats a good breakfast each morning. The children will be given time to eat their healthy snacks during the morning. We will test Monday through Thursday during the morning.

*Open book science quiz on chapter 1, lesson 2 will be on Monday, January 12.

*Verb test on Tuesday, January 13. Enrichment will be due this day.

Classroom Happenings:

Science: We will continue our study of animal and plant cells this week. The children should look over the information on the 5 kingdoms that will be coming home early this week. A quiz on this material will be on Wednesday.

Social Studies: The children will finish their research about their crop. We will then begin writing a rough draft and final draft of our Southeast Farmer stories.

Accelerated Math: Our study of geometry will begin this week. We will cover many concepts this week. The children will learn about points, lines, line segments, rays, planes, parallel lines, intersecting lines, perpendicular lines, and skew lines. We will also explore angles and use a protractor to measure angles. The children will then move onto a study of polygons.

Each child will be given a protractor to use during this unit. They are responsible for its safe keeping and will be expected to return it when it is no longer needed. It might be helpful to have a protractor at home too, so your child does not have to travel back and forth with it. We will begin using our protractors on Tuesday. Looking ahead...we will also be using a compass, to make circles, in the near future. The children will get one to use at school. This may be something you may want to get for home too.

We will be using a ruler compass like this:

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*(This type of compass is very hard to find. A regular compass will work too. I will show the children how to use both.)

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Spelling: The children will work with lesson 15 this week. This week we will be working with two rules - "ou" and "ow".

English: We will continue our study of verbs by covering past tense verbs with helping verbs, irregular verbs, and contractions with not. The verb test will be on Tuesday, January 13.

Reading: The children will share their figurative language projects this week. If your child was unable to finish before the break, I will give them some time to work on it, and they will share later in the week. If any work can be done at home that would help a great deal. We will also be reading a biography about Gloria Estefan. The children will work on vocabulary and comprehension this week. We will also continue working on the skill of compare and contrast.

Some children have said that they are unable to open files from their flash drive at home. In District 66, we use Open Office. You can download Open Office for free at: http://www.openoffice.org/.

Sulima's Scoop - Week of December 15

Holiday Service Project Update: Our class was able to provide at least 10 gifts for each member of our adopted family, as well as, a few gifts for the family. I thank you all for making the holiday season a bit merrier for this struggling family. We also had a large box of donations for the shelter. Your generosity is greatly appreciated!

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Weekly Reminders:

*No spelling unit this week.

*Winter concert for students on Monday at 1:15.

*Home Run Inn P.T.O. Fundraisers days on Monday and Tuesday, from noon-10:00 p.m. Click here to print out a flyer. http://www.ccsd66.org/PDF/HRI_Voucher.pdf

*Bowling field trip Tuesday afternoon.

*Southeast map test on Thursday. Students should know the location and spelling of all 12 states. Capitals will be extra credit (1/4 point per correct capital).

*Tivoli field trip on Friday.

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Plan Ahead:

*Winter Break - Weeks of December 22 and 29.

*School Resumes on Monday, January 5.

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Classroom Happenings:

Science - We are going to begin our unit on Life Science this week. Our focus will be on comparing plant and animal cells.

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Social Studies - The children will become southeast farmers. They will need to choose a crop to grow, research the crop's growing needs, and find out what products are made using these crops. Some of this research will need to be done at home.

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Accelerated Math - We will continue learning about algebra. The children will need to review the class notes each day. On Thursday, we will have an open notes checkpoint review.

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Spelling - We are taking this week off from spelling due to afternoon field trips that interfer with our Language Arts block. Enjoy!

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English - We will continue our unit on verbs. This unit will continue after winter break. After I plan for the weeks after break, I will let you know an approximate test date.

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Reading - The children did such a wonderful job on our readers' theater of A Christmas Carol. This week we will continue working on our figurative language projects. The children are exploring alliteration, hyperbole, metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, personification, and idioms. We may have to finish these projects after winter break.

Figurative Language Games:

http://www.gamequarium.com/figurativelanguage.html

http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz2436841be67e8.html

http://languagearts.pppst.com/figurative.html

http://www.quia.com/hm/80390.html

http://www.quia.com/ba/61460.html

Sulima's Scoop - Week of December 8

Weekly Reminders:

*Lesson 14 spelling pretest on Monday.

*Holiday Service Project gifts due by Wednesday.

*Chapter 8 science test on Wednesday.

*Chapter 5 math test on Wednesday.

*Lesson 14 spelling test of Friday.

Plan Ahead:

*Holiday Band/Choir Concert on Monday, December 15, at 1:15.

*Bowling on Tuesday, December 16 in the afternoon.

*All School field trip to the Tivoli Theater on Friday, December 19.

Holiday Service Project:

Please remember that the deadline to turn in gifts for our family and the shelter is Wednesday. At this point, we have a few gifts for the family and shelter. Please help to make the Christmas season a bit merrier by sending in gifts, gift cards or cash donations. Gifts sent in for our "cancer patient family" should be wrapped and labeled with a post-it note. Gifts for the Family Shelter Service should not be wrapped. Thank you all for your support in this service project.

Classroom Happenings:

Science-We will review for the chapter 8 test on Monday. The children will take the test on Wednesday. The test will cover the following concepts:

-What are some of Earth's landforms?

>Identify and describe major landforms.

>Explain how landforms develop.

-What causes changes to Earth's Landforms?

>Describe Earth's structure.

>Identify and describe the forces that change Earth's surface.

-What are fossils?

>Define fossils and tell how they form.

>Explain what the fossil record is.

Social Studies-We will finish our posters displaying the the major landforms of the southeast on Monday. During the rest of the week we will look into the climate, wildlife, and resources of the southeast. At the end of the week, the children will need to decide on which crop they will grow as a southeast farmer.

Accelerated Math-The children will take an open book/notes checkpoint review on Monday. The checkpoint will cover lessons 7-12. We will review all lessons on Tuesday. The children will take the chapter 5 test on Wednesday.

The test will assess:

*relating multiplication and division as inverse operations

*order of operations

*using mental math, basic facts, and patterns to find quotients

*using compatible numbers to estimate quotients

*use divisibility rules

*dividing 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-digit numbers by a 1-digit number

*using short division

*zeros in the quotient

*finding averages (possibly into decimals)

We will be stepping outside of our textbook for the rest of the week and the following week. Our focus will be on Algebra. There will be many key words and concepts that the children should review each evening. They will not be taking notes in their journals. I have made copies of the notes for each child.

Spelling-We will work with lesson 14 this week. This lesson practices "au" words. Your child should practice their words at home in cursive.

English-We will continue our unit on verbs this week. Our lessons will include helping and main verbs, present, past, and future tense verbs, and subject-verb agreement.

Reading-Our study of A Christmas Carol will continue this week. On Tuesday, the children will perform our readers' theater of A Christmas Carol. Then we will fill out a story structure map based on the story we read together. On Wednesday, we will practice our skills in compare and contrast with a 3-way venn diagram on A Christmas Carol (the book), A Christmas Carol (Drury Lane play), and Mickey's Christmas Carol (the Disney movie).

Computer Project (Language Arts Class)-We will begin a computer-based project this week. Each child should have a flash drive to allow them to save and continue their work at home. If they do not have a flash drive, please try to get one before Monday. I can e-mail documents home if needed.

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I would like to thank the parents of my Language Arts students for taking time out of their busy schedules to meet with me during parent-teacher conferences. I enjoyed meeting with you and discussing your child's second trimester goals. I appreciate all the support and kind words that I received throughout many conferences. Let's continue to work together, as partners, in your child's education.