Important Dates . . .
March 29 -- Spring Break Begins
April 5 -- Classes Resume
*4th grade fieldtrip - Museum of Science and Industry field trip is on Wednesday, March 24th. The students will explore all 6 simple machines in the Simple Machines Lab at the Museum of Science and Industry. I am sending home some information to go over with your child prior to the field trip. For lunch, your child has the option of bringing a sack lunch from home or approximately $8.00 to purchase a lunch at the museum food court. The students will not be allowed to visit the gift shop or attend exhibits that require additional money.
Language Arts
The students are continuing to work on handwriting and sentences this week. They will continue building on writing grammatically correct sentences that relate to the topic given. Every student is to nearly independently responsible for looking up words that spelling is unknown. Each week they are improving drastically from the last and taking it to the next level!
Reading
Your child will be coming home with 7 words from lesson 9 of the Elements of Reading Vocabulary program that will be studied during the week in class and should be reviewed at home. On the page I will be sending home each Monday there will be suggestions on how you can work with your child & have them get extra practice.
It’s that time of month coming up - - Independent Reading Folders are due this Thursday, March 25th! Each 20 minute increment read counts for a point up to 20 points – yes, that means an additional reading grade each month for learning to love to read. Your help is greatly appreciated! Please sign on the date the reading was accomplished. This orange folder should be turned in every Monday to make sure they are staying on track. The Independent Reading Folder should be turned in at the end of the month (March 25th) to ensure they can attend the lunch reading party. Keep reading!
Spelling
This week we will continue to be divided into different spelling groups. Some will be working on Unit 28 this week. Others will be working on a seasons and weather list, where reading and spelling skills will be built at the same time through this list.
Practice pages will be assigned for the upcoming week's list on Friday to give additional study time. Over the weekend would be a good time to discuss the meaning of the words. Although we work on meaning typically on Fridays and Mondays, help from home is greatly encouraged! They will be receiving them daily as an assignment. A test over the lesson will be given every Friday. Please try to help your child study if you see they are not performing as well as you'd expect on the weekly test. One strategy you can use to help is: Sing Them Loud, Sing Them Soft - Mom or Dad sing the letters of a spelling word to you in a loud voice. Your child should echo the spelling and then sing it again softly. Now BOTH of you sing the word in the voice you choose!
Social Studies
We used the newest technology that our classroom received to review for the test. The students really enjoyed reviewing as a group utilizing the technology to play a concentration type of vocab review. The children did a nice job wrapping up Unit 3, Working Together on Friday. They truly showed the knowledge learned. They showed great performance on their tests too! Also, they all did a very nice job participating in the Trade Fair. It was very interesting to see how they chose their trades.
Science
The children will begin a new chapter in science this week. There is a lot of information to know in Chapter 1, Living and Nonliving Things. The "Big Idea" of this chapter is that living things have needs and they change as they grow.
Math (Mrs. K's Math class only)
We all have been so excited to use the mimio and elmo lately to review, teach, and play review coin games! The class will be doing the same this week too, just building on to our knowledge of coin value. So far we have covered the value of pennies and nickels. This week we will continue working on the value of coins, and adding nickels and pennies together. The children will be encouraged to use Touch Math to solve the values of the coins presented.
Daily Homework
Reading - 20 minutes and fill in Independent Reading Folder Log due 3/25
- students should practice reading poem nightly to parents to work on fluency
- study lesson 9 vocabulary words
Spelling - Practice Page nightly & study words with parents nightly
*Please check your child's homework and sign assignment notebook when complete.
**If your child is having difficulties with their homework please send a note and I will help them during free time
