Weekly Newsletter, January 14 to 25

Writing:
During Quarter 2, we have focused on writing realistic fiction. We are in the publishing phase of the writing process.  Students have had teacher conferences and are working on final revisions.  We will share our writing with each other in class.

We will begin Quarter 3 with a focus on persuasive essay writing.  By the end of the unit, writers should be able to provide support for a claim in ways that chunk the supportive evidence into logically grouped categories.  Writers will use transitional words, use phrases that convey the relationship between the chunks of text and the main claim, and draw on detailed specifics to support their claims.

We will begin by thinking about a topic that the students have strong feelings about.  They will write their opinion and give reasons that tell why they feel this way.  This pre-assessment will allow them to use everything they know about essay writing, letter writing, speeches, and reviews which will help teachers plan for future mini-lessons.

We will write four persuasive essays before focusing on our social studies topic: "If I Were Mayor" (see Social Studies section below).

A link to a website for information on the 6 Traits of writing is below:
http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/post_its.htm

Natural Reader:
This tool can be downloaded on your home computers to assist students with reading text that may be challenging. We use this in class for webpage research and for revising our writing. Students can listen to what they have typed and determine if it sounds right to revise. In addition, when gathering research, this tool allows them to read difficult text. We have this program at school, but it is a great tool for home use as well:
www.naturalreader.com

Social Studies: Working to Create Change in Our Communities:
This month students will examine the lives of different people in history and today who are creating change in the community. Our first example was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders. We examined several video clips from the 1950's and 60's to discuss how to bring about social change.

Our next study will be various musicians who have worked to create change. Some include John Mayer, Jack Johnson, Garth Brooks, and U2. We will study how the impact of their music has inspired many changes around the world.

We will also discuss how kids can have a positive impact on their community and make a difference in the world. We will discuss Blake Mycoskie (founder of TOMS shoe company), dosomething.org, and Tristin & Tyler, two elementary students who host their own web video series to promote eco-activism. This will lead the students to think about change in our community of Laytonsville/Gaithersburg in order to complete an essay about being Mayor of our community.

The "If I Were Mayor" essay contest is a state-wide contest open to all fourth graders in Maryland. Students will write an essay as part of their social studies grade and will have the option of entering the statewide competition. Last year was the first year that LES participated. Although no student from our school went on to win the state-wide contest, Mayor Prats chose 3 winners from our school contest. On Friday he presented them with certificates.
First Place: Fadilah Farrin
Second Place: Erin McClure
Third Place: Lauren Smith

Their essays were about building more parks/recreation, protecting the environment, and ending discrimination. Below are a few photos from the event.

Science:
During quarter 3 students will engage in a hands-on environmental project that will promote habitat restoration in the Chesapeake Bay.  This project is an extension of our first quarter science unit on Ecosystems.
Together with WSSC, students in each class will make reef balls out of cement.  These reef balls will be deposited at the Memorial Stadium Reef where oysters will attach to them to increase their habitat and population.  Click on the video below to see how we will be doing this in class.  We are in need of parent volunteers on Thursday mornings for this project.  Please contact your child's teacher if you are able to join us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2mUnvk79Mw

Math 5: Unit 3

NUMBER RELATIONSHIPS AND COMPUTATION

Students need to:

Compute with whole numbers.

Translate among fractions, decimals, and percents.

Compare and order decimals to the thousandths place.

Solve problems with fractions, decimals, and percents using a variety of strategies.

Mrs. Johnson's math class will take the Measures of Academic Progress-Math on Wednesday, January 16.

Looking Ahead: Unit Assessment will be February 11 & 12

Math 4: Unit 3: Probability, Fractions and Decimals.
Our focus will continue to be on number relationships and computation. Students will use manipulatives to compare and order fractions.
Equivalent Fractions
Mixed Numbers
Improper Fractions
Order fractions from least to greatest

We will then move ahead to compare decimals to the hundredths using numerals, pictures and objects.  By the end of this unit, students should be able to describe the relationship between fractions and decimals.

Looking Ahead: Unit Assessment on February 12 & 13

*A great website that allows students to work at their own pace on word problems/real world application of multiplication & division:
http://www.thinkingblocks.com/

We continue to use the Khan academy website to help practice our math at home. This is a great site where students (if a log in is created) can track their progress and have example problems to work on. It has been featured in CNN as an up and coming way for teachers to assess individual students learning.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Reading:

Our focus in reading will shift to test preparation.  A major aim of this unit is to support students in using strategies for each genre that have been taught throughout the year.  This unit is about supporting students in thinking logically and flexibly to transfer all they know to their test-taking. 
Our reading workshop will teach students how to read, talk about and answer questions about short, test-like texts as well as strategies for answering selected-response questions.  We will first focus on narrative reading.  Students will also use chapter books to deepen their discussions and practice of reading strategies.

Spelling:
*Our spelling program involves the use of developmental word study rather than traditional spelling books. This“Words Their Way” approach allows students to practice target spelling patterns that best address their individual needs as a speller. Students work in spelling groups to analyze the pattern and look for clues as to how to generalize the correct spelling of words within that pattern/sound. Our next spelling assessment will be January 18.

Weekly Newsletter, January 7 to 11

Writing:
During Quarter 2, we will focus on writing realistic fiction.
Students will begin to revise their work as well. It is important to hear how your writing sounds, so we will use Natural Reader and Buddy Conferences. By using Natural Reader, the computer will read the students work to him or her. This will allow your child to listen to hear if the story "sounds right." A partner will then be able to ask questions to clarify understanding.  Students will then share their work with their teacher to discuss any further revisions needed to their piece.

All students have been given a rubric that focuses on the 6 Traits of writing to use to aid in the writing of their draft.  Mini lessons about each trait have been going on in small groups based on need during individual conferences.

A link to a website for information on the 6 Traits of writing is below:
http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/post_its.htm

Natural Reader:
This tool can be downloaded on your home computers to assist students with reading text that may be challenging. We use this in class for webpage research and for revising our writing. Students can listen to what they have typed and determine if it sounds right to revise. In addition, when gathering research, this tool allows them to read difficult text. We have this program at school, but it is a great tool for home use as well:
www.naturalreader.com

Social Studies: Working to Create Change in Our Communities:
This month students will examine the lives of different people in history and today who are creating change in the community.  Our first example was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders.  We examined several video clips from the 1950's and 60's to discuss how to bring about social change.

Our next study will be various musicians who have worked to create change.  Some include John Mayer, Jack Johnson, Garth Brooks, and U2.  We will study how the impact of their music has inspired many changes around the world.

We will also discuss how kids can have a positive impact on their community and make a difference in the world.  We will discuss Blake Mycoskie (founder of TOMS shoe company), dosomething.org, and Tristin & Tyler, two elementary students who host their own web video series to promote eco-activism.  This will lead the students to think about change in our community of Laytonsville/Gaithersburg in order to complete an essay about being Mayor of our community.

The "If I Were Mayor" essay contest is a state-wide contest open to all fourth graders in Maryland. Students will write an essay as part of their social studies grade and will have the option of entering the statewide competition. Last year was the first year that LES participated. Although no student from our school went on to win the state-wide contest, Mayor Prats chose 3 winners from our school contest. On Friday he presented them with certificates.
First Place: Fadilah Farrin
Second Place: Erin McClure
Third Place: Lauren Smith

Their essays were about building more parks/recreation, protecting the environment, and ending discrimination. Below are a few photos from the event.

Math 5: Unit 3

NUMBER RELATIONSHIPS AND COMPUTATION

Students need to:

Compute with whole numbers.

Translate among fractions, decimals, and percents.

Compare and order decimals to the thousandths place.

Solve problems with fractions, decimals, and percents using a variety of strategies.

Mrs. Dynda's math class will take the Measures of Academic Progress-Math on Wednesday, January 9.

Mrs. Johnson's math class will take the Measures of Academic Progress-Math on Wednesday, January 16.

Looking Ahead: Unit Assessment will be February 12 & 13

Math 4:   Unit 3: Probability, Fractions and Decimals.
Our focus will continue to be on number relationships and computation.  Students will use manipulatives to compare and order fractions.
Concepts to discuss this week:
Equivalent Fractions
Mixed Numbers
Improper Fractions
Order fractions from least to greatest

Mr. Bidwick's math class will take the Measures of Academic Progress-Math on Monday, January 7.

Ms. Hudson's math class will take the Measures of Academic Progress-Math on Tuesday, January 8.

Looking Ahead: Unit Assessment on February 12 & 13

*A great website that allows students to work at their own pace on word problems/real world application of multiplication & division:
http://www.thinkingblocks.com/

We continue to use the Khan academy website to help practice our math at home. This is a great site where students (if a log in is created) can track their progress and have example problems to work on. It has been featured in CNN as an up and coming way for teachers to assess individual students learning.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Reading:

Our focus in reading continue to be the genre of historical fiction. Historical fiction novels are novels that happened at a time or place that students have never inhabited, the characters are entangled in historical and social issues of grand significance, and the events of the story are intimately related to real historical events. This makes it a great unit to integrate a lot of our social studies content into reading. To that end, we will read nonfiction books, articles, and Internet research to support our understanding of the historical events included in our novels. The novels chosen all focus around a central theme "adversity causes change."  
Students are currently analyzing their novels and this historical background to synthesize their ideas and information.  Some of the questions we have been asking in class are:

*Physical Setting: Where does you story take place, including time period, technology, appearance of character in his/her world.
*Emotional Setting:  How does the location your character live in affect his/her actions?
*Historical Background: What years is your story taking place?  What are the historical events happening in your book as well as the world around your character?
*Character's Challenges:  What is the relationship between the main character and the historical events of that time period?  What are the social pressures, community norms, and uncontrollable events/actions?
*Advertisy:  How does the main character overcome the social pressures or uncontrollable events/actions of the time period?  In which ways does your character change from the beginning, middle, and end of the story?

Spelling:
*Our spelling program involves the use of developmental word study rather than traditional spelling books. This“Words Their Way” approach allows students to practice target spelling patterns that best address their individual needs as a speller. Students work in spelling groups to analyze the pattern and look for clues as to how to generalize the correct spelling of words within that pattern/sound.  Our next spelling assessment will be January 18.

Helping Children Cope

Here's a link from the mcps website that my help guide converstaions given this week's recent tragedy.

http://www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/talkingviolence.pdf

Please know how grateful we are for you and your children!

Sharing Our Map Projects

In social studies we have been learning about the Elements of a Map.  Here is Ms. Hudson's class sharing the projects we created to demonstrate our knowledge.

Weekly Newsletter, December 10 to 21

Writing:
During Quarter 2, we will focus on writing realistic fiction. We will begin by applying pre-writing strategies to write story blurbs to generate ideas for fiction writing.
For the next two weeks, we will continue to draft our realistic fiction stories. We will use our character attributes web and our story mountains to write our rough drafts. Our focus has been adding dialogue to our work in an effective way. We will focus on the importance of the conversation to the overall piece of writing as well as the grammatical structure for including dialogue in our work.  Students will continue to develop their ideas for their stories.  Our focus before Winter Break will be to close our writing with a conclusion that resolves our problem in the story.  We will focus on how our conclusion matches our introduction.

Students will begin to revise their work as well.  It is important to hear how your writing sounds, so we will use Natural Reader and Buddy Conferences.  By using Natural Reader, the computer will read the students work to him or her.  This will allow your child to listen to hear if the story "sounds right."  A partner will then be able to ask questions to clarify understanding.  All students should be ready to revise their realistic fiction stories by December 20.

A link to a website for information on the 6 Traits of writing is below:
http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/post_its.htm

Natural Reader:
This tool can be downloaded on your home computers to assist students with reading text that may be challenging. We use this in class for webpage research and for revising our writing. Students can listen to what they have typed and determine if it sounds right to revise. In addition, when gathering research, this tool allows them to read difficult text. We have this program at school, but it is a great tool for home use as well:
www.naturalreader.com


 

Social Studies: Impact of Geography
In this unit, students will demonstrate their understanding of using maps and how humans adapt to their environment. We will determine where the major population centers are in Maryland today and predict why people live in certain areas. We will review the three different kinds of maps:
physical: show land elevations, sea levels, mountains and other physical features
thematic: use to show one topic (crops, pollution, population, etc.)
political: show boundaries between states/countries

We continue to review geography vocabulary and will have two quizzes this month. The first quiz will assess student's knowledge of the elements of a map on December 7. The second quiz will take place on December 20. It will be on the vocabulary sheet given out this week.

Students should continue to work on their Map Projects at home. A description of the project as well as a rubric should have come home with your child last week. This map is to be made at home and is due on December 13. We will present them in class the remainder of the week.

Last Friday, Mayor Prats visited the fourth graders to discuss the importance of civic duty and making change in our communities.  He used different maps so that students could get a sense of the size and scope of Laytonsville in relation to Maryland and the United States.  This will lead us to the exploration of the role of government and the role of citizens in helping to create change.  Students will then write an essay about important issues in our community and how they would run the town of Laytonsville.

The "If I Were Mayor" essay contest is a state-wide contest open to all fourth graders in Maryland.  Students will write an essay as part of their social studies grade and will have the option of entering the statewide competition.  Last year was the first year that LES participated.  Although no student from our school went on to win the state-wide contest, Mayor Prats chose 3 winners from our school contest.  On Friday he presented them with certificates.
First Place: Fadilah Farrin
Second Place: Erin McClure
Third Place: Lauren Smith

Their essays were about building more parks/recreation, protecting the environment, and ending discrimination.  Below are a few photos from the event.

 

Math 5: Unit 3

NUMBER RELATIONSHIPS AND COMPUTATION

Students need to:

Compute with whole numbers.

Translate among fractions, decimals, and percents.

Compare and order decimals to the thousandths place.

Solve problems with fractions, decimals, and percents using a variety of strategies.

 

Math 4:

Students will take our Unit 2 Assessment December 12 and 13. 
We will then move on to Unit 3: Probability, Fractions and Decimals.

Before Winter Break we will compare and order fractions and mixed numbers.

*A great website that allows students to work at their own pace on word problems/real world application of multiplication & division:
http://www.thinkingblocks.com/

We continue to use the Khan academy website to help practice our math at home. This is a great site where students (if a log in is created) can track their progress and have example problems to work on. It has been featured in CNN as an up and coming way for teachers to assess individual students learning.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Reading:

Our focus in reading will shift to the genre of historical fiction.  Historical fiction novels are novels that happened at a time or place that students have never inhabited, the characters are entangled in historical and social issues of grand significance, and the events of the story are intimately related to real historical events.  This makes it a great unit to integrate a lot of our social studies content into reading.  To that end, we will read nonfiction books, articles, and Internet research to support our understanding of the historical events included in our novels.  The novels chosen all focus around a central theme "adversity causes change."  The first part of our unit will focus on deep comprehension and synthesis of complex story elements.  We will also launch Literature Circles again to increase student engagement with the stories they are reading. 

Spelling:
*Our spelling program involves the use of developmental word study rather than traditional spelling books. This“Words Their Way” approach allows students to practice target spelling patterns that best address their individual needs as a speller. Our next spelling assessment will be on Friday, December 14. We will then resume spelling after Winter Break.

Weekly Newsletter, December 3 to 7

Writing:
During Quarter 2, we will focus on writing realistic fiction. We will begin by applying pre-writing strategies to write story blurbs to generate ideas for fiction writing.
This week we will continue to draft our realistic fiction stories. We will use our character attributes web and our story mountains to write our rough drafts.  Our focus this week will be on adding dialogue to our work in an effective way.  We will focus on the importance of the conversation to the overall piece of writing as well as the grammatical structure for including dialogue in our work.

A link to a website for information on the 6 Traits of writing is below:
http://writingfix.com/classroom_tools/post_its.htm

Natural Reader:
This tool can be downloaded on your home computers to assist students with reading text that may be challenging. We use this in class for webpage research and for revising our writing. Students can listen to what they have typed and determine if it sounds right to revise. In addition, when gathering research, this tool allows them to read difficult text. We have this program at school, but it is a great tool for home use as well:
www.naturalreader.com

Social Studies: Impact of Geography
In this unit, students will demonstrate their understanding of using maps and how humans adapt to their environment. We will determine where the major population centers are in Maryland today and predict why people live in certain areas. We will review the three different kinds of maps:
physical: show land elevations, sea levels, mountains and other physical features
thematic: use to show one topic (crops, pollution, population, etc.)
political: show boundaries between states/countries

We continue to review geography vocabulary and will have two quizzes this month. The first quiz will assess student's knowledge of the elements of a map on December 7. The second quiz will take place on December 20. It will be on the vocabulary sheet given out this week.

Students should continue to work on their Map Projects at home.  A description of the project as well as a rubric should have come home with your child last week.  This map is to be made at home and is due on December 13. We will present them in class.

Math 5: Unit 2 Geometry

This week we will classifying shapes based on angles and length of sides. We will determine if the shapes are right, acute, obtuse, scalene, isosceles, and equalateral. We will classify different quadrilaterals based on their sides.

Unit 2 Assessment December 5 (both Mrs. Johnson & Mrs. Dynda's Classes)

Math 4:

Unit 2 Topics Include:

Demonstrate mastery of basic multiplication and division fact families

Identify and apply multiples and factors of numbers.

Solve for the unknown or variable in an equation.

Generalize a pattern by stating a rule.

Write and simplify numeric expressions using number properties.

Complete a function table using a given rule.

Our focus will shift to using our knowledge of multiplication and division by solving for the unknown. We will use everyday situations to analyze the questions:

*What is the known in the problem?
*What is the unknown?
*How can I write an equation to show the relationship between the known and unknown quantities?
*How can I solve the equation?
*What does my solution tell me about the unknown?

Students were given a review packet that is due to class on December 11.
Our unit 2 Assessment will take place on December 12 & 13.

*A great website that allows students to work at their own pace on word problems/real world application of multiplication & division:
http://www.thinkingblocks.com/

We continue to use the Khan academy website to help practice our math at home. This is a great site where students (if a log in is created) can track their progress and have example problems to work on. It has been featured in CNN as an up and coming way for teachers to assess individual students learning.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Reading:
Our focus this week will continue to be analyzing a characters thoughts and actions to focus on the motivation of the character and make predictions about actions in the future.  We will use stories from our Junior Great Books curriculum to support learning to that end.

What is Junior Great Books?

Junior Great Books

How Does it Support the Curriculum?

The Junior Great Books inquiry model of questioning, discussion, and writing supports the Maryland essential learnings for reading and writing. Shared Inquiry training combined with Junior Great Books literature and interpretive activities support teachers in the implementation of the MCPS English/Language Arts Curriculum, K-8.
Shared Inquiry reading, discussion, and writing activities may be used with a wide range of literature to encourage students to use high level thinking processes as they explore curricular themes.

Spelling:
*Our spelling program involves the use of developmental word study rather than traditional spelling books. This“Words Their Way” approach allows students to practice target spelling patterns that best address their individual needs as a speller.  Our next spelling assessment will be on Friday, December 14.  We will then resume spelling after Winter Break.

LES on MCPS TV

Superintendent Starr held his first of six Community Days on Thursday, November 29th. The all-day event which included meet and greets with staff, classroom tours and an evening town hall with parents and community members, gave Dr. Starr an opportunity to hear first-hand from MCPS staff and stakeholders. The next Community Day is scheduled for December 13th.

Take a look at the link below to see the event and our school shine!

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/mainstory/story.aspx?id=276486