December 19-23 Newsletter

Weekly Highlights:

Thank you to our wonderful PTA for providing the Fourth and Fifth grade with 50 new Atlases.  They are much needed and much appreciated for our social studies unit!
23- 2:30 Holiday Sing-A-Long (parents are welcome)

Please be sure to check your child to make sure s/he has a jacket, hat, gloves for recess.  Since we have an early recess, it can still be chilly outside!

Happy Holidays to you and your family! I hope you enjoy Winter Break!  I am hoping to travel to Pittsburgh to visit my niece and to enjoy some time with my son.  He would like to see "Chipwrecked!"

Math 4:

Our assessment will take place December 20 & 21. We will reveiw Monday and then go over the assessment on Thursday and Friday.

A reviw packet was sent home 12/6 and due on 12/19 where we will discuss to prepare for our assessment.

We are using the Kahn Academy website to take individualized tutorials to practice our multiplication facts. For more information, visit
http://www.khanacademy.org/ and search for basic multiplication.

http://www.multiplication.com/


Social Studies:

Our study of maps has led us into studying regions of the United States and how those regions impacted Native American Settlements. Students will then begin to research the Native Americans living in each region. Once research is compiled, students will create a PowerPoint presentation to display what they have learned to the class. Our research is due to class on December 21. This is an in-class project but students may gather research at home as well. Our presentations will begin on approximately January 19.

Link to websites that have information about Native Americans:
O:\grade4\social studies\Travilah ES - Media Center - Native Americans.mht

Reading:

We will study the reading strategy makingconnections. We will focus on making three different kinds of connections: text to self, text to world, and text to text. We will read fiction stories this week to apply what we have learned about connections from nonfiction to fiction. We will read the Jr. Great Books story "The Elephant's Child."

Text to self: connections you can make to yourself about what you are reading.
Text to world: connections you can make to your background knowledge about what you know about the world around you.
Text to text: connections you can make to another text you have read

Writing:

Students have been working on their writing piece for quarter 2 and will begin to draft their piece. We have talked about taking notes, making element of a story maps, and working on the organization of a piece of writing.

Most students have decided to write stories for the second quarter. Students must complete one writing project per quarter. We can't wait to share these with you!

Here is a sample of what is happening in class:

*Lydia is writing about wolves and huskies
*Anna is creating a poetry collection.

*Mark is researching Buffalo Bills player, Pete Metzlaars.

*Gissel is researching how pizza was invented



Spelling:

We will study noun suffixes for Sort 7. Our spelling test will be Thursday December 22 due to the chorus performance. Please remember that all students are given TWO copies of their spelling lists: one for class and one for home. They must have their list with them in order to take their spelling test (all students have different lists).

The suffixes for the two weeks are:

-er, -or, -ian, -ist


These suffixes indicate agents, something or someone that does, or is related to the base word. The suffixes -er and -or are often added to a verb to create a noun that is a "doer." The suffix -ian has several sounds and we will continue to explore throughout other sorts.