Happy New Year!
Weekly Highlights:
* It is going to be a very chilly Thursday & Friday! Please remind students to wear coats, hats, and gloves so that they are prepared to go outside for recess when the weather is appropriate.
*Mrs. Sagona has challenged the school to read 1 million minutes by May 15. If the students and teachers reach the goal, each class will earn an ice cream party and an additional recess. Students should continue to read each night for 20 minutes (at least) and record this information on their reading logs.
* Mr. Allaire, our technology specialist, will be here to help students get started on their Native American presentations. He has shared Windows Movie Maker, Photo Story and Audacity with the students. Students will of course be able to use PowerPoint as well.
Friday the 13th is our Spelling Test!
Math 4:
Students will take the Measures of Academic Progress Math on Tuesday. A score of 208-211 is proficient for fourth graders at this time.
Fro the next two weeks, we will focus on identifying fractions. Students should be able to compare and order fractions and mixed numbers, identify fractions as part of a set, and be able to make examples of fractions when changing what the "whole" represents.
We will have a quiz on Friday about probability and common fractions.
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:
Now that research on Native American Settlements is compiled, students will create a PowerPoint, MovieMaker or Audacity presentation to display what they have learned to the class. This is an in-class project but students may gather research at home as well. Our presentations will begin on approximately January 19. We cannot give a firm duedate as we assess availabiltiy to various technolgoy tools to create these projects. Students are welcome to bring a flash drive to save their work at school to take home to work on but are not required to do so.
Link to websites that have information about Native Americans:
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/travilahes/mediacenter/webresources/nativeamericans.aspx
*Fourth graders will be taking a field trip to the National Museum of the American Indian on February 1, 2012. Permission slips were sent home last Friday. We ask that they be returned by January 20. Please let Ms. Hudson, Mr. Beddick, or Mrs. Dynda know if this is a problem.
Link to the NAIM website:
http://www.nmai.si.edu/
Reading:
All students in fourth grade took the Measures of Academic Progress, Reading last week. A range of 196-219 is considered proficient for fourth graders this time of year.
This week we will continue to study the reading strategy determining importance. We continue to use the Writing Fix website that has great resources to practice responses:
http://writingfix.com/RICA/constructed_response.htm#passages
This week, we will focus on determining importance in fiction work. We will use our chapter books to identify main characters, main events, the most important actions/events in the story, and how the visualization you create in your head helps the reader understand what is happening in a story.
Writing:
Students have been working on their writing piece for quarter 2 and should be ready to revise and edit their writing. We will have self, partner, and then teacher conferences. 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
* Connor has completed a Scooby Doo comic
Spelling:
We will study noun suffixes for Sort 8. Our spelling test will be January 13. 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:
-ment: creates nouns out of adjectives
-less: creates adjectives that mean without
-ness: creates nouns out of verbs and suggests a state of being
A great resource we found includes other ways for students to practice their spelling, even some apps for devices. The spelling activities that we suggested in the students spelling journals are just suggestions. Please feel free to adapt as your child needs to.
http://support.weta.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=43183.0&dlv_id=48444
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