Weekly Newsletter, January 2-6

Weekly Highlights:
* It is going to be a very chilly week! Please remind students to wear coats, hats, and gloves so that they are prepared to go outside for recess when the weather is appropriate.


4: Mr. Allaire, our technology specialist, will coteach with Ms. Hudson and Mrs. Dynda to present different programs to the students to create their Native American presentations.  He will share Windows Movie Maker, Photo Story and Audacity with the students.  Students will of course be able to use PowerPoint as well. 


Math 4:
This week we will focus on probability.  By the end of the week, students will be able to list all possible outcomes for a simple situation and express the probability of an event as equally likely, likely, impossible, certain, or unlikely.
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.

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 determining importance. We will use short passages to write Brief Constructed Responses.  Students will have different samples of responses to score as well as a rubric to guide their own responses.  We are using a Writing Fix website that has great resources to practice responses:
http://writingfix.com/RICA/constructed_response.htm#passages


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
* Connor is making 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