Weekly Newsletter, February 11 to 15

Snack Policy:

We wanted to take the time to clarify our snack policy.  We invite students to bring a snack to school as we do have a later lunch this year.  We prefer that the snacks be healthy, easy to eat, and require little to no clean-up such as fruit, pretzels, yogurt, etc.  Please remember the school-wide policy that all classrooms are nut-free.

Writing:

Our focus for Quarter 3 will be writing a persuasive essay. 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 have now finished our 3 revisions of a personal topic.  Students will move on to explore issues in the community in which we live.  This "If I Were Mayor" essay will allow students to share an improvement to the community with Mayor Prats.  (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:

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.
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.

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.

Unit Assessment will be February 11 & 12. Mrs. Dynda's math class has a review packet they should be working on at home.

Mrs. Johnson's class has been given a review packet to work on as well. The test in Mrs. Johnson's class will begin on February 13.

Math 4: Unit 3: Probability, Fractions and Decimals.
Our focus will shift to probability for the week. Students will need to be able to list all possible outcomes for a simple probability situation and express the probability of an event with equally likely outcomes as a fraction.
We will use spinners and number cubes to assist us in our probability exploration.

Unit Assessment on February 12 & 13

We will shift our focus to understanding concepts of perimeter and area next.

*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:

We will have a "mock MSA (Maryland State Assessment) Please mark your calendars for Tuesday, 2/12 for reading. All testing will be in the morning. The actual testing time, start to finish should be 30-45 minutes. This is to help students acclimate to testing procedures and question format. MSA testing doesn't take place until March. Please advise your child that this is just a practice and not an actual test.

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 continue to focus on non-narrative reading, both non-fiction and biography readings. 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 February 22.