Weekly Newsletter, March 4 to March 8

Upcoming MSA Testing Dates:
March 4: MSA Reading
March 5: MSA Reading
March 8: MSA Math
March 11: MSA Math

*Please ensure your child arrives to school on time (9:15) so that s/he is ready to begin our assessments promptly at 9:30.
*Eating a healthy breakfast promotes energy needed to sustain focus on the MSA.
**If there is no school on Wednesday due to snow, the MSA Math will begin on Monday, March 11 for fourth graders.

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.

Students will 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
Second Place: Erin
Third Place: Lauren

Their essays were about building more parks/recreation, protecting the environment, and ending discrimination.
To learn more about the statewide contest, please visit the Mayor's Municipal Association website at:  http://www.mdmunicipal.org/index.aspx?nid=168

Some helpful websites we will use in class are:

www.laytonsville.md.us/

www.gaithersburgmd.gov

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/index.aspx

http://www.dosomething.org/

http://www.toms.com/our-movement/

http://www.kidsforsavingearth.org/

Science: Chemistry

In this chemistry unit, students will participate in a variety of hands-on investigations with matter. They will observe liquids, solids, and gases and experiment with the effects of temperature on the states of matter. These investigations will lead students to an understanding of how matter changes states.

Enduring Understandings:

• Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space
• Matter can change state without losing any mass
• Each season has different weather conditions
• The Sun causes water to change forms on Earth, but does not change the amount of water on Earth
• The states of matter are solid, liquid, and gas

This week: Students will watch a video segment on matter and revisit their definition of matter.  They will then observe a "mystery substance" to determine characteristics of the substance and its properties.  This will help us explore how matter changes state (liquid/solid/gas).

Math 5: Unit 4: Data & Statistics
This week we will look at the following graphs and talk about them more in detail:
*Pictograph: uses symbols and a key to display countable data

*Bar Graph: displays countable data with vertical or horizontal bars; compares factors about groups of data

*Line Graph: shows how data change over time
*Circle Graph: shows how parts of the data are related to the whole and to each other

 We will problem solve by making graphs, analyze graphs, make a line graph and choose appropriate graphs for various data sets.

Math 4:  

Fourth grade math will shift focus from how fractions and decimals are related to how perimeter and area are related. We will recognize perimeter as an attribute of plane figures and distinguish between linear and area measures. We will solve real world and mathematical problems involving perimeter and area.

Our instructional focus for the remainder of quarter three will focus on perimeter, area, elapsed time, multiplication and division.

*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. Students will also use chapter books to deepen their discussions and practice of reading strategies.

Our focus this week will continue to be to analyze a poet's message. If a text is a poem, readers should expect to pay attention to what the big meaning of the poem could be, what the poem is mostly about, or what it demonstrates or teaches. This may be done through imagery, the meaning of a part or line, figurative language (personification, simile, metaphor), or through author's purpose.

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. 
Due to MSA testing, we will resume Spelling March 12.