Week Two: Sept. 3- 7

NOTE! Updated info as of Tuesday evening...7pm-ish.

This week, we will begin spelling. Lists will be sent home on Wednesday. We will work on these words for the next week as well. There will be a test NEXT Friday.

This week, we will begin Homework. Students are required to read AT LEAST 20 minutes, 4 times a week. Every student is bringing home a Reading Log  and a book from class in a ziploc baggie. Please help remind your child to read. They DO NOT have to read the book from the class. They can read books on ereaders (Nook, Kindle, etc.). They can read magazines, newspapers, or any other book. These will go home Wednesday as well.

Next week I will begin my Literacy Coach training in Columbus. I will be checking my school email while I am gone. If you have any questions, just leave me a message!

Book Carnival! Musical!

Happy Children's Book Week!
This week the 4th grade is sponsoring a Book Carnival for the school. All staff and students are invited to bring a book and take a book. We have many different books to choose from so please stop by!!
Thanks to the parents who have volunteered their time to montior the Carnival Workers, and to the PTO for donating a wide variety of books!

Spelling this week...all names of 4th graders! The test is Friday.

So much is going on over the next few weeks. There are just a few very busy days left. Please be sure to check folders nightly! I hope the sheet with all the upcoming events is helpful.

This week we have:
The 4th Grade Musical Thursday night.

Meanwhile, wouldn't you LOVE to go to this library?

We will not have spelling this week.

From last week:

List Two
Words We Need to Spell Correctly Before Leaving 4th Grade
1. always
2. also
3. between
4. change
5. couldn’t
6. children
7. special
8. problem
9. during
10. family
11. simple
12. either
13. while
14. however
15. enough
16. your
17. you’re
18. next
19. family
20. minute
21. mistake
22. correct
23. excited
24. little
25. dollars

YOU HAVE ALL 25 WORDS!
Some will be really easy for you, others will be harder…
If you pretest with a friend you will know which ones you need to learn this week.
Remember, EVERY MORNING you have time in class to study the words and complete spelling activities.
Study at home too!

New Nine Weeks! Upcoming Events!

April

4- Author Visit & Annual Egg Hunt

5- 9  NO SCHOOL

10- Classes Resume, Market Day Orders Due

12- 6:00 PTO Meeting

12- 4th Grade Girls Intramurals

18-Market Day Pick-Up

25- 4th Gr. Reading OAA

27- 4th Gr. Math OAA

Lucky March to You!

This is going to be a great month as we start our unit on Traditional Literature, which includes folk tales, tall tales, myths, legends, and fables. We will be reading a wide variety of these stories and comparing the elements of each. We will use the following words for spelling this week since these words will be used in our reading notebooks.

Traditional Literature Spelling List: choose 12 words.

tradition

retelling

generations

impossible

exaggerate

incredible

unbelievable

legend

folk tales

tall tales

myth

mythology

fable

understanding

explanation

Aesop

lesson

heroic

dialogue

More Books! More Choices! More Reading!

Scholastic Book Clubs!

Please return orders and money by next Friday, March16th.

Please make checks payable to Scholastic.

If you have never ordered before, please consider doing so this month. There are even books for just $1.00. It is really exciting when the box of books arrives and the new books are passed out!

We presented the museum to the other classes today. It was another very busy day. We are not going to have new spelling words this week. It would just have been too rushed, and not very instructional. So the test is Friday over the words from last week...the occupations of the Ohioans we studied.

Frindle is finished. Inspired by the book, this week we will brush up on dictionary skills!

Here is a fun, game show style dictionary practice game.
http://www.quia.com/rr/45806.html

And if you need a mini-lesson on dictionary skills, try this link
http://www.tv411.org/lessons/cfm/vocabulary.cfm?str=vocabulary&num=4&act=1

Next week, we will begin a new unit over myths, fables and folktales.

Mysteries, Martin Luther King Jr. and Report Cards

It is the new 9 weeks! Report Cards will be sent home on Friday. You may keep the report card, but please sign and return the envelope. The fourth grade teachers will include a conference notice if we feel that we need a conference at this time. Of course you are always more than welcome to request a conference...just send in a note or call the office to be placed on the conference night schedule.

Our mystery unit continues and we are really enjoying reading the mysteries at http://kids.mysterynet.com/.  

Next week we will begin writing our own mini-mysteries. This is not an easy task, but I know the kids will do a great job!

Our spelling words this week are focused on the theme of Civil Rights and Martin Luther King Jr. Everyone has 12 words to learn, and words are chosen on Monday. The kids are very honest about choosing challenging words that are right for them. Then the words are written in their planners in the Spelling section for the week. The other 4th grade teachers have allowed me to steal a few minutes of homeroom time for the kids to complete this work!

Speaking of Martin Luther King Jr...WOW! We had a great discussion on Friday, and the classes seemed very interested in the Civil Right movement. This is one the the reasons that I love teaching Language Arts. I have the freedom to go along with the student's interests while still covering the state standards!

Synonyms

source unknown

This week our focus lessons are about different categories of words starting with a sampling of each: synonyms, antonyms, homophones and homographs.
We will be using activities from Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr. I thought this information from the Brain Pop Jr. site was worth sharing...

"Explain to your children that they use synonyms and antonyms everyday without even knowing it. Synonyms are words that have the same or similar definitions. For example, a few synonyms forsmart are intelligent, brilliant, clever, or genius. Encourage your children to think of other synonyms.

Synonyms can make writing more powerful and bring words to life. Children should always look for ways to bolster their sentences by using strong verbs and vivid adjectives. We recommend watching the Similes movie together as a review. They can read what they have written and find synonyms for lackluster words. A thesaurus is a book that lists words and their synonyms. Explain that a thesaurus is different from a dictionary, which lists words and their definitions. Some thesauruses also provide antonyms for words.

An antonym is a word with the opposite meaning of another word. For example, a few antonyms for bored are excited, thrilled, energized, and wound up. Some words have only one antonym, such as black and white. Other words have many antonyms.

Brainstorming and using synonyms and antonyms are great ways to increase your children’s vocabulary and expose them to different words that are above their grade level. Reading also exposes your children to new words. Students should read actively and write down new words in their notebooks or have a dictionary handy to look up difficult words."

In addition, here are some other sites to use to at home for vocabulary building:

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/synonyms/

Second Nine Weeks!

After several weeks of reading fantasy books highlighting the works of Chris Van Allsburg and Roald Dahl, we are starting a new focus!
Jerry Spinelli"s Fourth Grade Rats

Reminders!

*It is Red Ribbon Week.
Monday: Animal Shirt
Tuesday: 70's, Tie-Dye
Wednesday: Blue jeans & denim
Thursday: CrAZy HaiR
Friday: PJ's

School pictures are in. I will send them home Tuesday.
*Report cards will be sent home on Friday! Please sign and return the envelope.
*Fall Fun Day is NEXT MONDAY! Please send costumes to school and we will get ready about 2:00 or so. 

Oct. 3

Well the weather this week is definitely screaming, "It is October!"
This past month we spent much time establishing our classroom routines and expectations. We are in full swing with our Reader's Workshop. Kids are reading, sharing, answering questioning and making connections daily. We have started Writer'sWorkshop, and will continue to work on the daily routines of writing.

We had over $300 in book orders! WOW! That means that we will get a TON of free books for the room. It is so exciting when the books come. They should be in some time this week.

Yes, more information about Spelling!
But after this, there probably won't be as many posts about it, so I wanted to make a few points.
 I selected a list of words that the students might be spelling over the next month.
We went through list of words together: they tried to spell the word, I then put the correct spelling on the smart board.
If they spelled the word wrong, they circled it and it was then put onto their spelling list for the week. We tried to make sure everyone had words that they really needed to learn.
Every student has a highlighted list at school which stays in their Writing Folder. AND... Everyone wrote their words in their planner under the section Spelling Words for this week.
There is a test on spelling every Friday, unless we have a really short week or no school. In cases like Thanksgiving break for example, we will have words for two weeks. We will continue to move to having the students put words that they are misspelling in their writing onto the lists.

A few important dates:
NO early release Oct. 14 
End of the 9 weeks...Oct. 21
Our Fall Fun Day is Monday, Oct. 31st!

One other note...The other day I was asked,  
Why would I teach my students 3 Ways to Read a Book when so many of them are reading chapter books?

I really thought about this and actually found this online, which I believe, gives a great answer.

"Most of us have a wide spectrum of readers in our rooms. Intermediate teachers will tell you that the gap doesn't get smaller, but only increases in the later grades. By modeling three different ways to read, we meet the needs of our emergent readers by providing them with a way to successfully read a book. Validating these forms of reading helps create a climate where our students can honor and support each other. This culture is critical if our older emergent readers are going to honor where they are so they can grow and develop, instead of waste countless hours pretending to read books that help them save face, but fail to create real progress.

Three ways to read comes in handy for all students. Modeling reading the pictures provides them with a useful tool for reading non-fiction, (e.g., textbooks, charts, graphs). By modeling retelling, we are providing an approach to comprehending text used by many proficient readers. Because of these reasons, we find Three Ways to Read a Book to be a valuable lesson which benefits all students grades K -6."

Source: The Daily Café 

Spelling Sept. 26

More Spelling Info.
(I need to post about something other than spelling!)
Good news though...We are on our way to our individualized lists. The goal is to have each student learning words that they have misspelled in their writing notebooks. This is a slow process with 75+ students, but we are getting there!
This week every student has different words which came from a master list of words. The master list of words were words associated with autumn. Every student highlighted 12 words on the master list and will keep that list at school. They each copied their word list into their planner on p. 25.
Please study the words at home. Ideas: Write them once a night. Write them three times each. Have a practice spelling test. Go to Spelling City and play games with the words. There are lots of ways to practice.
If you are concerned about a low spelling test grade, you will be happy to know that I will drop the lowest spelling test grade for each nine weeks.

Wow! This has been a really great start to the school year. Yes, the books still need to be unpacked and organized, but it IS happening. The kids seem to enjoy opening up boxes and digging out the books.

I have started reading aloud Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Roald Dahl is one of my favorites and his books cover many reading levels. Friday is Word Play Friday. We will work on vocabulary and spelling in more depth during that time. Reading Logs will be sent home Friday. I can't wait to get back the media release forms so I can start posted pics. Looking for a few volunteers to take small groups over the library once a week! Off to check papers, more later...

April 25

Reminder: Early release on Friday, April 29th 
Field Trip next Friday,
May 6th

This week we will be practicing for the diagonstic assessments that will
be given next week. I want the students to be familiar with the format.
There are three parts to the diagonstics: reading, writing and math.
These will be given next Tues., Wed., and Thurs. You can find sample
questions and more information at the Ohio Department of Education's
website: 
http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&
TopicRelationID=236&ContentID=8698&Content=89333   
I know this is a crazy long link!

In Math, we continue to problem solve and learn about fractions. We are
also working on making change up to $1.00. We go over this every morning
with our Morning Math activities.
We will be reviewing concepts from the year over the next few weeks, and
continuing to add and subtract two digit numbers. The students need to
be able to show their work in at least two ways. We count on and count
back using number lines. We break down the numbers with expanded
notation (58 is the same as 50+8). We use and record with base ten
blocks. All of these activities build the foundation needed to really
understand the standard US algorithm for adding and subtracting...the
"carrying" and "borrowing" that we are all used to.

Keep  track of the moon each night!  Please see the attached pages. This
is not due until May 13th.

Feb. 21-25

Quick update
This week we will be starting to read biographies of famous Americans.
We are still practicing telling time to the nearest five minutes.

Thanks to all who contributed money to the Jump for Heart program.

Feb. 7

Sorry I haven't posted. I can't post from school and our home computer was on the fritz!
Anyways, I wanted to add a link to a math game site
http://resources.oswego.org/games/mathmagician/cathymath.html
and a site that has free online stories!
http://kids.aol.com/KOL/1/KOLJrStories
Enjoy!
Over the next few weeks, we will be reading lots and lots of books from Marc Brown's Arthur series.




http://www.kidsreads.com/series/series-arthur-author.asp

Jan. 24-28

This week we will wrap up our fairy tale unit.
On Friday, we will have a Fairy Tale Ball!
Come dressed as a fairy tale character. A simple costume will do. Some ideas: the Big Bad Wolf, a Pig, a Goat, a Troll, a Witch, a Prince or Princess, a dragon, an ogre, a King or Queen...evil or good, Red Riding Hood, a Grandma, a Woodsman, a fairy, a fairy Godmother, and evil step-sister, etc. (Please do not go out and spend a bunch of money! It is too cold to be out shopping anyways!)
Please leave all swords, daggers, axes, evil potions, poisonous food, and other weapons at home.
We will play a fairy tale game, have a snack and make a craft.

Math pages are included. Read those questions CAREFULLY.


Spelling work...as usual! Remember for each activity you complete, you get a sticker for your chart. Let's fill those up!

Report cards are being sent home today, Monday. Please call 330-482-5355 ext.36341 if you have questions.  I try to return all calls within 24 hours.

FRIDAY is early release. I am sending home another notice if your child did not return the first one.
Thanks!

Jan. 10-14

This is the last week of the nine weeks. Next Friday report cards will be sent home.
Math problems were attached!

We have been working of collecting data and organizing information. A Venn diagram is a way to organize and compare information. Please help your child complete a fairy tale Venn diagram using any two fairy tale characters. Here are some ideas to use:

Rapuzel              Little Red Riding Hood              Cinderella                The Big Bad Wolf

The Three Little      Pigs        Rumpelstiltskin           Gingerbread Man
Our spelling work will be with words that have double e, such as need and wheel. Please practice the spelling words and complete two of the spelling activities. Note! There are now 10 words.

Happy New Year! Jan. 3- 7, 2011

I hope that everyone had a wonderful vacation! It is hard to believe that the end of the second grading period is the end of next week.
This month we begin a new unit in math: Pockets, Teeth, and Favorite Things:  Data Analysis
Unit 4 Famliy Letter
Our spelling work will be with words that have double consonants.
We will be starting to track the weather. This will continue until the end of the year so that we can really see the changes that take place.

Dec. 20-22

The trip to the movies went very well. The kids were literally ROARING with laughter. Thanks to Mr. Green for tagging along on his birthday!

Monday: Polar Express Day. Jammies are optional!
Tuesday: Wrapping up our study of pioneers and Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Wednesday: Christmas carols at 9:30am and Holiday party in the afternoon!

Links we will be using this week:
http://www.marcias-lesson-links.com/Polar%20Express%20story%20sequencing%20strips.pdf

http://www.littlehousebooks.com/

Dec. 13

Lots of stuff going on this week and next!
With a two hour delay today and a very busy week ahead, there is NO new spelling list.
We will be making a holiday craft with our preschool buddies on Tuesday.

Homework:
Math: Complete sheet on symmetry and story problems

For a good symmetry resource, click here.

Social Studies: Interview a family member about how they celebrated Christmas as a child. Then complete the Venn Diagram comparing Christmas today and Christmas from long ago. If you do not have an older family member for your child to talk , it is fine for them to just ask a parent about their childhood Christmas.
Friday: Annual Movie! Please return the permission slip asap.