Spelling
We WILL NOT have spelling this week.  We are devoting all our time this week to finishing our informational essays. 

Reading and Writing
We will be working hard in writer's workshop to finish composing, revising, editing and publishing our informational essays on our solar system research. 

Students will also be learning about a different form of poetry each day this week.  Today, we learned about the Japanese form of poetry known as Haiku.  We had to review our understanding of syllables and talked in depth about how important word choice is to a poet.  As we learn about different types of poetry, we will also reading a variety of poetry.  As the week progresses, we will also learn about diamante, cinquains, concrete and acrostic poems. 

There is NO passage or spelling homework this week, but your child SHOULD be reading for 20 minutes or more each night at home.

SOCIAL STUDIES
ECONOMICS

We are moving out of our study on personal economics and moving onto Wall Street.  I've been amazed at some of the background knowledge your children have about the business world!  Thanks to table conversations, Shark Tank and The Profit many of our students already have a working knowledge and understanding of the terms associated with business economics.  To continue supporting us at home, you may reference our new vocabulary words.
specialize, profit, wage, overhead, competition, marketing

Math and Science the Week of April 28th

Parents,

Well we made it past STAAR week and I must say it wasn't easy!  The kids worked really hard and were exhausted.  The STAAR party on Friday was just what we needed to give our brains a break.

On Monday and Tuesday, we will dedicate to catching up on our Living and Non living/ Ecosystems Science Unit.

This week in Math we will be gearing up for 4th grade!  The kids will learn multiple strategies on multiplying 2 digit numbers by a 1 digit number.  On Wednesday, we will be drawing out the multiplication problems on a tens and ones T-chart.   On Thursday, I will teach them how to multiply a two digit number with another number that has many zeros.  They will find this trick simple and fun!  On Friday, we will use our past knowledge of expanded notation to solve the problems using something called The Expanded Notation Method.   We are teaching them many different ways for two main reasons.  The first is that they understand the true meaning of 57 x 3 and the second is that we want to give them several strategies so that they find one they are most comfortable with.   It should be a fun and challenging week in Math.  The kids love two digit by one digit multiplication because they feel like big kids learning "hard stuff."

For fast facts, I will give each child a verbal reminder on Monday what they specifically need to study.  They have had the last two weeks off from Fast facts, so this week WILL BE GRADED AND INPUTTED.

In Science, we are trekking along and having a good time learning about Ecosystems and Food Chains/Webs.  This week we will further our learning about Food Chains, producers, consumers, decomposers, predators, prey, and all the things an Ecosystem entails with some fun games.  Flash cards to study will be in your future.  The students will be required to draw and label a Food Chain on their Test.  It should be a fun week. I am glad to be back to learning and having a good time with these kiddos.

Love,
Ms. S

Math and Science the Week of April 21st

Dear Parents,

STAAR week has arrived and there will be many changes that will take place this week that we would like you to be aware of.  First off, there will be no assigned HW for the entire week.  Of course we would like to encourage you to continue to read nightly with your child and stay on top of Math Facts so that scores do not suffer!

Monday, April 22
This will be our pep rally day!  It's so important that your child be present today at school so we can have one more opportunity to give clear and concise directions for the state test.  Your child will not be switching classes for the next two days (Tues and Wed).  In Math class today we have scheduled a 20 problem circuit to review a little of everything.

Tuesday, April 23

The Math STAAR test will be given Tuesday morning.  Students will need to arrive at school on time,  (7:50am) having had a nutritious breakfast.  The school will provide snacks and a water bottle for each student during the test.  The reasoning behind the school providing the snack is that we need to keep the testing area clean and free of Cheetos cheese!  If your child wears glasses it is IMPERATIVE that he or she brings them to school that morning.  Students will be given four hours to complete the test.  We have modified our schedules to meet this state requirement.  Lunch will be at 12:45.  Specials will be at 1:15.  For homework this evening, students will need to have a good night’s rest.  

Wednesday, April 24

The Reading STAAR test will be given Wednesday morning.  Students will need to arrive at school on time,  (7:50am) having had a nutritious breakfast.  The school will provide snacks and a water bottle for each student during the test.  If your child wears glasses it is IMPERATIVE that he or she brings them to school that morning.  Students will be given four hours to complete the test.  We have modified our schedules to meet this state requirement.  Lunch will be at 12:45.  Specials will be at 1:15.  For homework  this evening, students will also need to have a good night’s rest.   They will have worked very hard over the last two days, and deserve a night to relax!

Thursday, April 25
This day will be a normal school day!  Any students that were absent on either Tuesday or Wednesday will be making up the test today.  We will skip Math today and just soncentrate on our new Science unit Living and Non Living.

Friday, April 26

What we are doing on this particular day will remain a mystery until Wednesday ;)

Thank you for all your hard work, cooperation, and support this year!

Omi Ford and Angela Skrivanek

Math and Science Week of April 14th

Parents,

This week will be nothing short of a cramming session for finals!  All week long in Math we will study old concepts in whole group, partners, and alone.  In the early part of this week, we will be going over Objective 1, which covers all number sense.  The kids will be working on ordering numbers, comparing numbers, fractions, money, and place value.  On Wednesday, we will take a quiz independently over these objectives.  Towards the latter part of the week, we will be working on 3-D attributes, temperature, reading graphs and charts, area, and perimeter.  The kids have been enjoying so far working hard in pairs to be the group that receives a 100 on their review packets.  It's become quite the competition in the classroom and I am proud that the kids are taking their learning seriously.

There will be NO fast facts or Problem of the Week this week due to the four day week.

Science is taking a bit of a back burner the next week and a half, but we will pick it up strong at the end of NEXT week.  

Love,

Ms. S  

Math and Science Week of April 7th

Parents,

The next two weeks we will be getting ready for the STAAR test in a variety of ways.  We are working on making it as fun and as challenging as possible.

1. On Monday, we will review probability and vocabulary such as certain, likely and impossible.

2. On Tuesday, we have planned a "Round Robin" activity to prepare the kids for Objective 5 which entails probability, reading Picto graphs with different keys, and analyzing bar graphs.  The kids will work in groups to help one another solve.  Last week I motivated the kids by turning this into a competition of sorts.  If their group missed none, they all got a free HW pass!

3. On Wednesday, we will take Objective 5 Quiz on Probability, reading Picto Graphs with different keys, and analyzing bar graphs and answering questions from those graphs.

4. On Thursday, we are going to take a step back to November and early December when we studied Multiplication.  We will review and practice using all strategies taught in Multiplication to help solve the problems.  These strategies include Circles and Stars, Clothesline Method, Arrays, Making Paired Tables, etc....  The kids will work with a partner to complete some multiplication word problems.

5. On Friday, we will review Division strategies learned a couple months ago such as the Octopus and Cookies Method.  The students will again work with a partner to determine how to solve some Division word problems.

Multiplication Fast Facts will be graded this Friday.  I have several students that have completed all of their fast facts to twelve and have started division.  These are the students I consider 4th grade ready at this point in the year.

In Science we have a Solar System test scheduled for Tuesday.  After this we will move on to our study of Living and Non Living things which evolves eventually into Ecosystems.  We will be learning that a living thing is something that is or once was alive.  Living things do certain things like breath, require food, and reproduce.

It should be an awesome week of new learning and discovery ;-).
Ms. S

Reading, Economics and Research Writing

Spelling
We WILL have spelling this week.  Menus are due on Thursday.  Test day is Friday.

Reading
We have been mixing things up in reading.  I have used our last set of benchmarks to target student needs.  Our groups have been changing weekly as we work on poetry, expository, biography, summary, context clues, cause and effect, procedural texts, etc.

When they are not in a small group with me, they are working at stations designed around what concept they need reinforced.  

Reading passages are still coming home each week.  They should be in the homework folder on Monday and are due Friday.  It is IMPERATIVE that everyone practices the format for the test.  We have SUPER readers this year and I don't want the format of the test to hinder their ability.

Also, we still have 20 minutes of nightly reading for homework.  Many students have been letting this slide.  Please help your child stay strong in his or her commitment to homework for these last few months of school.

Writing
Students selected three planets that they would be interested in researching and writing about this 9 weeks.  Everyone has been assigned a planet, the sun, or the moon.  We have now spent two weeks learning about researching and researching.  Last week we working on writing our introduction paragraph for our research paper.  This week, we will learn about topic sentences and begin writing and revising the various paragraphs that will make up the body of our paper.

SOCIAL STUDIES
ECONOMICS

Our test on personal economics will be Tuesday, April 15.  Review sheets and vocabulary will come home Tuesday, April 8.  Students are welcome to take home Social Studies Journals to help them study each night.  Please make sure that the journals come back to school.  We will add notes and ideas to them each day.

If you give a Mouse a Cookie--
Station Video for 4/2/14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFKzriYtEt8