Our Week In Review

Our last week has been quite full!

In Reading we began reading Mr. Popper's Penguins. This book was written in the 1938 and won the Newbery Award. Many of the children have seen the movie, however the book is much different (and better)!  We will continue with this book for another week or so, focusing on asking questions, characters, making predictions, and how making predictions helps you to think while reading.  We are enjoying this book!

We have been working on a special writing project, along with finishing up our sun poems.  We also have started to discuss using nouns.  We have discussed how choosing the correct noun in your writing allows the reader to have the clearest and most accurate picture of your story.

In math, we continue to practice division.  This is the first topic which is more new than review.  We have moved on to learning about decimals and their place values.  When we have a quiz on decimals in a few weeks, we will include a portion of review of division.  Many of the errors students are making are fact errors, addition errors, and subtraction errors.  

We wrapped up our Mexico unit, and completed our test last week.  We will be wrapping up our unit on Heredity with our assessment on Tuesday.  We will also present our speeches on Tuesday.  Students will have the option of having their speeches video taped for our blog.  Look for those videos and photos on the blog on Tuesday.

From the Teacher's Desk

Dear Parents,

This is the season of giving thanks! I want to take a minute to thank you for your support of our school activities. Thank you for all that you have done this fall to make your child's transition to fourth grade a successful one! 

Thank you for your generous donations to the class store! I am also grateful for the Wishing Well donations. I will be purchasing some new books for our classroom with the Barnes and Noble gift card and some other necessary items with the Walmart card. All of these donations of supplies, time and energy are all greatly appreciated!

Most importantly, I would like to thank you for your support with your children. The consistency you provide, and daily help you give to them supports what we do in school, and allows the children to understand the importance of our connection. I truly appreciate your support, and am thankful to all of the wonderful families in our class.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and enjoy the company of family and friends.

Warmly,
Katie Merten

Our Week in Review

Even though it was a short week, it was a busy one in Room 24!

In writing, we continued to work on our Ivan poems, and finished publishing our narratives.  We also completed a narrative writing assessment.

In Reading we finished up some of our Ivan activities, and focused our reading on non-fiction.  We have read about Gregor Mendel and about Mexico, focusing on non-fiction text features such as bold/italic print, captions, headings, maps and tables.  We have been learning a lot in both science and social studies, and about how to read non-fiction in a different way than fiction.

On Thursday we learned about "ojos de dios" or God's Eyes.  This is common craft done in Mexico. Together with Mrs. Williams' class, we created our own God's Eyes.

Today we had a very special treat!  Our Creative Arts Friday was highlighted by Mrs. Tracey!  She came to our class and taught us all about the Aztecs (from Mexico).

 We reviewed a bit about their history and discussed their artistry.  We drew some Aztec suns, focusing on imagery and emotion.  We then drew our suns on foam board.

 Mrs. Tracey helped us with ink and a brayer, and we created some Aztec sun prints!  We learned about Mexican poet, Octavio Paz, and  wrote some free verse poetry in his style.

We will mount our suns with our poetry soon! Thank you, Mrs. Tracey for such an awesome day!!!

Poetry Spotlight

Here are two poems written today about the sun prints.

There's a sun

among the trees

that smiles at me.

And I smile back.

                          ~Emily 

Sad Sun

Tears are dripping

down my burning face

as the rain falls

I grow weaker

and lose my light.

It is soon dark.

                      ~Sarah

From the Teacher's Desk

The next few weeks will be busy with preparing for our tests in science (Heredity) and social studies (Mexico).  The children have all of the necessary materials to begin studying for both tests.  They have been reminded to bring their materials back and forth to school/home, so that they are able to participate in school activities as well as study at home.  Students should also be preparing and practicing for their November speech.  The speeches will be given in front of our class on November 26th.  If your child will not be in school on that day, please contact Mrs. Merten, so that arrangements can be made.

Our Week In Review

What a great week!  The Red Sox won the World Series, Trick or Treating, and we are almost finished reading  The One and Only Ivan!

We were all happy with how the story is finishing up.  We have learned about tracking characters in a story and monitoring their character traits.  We talked a lot about the difference between a feeling and a trait.  This story is rich in vocabulary and language and has offered us the ability to think deeply about our first book.  The children did a great job with it! 

Since we have just about finished reading this book, we all know how it will end (SPOILER ALERT!).  Here is a page from Zoo Atlanta, where Ivan eventually ends up. They have outlined the "real Ivan's" life in a timeline, pictures and a video of him. We will view this page on Monday. 

In Math we have started to learn about division.  We will use many of the same strategies for solving division problems as we learned for multiplication.  Once the children see the connection between the two, learning division should start to feel easier.

In Science we have started our unit on Heredity!  We had the opportunity to share photos of our ancestors (and/or our parents).  We enjoyed noticing some similarities we have seen with our classmates and their families and had a few great discussions about inherited and non-inherited traits.  Though we have just started this unit, an extra page of vocabulary was sent home with your child this week.  If he/she would like to being making flashcards or preparing for our test, this is a great way to get ahead.

We have arrived in Mexico!  We are learning about the geography, art and culture of this country.  On Halloween we learned about the Day of the Dead (el dio de los muertos) and about the celebrations that take place in Mexico on November 1st.  

From the Teacher's Desk:

Overall the students are doing a fine job completing homework and returning it to school  Some students are struggling with the organization of this; completing the homework at home but leaving it there, or leaving materials at school.  At the end of each day we have a dedicated time to write in our assignment notebooks, get our mail and pack up our materials.  Please check in with your child to see how he/she feels homework is going.  If you have been returning to school regularly after hours to collect materials for homework, please let me know. Checklists or an added teacher check could be something to help with this.  

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GENERAL HOMEWORK TIPS FOR PARENTS 

(Reposted from the Department of Education. You can see the full article here.)

✪ Make sure your child has a quiet, well-lit place to do homework. 

Avoid having your child do homework with the television on or in places with other distractions, such as people coming and going.

✪ Make sure the materials your child needs, such as paper, pencils and a dictionary, are available. Ask your child if special materials will be needed for some projects and get them in advance.

✪ Help your child with time management. Establish a set time each day for doing homework. Don‘t let your child leave homework until just

before bedtime. Think about using a weekend morning or afternoon for working on big projects, especially if the project involves getting together with classmates.

✪ Be positive about homework. Tell your child how important school is. The attitude you express about homework will be the attitude your child acquires.

✪ When your child does homework, you do homework. Show your child that the skills they are learning are related to things you do as an adult. If your child

is reading, you read too. If your child is doing math, balance your checkbook.

✪ When your child asks for help, provide guidance, not answers. Giving answers means your child will not learn the material. Too much help teaches your child that when the going gets rough, someone will do the work for him or her. 

✪ When the teacher asks that you play a role in homework, do it. Cooperate with the teacher. It shows your child that the school and home are a team. Follow the directions given by the teacher.

✪ If homework is meant to be done by your child alone, stay away.

Too much parent involvement can prevent homework from having some positive effects.  Homework is a great way for kids to develop independent, lifelong learning skills.

✪ Stay informed. Talk with your child‘s teacher. Make sure you know the purpose of homework and what your child‘s class rules are.

✪ Help your child figure out what is hard homework and what is easy homework. Have your child do the hard work first. This will mean he will be most alert when facing the biggest challenges. Easy material will seem to go fast when fatigue begins to set in.

One more thing... our teachers dressed up this Halloween as four of the Power Rangers! We loved seeing them this way!

And...Spotlight on Sarah!  The teachers just LOVE her shirt.

Our Week In Review

This has been QUITE a busy week in fourth grade!  We have really gotten into our book, The One and Only Ivan. The students are truly enjoying this book, and making valuable connections with themselves, other books and the world.  We have looked at pictures of the "real" Ivan, and some have even found his story online.  Here is one video I found, from the Atlanta Zoo, of Ivan in his zoo habitat.




Many students have signed up to give a "Book Talk " to our class.  We are excited to hear about the new books our friends are choosing to read!  Some students have even picked up some books that they may not have chosen a few weeks ago.  Mrs. Merten is proud of us for giving some different genres a try!

In math, we have been focusing on multiplication strategies, and we had our first quiz earlier this week.  We are learning a new way to multiply using the "area model".  This is a new way to solve multiplication problems.

 Below is a picture of one of the problems we did this morning in math.  Your child can give you the full explanation about how this model works.

 

In Science this week, we continue to discuss the scientific method. We will be completing a few more activities next week, and then we will have a quiz on this topic the following week.  As you know, we have been practicing our observation skills with the "Gorilla Cam".  We had the opportunity to practice these skills further this week with Mrs. Williams' class. We enjoyed using the microscope to observe tiny organisms from local ponds.  

Today, students took home a study guide for our Latitude and Longitude test, which will be next Thursday.  Though we haven't formally practiced using lines of Latitude and Longitude, we have covered all of the other material on the study guide, and the children have a complete vocabulary list. 

From the Teacher's Desk ~

The students have adjusted very well to the expectations of fourth grade. As you know, we are focusing largely on independence and responsibility. To that end, I have stopped checking assignment notebooks, with the exception of a few students. Students have been responsible for bringing home their materials and writing in their assignment books. I have checked the books on Friday when I check for a parent signature as well.

I wanted to mention our homework policy. You can also find it in our student handbook. Each term, students are all given a "freebie". This is one missed homework assignment, no consequence, the student just has to bring it in the next day. After the freebie, a student who misses an assignment a second, third or fourth time, must make it up (in some cases redo it) at recess. After that he/she can play. After that fourth miss, the student must miss the recess, do the homework, and write a letter to you to be signed. This is so that you are aware of the missed homework assignments and is a clear way for me to communicate that to you. Homework includes: the nightly written assignment, his/her library book, his/her nightly reading book (to be brought to and from school), the reading log (due Friday) and the parent signature in the assignment book (due Friday). The written assignments must be complete.

I know that as the year goes on, this will become second nature to your children. At this point, several students have used their "freebie" plus at least one more assignment. I'd appreciate it if you take a minute and talk with your child about his/her homework progress. If your child has missed assignments, sometimes it is helpful to set up a regular location for homework, and to have some type of checklist to be sure items are packed correctly. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this.


Enjoy the long weekend!
~Mrs. Merten

Our Week In Review

We accomplished a lot of things this week in Room 24!

In math we have started to talk about strategies for solving multiplication facts.  Some of the  strategie we have discussed are:

• Memorizing ~ the best way to memorize facts is daily practice.  Many children find that the best way to do this is to practice for 5 minutes nightly.  Students received an optional practice chart.  If this is filled in completely and signed, students will earn extra credit.
• Repeated Addition  ~ 2 x 3= 2+2+2  ~ 
• Adding on Addition ~ 7 x 6 ~ if you know 7 x 5 is 35, then add 7 more to get 42
• Break apart the factors ~ 
• Traditional
• Tricks to solving 9 facts  ~ Ask your child to share these!
• We created some rhymes for  a few facts for extra credit.  These may help you remember!
• 9 and 7 like to be free, 9 x 7 is 63 ~ Jake
• 9 and 9 are having fun, 9 x 9 is 81 ~ Lily, Tanmay, Dhashadyu 
• 9 and 9 have a ton of fun, 9 x 9 is 81~ Sameen
• 4 and 7 are great, 4 x 7 is 28 ~ Brendan
• 7 x 8 likes to pick up sticks, 7 x 8 is 56 ~ Derek
• 7 and 8 did some tricks, 7 x 8 is 56 ~ Nate
• I've got 6 and I've got 4, Multiply them together and get 24 ~ Sarah
• 6 and 4 will mean no more, 6 x 4 is 24 ~ Katherine
• 4 and 7 are running late, 4 x 7 is 28 ~ Will
• 9 and 7 broke their knee, 9 x 7 is 63 ~Shreya
• 9 and 9 are almost done, 9 x 9 is 81 ~ Charlene
• 6 and 4 went out the door, 6 x 4 is 24  ~ Ilana

We have also started learning some new math games to go with our multiplication study.  

In reading we have finished reviewing basic strategies for reading.  Students will be "asking questions" on their reading logs this week.  Many of the children have signed up to do book talks.  We love hearing about the books that others enjoyed.  It gives us an idea about books we might like.

Stay tuned for our first Interactive Read Aloud.  We plan on beginning on Tuesday!  

In writing, we have finished our goals and our bio poems.  We also created "heart maps".  We will refer back to our heart maps throughout the year to help guide our writing.  

This week we also reviewed some other strategies for generating ideas for writing.  We have completed some "quick writes" about important people in our lives.  Next week we will "try on" some story ideas about important places and about turning points.  We will begin drafting toward the end of the week.  During poetry workshop with Mrs. Williams, we have continued to learn about Walt Whitman.  We will begin writing list poems next week. Today we got to write one about Mrs. Merten.  

We have been learning about the globe and about the hemispheres in social studies.  We will be moving on to latitude and longitude next week.  We will also begin our first science unit.  We will learn about the water cycle, complete some experiments and create our terrariums.  

We have almost finished our Puff Mobiles, and they all move!  We have been busy testing them and choosing our "puffers".  For some of us, the hardest part of this was compromising!  Mrs. Merten is proud that we have all worked at this.  We will be racing against the other fourth graders next week.  

From the Teacher's Desk:

I'm looking forward to seeing many of you at Open House next Thursday night.  I will be in my classroom at 6:30.   Please see your child's backpack for a notice about letting me know if you are not receiving our emails. I will be sending an email out next week regarding parent/teacher conferences.  This year, sign up will be done electronically.