September 29-October 3

This week in Writing, students will review verb tenses and irregular verbs (verbs that are spelled differently when written in past tense).  We will use this information to work on subject verb agreement next week.  As a Writing Strategy, students are going to reread their notebook entries and highlight or underline words or phrases that they could write more about, or create an entirely new piece of writing from.  This strategy is known as "Lifting a Line".  It can become very interesting when we take these words or phrases and create new writing pieces with them!

In Reading, students will begin small group Literature Circles.  The students have been grouped according to their reading levels and they will meet with this small group every 4 days.  We have chosen a book that is on their reading level that we will read in small groups and complete "jobs" while reading.  These are the same reading jobs that the students worked on earlier this year.  Our goal is to work on strategies that meet each group's individual needs, as well as keeping them reading!  As a whole class, students will work on finding details and the main idea while reading.  We will use several strategies to help students with this.  It isn't as easy as it sounds!  But don't worry, we will continue to work on this throughout the year with many types of texts.  

This week in Math we are starting a new unit. We will begin with looking at multiplication and different ways to use drawings/arrays to represent those equations. This helps them visually make sense of multiplication. There will be math homework every day this week except for Friday.

In Science this week we will finish up the last chapter in the unit and begin to prepare for the test NEXT Tuesday, October 7. We have covered the states of matter, measurement and will finish the chapter up with density this week. They will have 3 study guides that we have completed to use to study and will also be able to bring home their science books.

In Spelling this week we will start with a new word list. These words help us to learn the rules of the long/short /i/ sound and the different ways to make the /k/ sound. The word lists will come home tonight. There will be another parent/student activity on Thursday night and a test on Friday. It was great to see how many of you worked with your student on the last parent/student, spelling activity. We appreciated your support at home!

September 22- September 26

This week in Writing, students will be learning to write using the trait of Ideas.  This is one of the six traits for successful writers.  With this trait, students will learn how to develop ideas, and create a narrative writing piece.  In Writer's Workshop, students will be writing from a word.  Student's will pick a part of speech, and write about it, or from it for 15 minutes.  This is to help build stamina, and develop ideas as a writer.  

In Reading, students will continue working in class to finish Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing while learning about the story elements.  We have been using our Reader's Notebook to make notes as we read.  Some students have asked if they can use their notebooks with their independent reading books in the same way!  Of course!  It is so exciting that students want to utilize a skill that they are learning in class to help them as a reader!  That is the whole point!!  

As a side note, our mid quarter has just passed.  You should have received Progress Reports last Friday.  In fourth grade, we require 10 AR points per quarter.  Our hope is to have students at 5 points by mid quarter.  To help students not fall far behind, we are having students who are under 5 points to stay in during recess and read or quiz.  At this  point in the school year, we have read several books to the class that have quizzes.  They should be really close to 5 points if they have taken quizzes over the books that have been read to them.  Remember to help encourage their reading at home.  It makes that 10 points seem not so hard to get!

In Math this week we will be reviewing adding/subtracting greater numbers, estimating, and rounding. We will have a Test over unit one on Thursday. We will have a full day to review math on Wednesday. They can bring home their math notebooks to help them study! 

We also have our first spelling test this Thursday. They should have brought home their first list last week of 20 words. We are discussion patterns in spelling words and the words on this list will follow that pattern. On Wednesday night they will bring home a spelling activity to do with you. We appreciate your support and know it is a huge factor in their success in school! 

In science we are continuing to discuss states of matter. We  are doing some fun activities in our classroom to make this a hands on unit and they really seem to be enjoying it so far!  

Miss Ussary will be gone on Wednesday for a training in Maryville. 

September 15- September 19

It's Monday again! Don't forget that Wednesday is a half day this week! Also, progress reports will be sent home this Friday, the 19th. 

This week in Writing, students will apply their new knowledge of the Parts of Speech by placing them in sentences.  We will have a review game on Monday.  This will lead us into subjects and predicates in sentences, and their agreement.  The Writer's Workshop strategy that we will focus on is observations.  Writers use the world around them and their 5 senses to make the reader's feel what they are writing.  We will use multiple areas of the school to "observe" the world around us.

In Reading, students will continue their work on studying the story elements.  We will begin reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.  We will use this book to identify and study the 5 elements more closely.  

In math this week we will begin subtracting multi-digit numbers. We will be looking at how subtraction is just the undoing of addition. Place value is a huge focus for these lessons. 

In Social Studies this week we are reviewing on Monday and taking a test on Tuesday. The test is over pages 74-89 in the Social Studies books. They can use their note packet, the three worksheets we've done and their questions that they turned in on Friday to study. 

On Thursday we will switch to Science. We will begin talking about the states of matter. 

In Spelling this week we will finish up working on syllable division and move on to discussing long and short vowel sounds. No spelling lists will be sent home this week. 

September 8- 12

Pictures and Homecoming Week

Happy Monday!  Here is a look at our week ahead.

In English Language Arts, students will be learning about the Parts of Speech.  This should be a review for some of the parts of speech.  We will take a deeper look at adverbs, pronouns, and prepositions and how these can make our writing better.  

In Reading, students will have a literature circle discussion on the story that we read and completed jobs for last week.  We will then begin to look at the 5 story elements; characters, setting, plot, conflict, and theme.  Students will begin a class read aloud to focus on these elements.

This week in math we are working on adding numbers with multiple digits. They learned 3 different strategies for doing this. There are examples of each strategy in their notes. We will also begin learning estimation and mental math. They will have math homework on Monday,Tuesday, and Wednesday nights this week. 

In social studies this week we are continuing talking about Missouri's geography. We are doing a Reader's Theater (skit) in which they will act out being a class that is working to spread the message about helping their environment. We will also make signs to hang in our schools to remind everyone to conserve and recycle when they can. 

We started Spelling this week. There is not a word list for this week. We are beginning instruction by discussing syllables and understanding how to divide them in a word. The reason we do this is so they can hear each individual syllable in a word they are trying to spell. This helps them break down a word into small parts that they can spell and put them together to make the complete word. 

As a reminder, class pictures are Wednesday, September 10.  Next week is the book fair, with Grandparent's night on Tuesday, from 6-7.

September 2- 5

Short Week

I hope that everyone enjoyed their long weekend. School is already off to a running start!  Here is a look at our Fourth Grader's week ahead...

In Reading this week, students will learn the value of a proper book discussion.  Soon, we will divide students into small groups to study a small book more closely.  To do this, students will be participating in something known as Literature Circles.  This week, we will complete each Literature Circle Job as a class with a whole group read aloud to demonstrate to students what we will be looking for when they study their small group books.  With each "job", students will be asked to take a deeper look at the text.

In Grammar, students will be working on identifying and punctuating the 4 sentence types; declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative.  This may be a review, but in fourth grade, we still see punctuation as an issue.   In Writer's Workshop, students will continue to get to know themselves as writer's.  We are already amazed at the ability of some of our students!  We will work on two strategies this week.  One strategy is "History of a Name".  In this strategy, we will read aloud a picture about about a child and how she feels about her LONG name.  We will then ask students to write about their names.  Maybe you have a story to tell your child about their first or middle name, or maybe the heritage of their last name.  Maybe you have a nickname that your family calls your child.  If you do, please share this information with them!  You don't need to tell them it is for "Writing", just bring it up in conversation.  Hopefully this will prompt a great Writer's Workshop on Wednesday!  Students will also be introduced to the writing strategy of "Writing from a List".  This helps them sort through their thoughts, and decide what would be fun to write about.

In math last week we discussed place value and its importance in multi-digit numbers. We use place value drawings and different forms (expanded, word, and standard) to show our understanding of place value. This week we are continuing looking at place value but will focus on rounding using this understanding.We will also continue with the different number forms and comparing those numbers.

When your student has homework, they will be told to bring home their entire math notebook. We ask them to do this so that they have a resource if they struggle with something or forgot how to complete one section. In the notebooks you will see there are 5 domains that have different focuses in each one. We will sort our class work and homework into the appropriate sections. When they complete homework and it is graded, we will hand it back and they will return it to the correct domain in their notebook.

In Social Studies this week we will continue our discussion on Missouri's Geography. In this unit we are discussion the regions in Missouri and their characteristics, how we can conserve and recycle to help our state, and how latitude and longitude help us find locations on a map.

We have not yet started with our Spelling instruction. We are currently using this time to meet with the students individually to go over their academic goals for the 1st quarter. Spelling instruction will begin next week.