Updates

Week of October 4, 2010
Picture Day- October 14th! Please refrain from scheduling appointments on this day. Students, make sure to pick out your favorite shirt and bring your smile!

Science:  Check out the photos of our first science experiment on static electricity on the home page.  We'll begin making circuits next week.  After finding our batteries corroding in our science kits, we are in need our some D batteries. We also are in need of flashlight bulbs.   If you are able to donate either of these items to our electricity study we would really appreciate it.

Reading:  We read one of my favorite books, When The Relatives Came, to practice making text-to-self connections to our reading.  We're also working on author's purpose.  We read Mighty Jackie, a great  story about a female baseball player to practice.  Next week, we'll continue to work on author's purpose and then we'll take a Treasures test on author's purpose.

Writing:  For our writing assessment, we read The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  After reading, each fourth grader chose one of the illustrations from the book as a story starter.  Students have worked super hard on their prewriting and rough drafts so far.

Spelling/Word Study: 
This week you will be getting our second round of "Working with Words". This part of the Language Arts curriculum is based on "Words Their Way" by Donald Bear, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, and Francine Johnston. I assessed the children's knowledge of phonics and spelling patterns and then matched them with the level of word study they need. Each week your child will get a new page of sorting words, focusing on a specific letter sound or spelling pattern. We discuss the words and then sort them into groups. During the week we sort, resort, speed sort and play games to build up our familiarity with the sound or pattern. Sorting is a thinking skill which requires attention, discrimination and seeing and hearing patterns. I like this program because the children work at their own skill level, it's hands on, playful and the activities vary.   I will give kids their new words on Monday and then the test will be on Friday. 

This is an example of one of our multiplication stories.

Math:  Students are writing multiplication stories and are showing two ways to solve the problems.  We also began taking multiplication tests.  This week kids took O's/1's and 2's.  Each child will work their way through all the problems.  When they complete multiplication, then they'll begin on division!  

Social Studies:  This week we have been working complete our Missouri Webquest. Next week we will be taking a series of small assessments to test our knowledge.