Thank you to all the parents that attended our curriculum night on Thursday. Your interest and support in our work with your kids is very meaningful. We are very excited to make this year exciting, memorable, and challenging for your children.
In Language Arts this week we continued to study sentences. We focused on the correct punctuation needed for the four types of sentences. Students now know that they are responsible for writing complete sentences with capital letters and the correct end marks. Next week we will begin to focus on the parts of a sentence, by examining subjects and predicates.
The fourth graders have continued reading The War with Grandpa, and discussing character traits and while making connections to the story. We plan to finish this book by the end of next week and then students will build a story cube to demonstrate their understanding of the book. Students have also been developing their journal skills over their independent novels. Students will continue to journal next week.
In Social Studies we read about our country's regions, and how areas of the United States are unique in their geography, culture, and even climate. We discussed how regions are interdependent when they share resources. Next week we will read about weather and climate, and investigate how much that varies from the East to the West.
This week in Science we participated in a few experiments and focused on the process skills. Students practiced classifying, predicting, estimating, collecting and recording data. These process skills will be addressed throughout the year so we can focus on the specific skills scientists use when experimenting. Next week we will begin our much awaited Earthworks curriculum!
Students continued to participate in multiplication boot camp this week. The students are getting much faster with their fact recall and enjoying the opportunity to practice their facts in a variety of ways. On Friday students were given an oral quiz over the facts. Results of this quiz will be sent home on Monday, along with a study log so students can begin studying at home and I can begin introducing new concepts in class. Next week students will be assigned multiplication study logs!
A note from Mrs. Laird regarding school pictures:
Pre-orders for school pictures are due by Tuesday September 13th. This can be done online or by returning your payment in the envelopes that went home with your child. You may wait until you see the pictures to order, but the cost will be a bit higher, and there are not as many options. You can get more information about this by visiting Mrs. Laird's blog at http://spedslaird.blogspot.com/
Parent Volunteers for Book Clubs:
At curriculum night we mentioned the idea of book clubs as a way to involve parents in the reading curriculum. We were so glad to see that many of you may be interested in this opportunity so we want to try and get this started next month! This is a new idea and we are still in the process of thinking everything through, but the general idea is that students can choose their independent reading book from a list of novels and read it on their own Monday-Thursday. On Fridays parent volunteers will come in and lead discussions and activities over the books to keep students excited about reading.
If you have an interest in leading a 30 minute book discussion for a group of 5-8 students during the month of October (on the 7th, 14th, and 21st) at 12:15 or 2:30 please send an email to Christine Cowan: ccowan@speds.org
We will contact interested parents with more detailed information!
Important upcoming dates:
Tuesday September 13th: School Pictures!
Thursday September 15th: Science Club Meeting, 7:20 am in Mrs. Van Maren's classroom.
Friday September 16th: Family Fun Fest! 4-7 pm
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