Happy Thursday!

 Like every week, we sure have been busy!  Here are a few snaps of the week!

Vday

Working on fractions

Using Popplet to discuss our new books.

Science fun!

Weekly Newsletter

We have had a great week filled with fun and learning.  The hot topic this week was all about our "student-led" conferences.  I can't wait to watch the kids sharing all they've accomplished this trimester!  Make sure if you need to reschedule your conference you let me or the office know and we would love to give you a different time!  Here's a look at what we've done this week and what's coming up next week:

Previewing our awesome book fair!

Science

   We have had so much fun learning about waves.  We have talked about amplitude, wavelengths, frequency and even energy and force.  We have used Slinkys, ribbon, water and more to create and study different waves. 

   Next week we will continue our study of waves and talk about how the amplitude of waves changes as it spreads out, how objects move on waves and then we will begin learning about sounds waves. 

Writing

   This week we have finished up our study of informational writing, Students have published their piece on the Missouri city they were studying and have written a post-assessment on the Oregon Trail. I am really impressed with all they have learned about the organization and structure of informational writing. 

   Next week we are going to jump into our new study of persuasive writing. 

Typing on a new program!

Math

    This week we took our pre-assessment on fractions.  We have A LOT to learn.  J They are super excited.  We also spent some time looking at all the data we have and everything we have accomplished as mathematicians this year.  Your kiddos have a lot to be proud of.  Students also set goals they would like to share with you during our conference time together!  Next week we will begin our fractions unit!! 

Puzzle Day!

Reading:

    This week we have spent time reviewing how to monitor and clarify what we are reading.  We discussed how to reread, ask questions, visualize and more.  We also talked about how to notice when we are confused about something we are reading and how that shows us we aren’t understanding what we are reading.  As student’s reading levels increase, so does the content of the books they are reading. 

   Next week we are starting new book club books.  We are super excited to start new chapter books!    

School Reminders:

·        February 13th- Parent Teacher Conferences

·        February 14th- Spring Class Party

·        February 16th- Parent Teacher Conferences

·        February 17th- NO SCHOOL

·        February 20th- NO SCHOOL (President’s Day)

·        March 7^th- Early Out

·        March 14^th- Beulah Math Night (more info to come)

·        March 22^nd- Jefferson City Field trip

·        March 27^th - 31^st - SPRING BREAK

·         April 7^th- Runge Field Trip (more info. to come later)

·         April 12^th- PTA Meeting at 6:30

Celebrating Beulah Ralph's Birthday!

Today was a super, fun day!  We started the day making hats for Mrs. Beulah Ralph's 90th birthday celebration.  It was so fun to watch the kids wear their hats all day, but I must admit it was difficult to take them seriously with these huge, silly hats on:).  We explored waves in science today- here are a few pictures of the kids making different kinds of waves.  Have a great night!

Happy birthday, Mrs. Ralph!

Weekly Newsletter

What a busy, busy week!  Thank you to all of the parents who shared your careers with us- we loved getting to learn about what you do!

Writing

We are finally done taking notes on our cities in Missouri.   This week we learned about thesis statements and topic sentences.  Students have been given a graphic organizer to help them organize their researched information.  This week we started planning our final piece and next week we will plan on writing, editing and publishing our pieces. 

Social Studies

This week we discussed the purpose of our government.  We talked about what types of departments a government has and how they are all connected.

Next week we will be starting our new Science unit on waves.  We will learn what waves are, where we see them, what the amplitude of waves is and what effect frequency has on wavelength.         

Math

I am beyond impressed with the effort your kids put into learning division.  They asked for practice, worked at school and home to understand it.  I am blown away!  There are many students that need to keep practicing those flash cards each night! 

Next week we will be reviewing and testing over our unit on division.  Be watching for that review guide to come home on Monday night.  We will test Tuesday and spend the remainder of the week practicing division facts and going over the test before starting our new unit on fractions!! 

Daily 5

This week we have continued with our read aloud book, The Mighty Miss Malone.  I am very impressed with the conversations and questions they are having about the Great Depression.  We have begun discussing what a good summary is and the purpose of a summary.  Next week students will get a graphic organizer that will help them organize information about what we are reading so we can easily write a summary.        

Here are some fun pictures from today's MakerSpace!  We had a blast creating circuits!

Important Dates

·        January 31^st- Beulah Ralph’s 90^th Birthday!

·        February 3^rd- Neon & Bright Day

·        February 6th- NO SCHOOL (teacher work day)

    February 10^th- Yearbook Orders & Six Flag Reading Minutes Due

·        February 13th- Parent Teacher Conferences

·        February 14th- Spring Class Party

·        February 16th- Parent Teacher Conferences

·        February 17th- NO SCHOOL

·        February 20th- NO SCHOOL (President’s Day)

·        March 7^th- Early Out

·        March 14^th- Beulah Math Night (more info to come)

·        March 22^nd- Jefferson City Field trip

·        March 27^th - 31^st - SPRING BREAK 

Career Week!

We have been so excited to hear from so many fourth grade parents about different careers!  We've heard from anesthesiologists, managers, journalists, philosophers, graphic designers, and more!  And we even have more parents to hear from tomorrow.  Thank you for volunteering your time to help teach our kiddos!  Remember that tomorrow is dress like your future career day!

Here are a few fun pictures from our visitors!

Weekly Newsletter

We had a super week this week!  It was nice to get back into the swing of things after break.  Since we don't have school tomorrow, consider this your Friday Newsletter:).

Social Studies
We have begun our study of civics.  This week we talked about rules and culture.  We have also discussed the the purpose of laws and how Missouri laws and school rules are both similar and different.  We have noticed a lot of commonalities in school/state laws as to purposes of each.  Next week we will begin talking about government and its purpose.

Writing
Students have been busy reading and researching important cities in Missouri's history!  They are researching either Jefferson City, St. Louis, Kansas City, Hannibal, St. Joseph, St. Genevieve, or Joplin.  They are really learning a lot and I am impressed at how focused they've been.  We are focusing specifically on the foundation, development, and how it has changed over the years.  Be sure to ask your child about their city.

Math
We have begun our new math unit, Dividing by One Digit Divisors.  This week we talked about how to divide multiples of ten and how to estimate quotients.
Next week we will learn about remainders and dig deeper into division and actually learn the process. It is going to be very beneficial to your child if they practice division flash cards every night (and multiplication for that matter)!

Reading
Our new read aloud, The Mighty Miss Malone, already has students hooked!  Before we began, we talked a lot about the time period this historical fiction book takes place.  Students were fascinated with the Great Depression.  We have also talked a lot about author's purpose and why author's include certain information or make characters do certain things.  Next week, we will focus on fact vs. opinion and how that impacts a historical fiction text.

Some friends chose to research together

Practicing some Mindfulness with Ms. Harris

Researching cities!

Important Dates:

-January 16- NO SCHOOL (MLK Jr. Day)

-January 20- School Wide-Spelling Bee

-January 20- Hat Day!

-February 6- NO SCHOOL (teacher work day)

-February 10- Yearbook Orders Due

-February 10- Six Flags Reading Logs Due

-February 13- Parent Teacher Conferences

-February 14- Spring Class Party

-February 16- Parent Teacher Conferences

-February 17- NO SCHOOL

-February 20- NO SCHOOL

Have a great weekend and stay safe in this weather!

Allie

What a fabulous first week of 2017 we've had!  I know it's tough getting back into the swing of things, but I couldn't be happier to see all of my sweet 4th graders!

Writing/Social Studies
We started our new writing/social studies project this week.  This unit will be all about cities in Missouri.  On Thursday, kids read a paper about a city and scored it using the rubric I will be using to score them on.  On Friday, the kids preferenced their top 3 cities they wanted to study and then were assigned one.  We will begin working on this research project on Monday.

Math
We started our next division unit this week.  Our lessons centered around how division relates to repeated subtraction and used fact families to help us solve problems.  On Friday, we took our timed operation assessments.  I'll share those results at conferences in February.

Daily 5
We got back into the swing of things with Daily 5 this week.  On Wednesday, we revisited our stamina the whole class participated in focused reading for over 30 minutes!  We also started learning about the Great Depression by reading some books to build background knowledge for our next read aloud, The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis.

Important Upcoming Dates:

• January 16- MLK Jr. Day (NO SCHOOL)
• January 20- 3-5 Spelling Bee
• January 27- Citizen of the Month Assembly
• February 6- NO SCHOOL
• February 13- Parent/Teacher Conferences
• February 14- Spring Party Day
• February 16- Parent/Teacher Conferences