Leader of the Week - Alex

Weekly Update: Oct. 29 - Nov. 2

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• We have Library on Monday - please plan to return or renew your books
• Fix it Ticket Info - these "tickets" will be attached to the tests.  Your child is welcome to study the skills and concepts of the chapter again at home,  complete the "ticket", return it with the original test, and take a "retake" test on the given date.  My goal is for students to show mastery of the standards being taught, not to just get an A on the test.  The students can now work to relearn the skills they missed, and then have an opportunity to show mastery by taking the "retake" test.  The students will be responsible for deciding whether or not they wish to complete the Fix It Ticket, and do a retake test.  I will not be telling the students that they have to fix their tests, or that they have to take a retake.  
• Fall Festival is Wednesday, Oct. 31st (see email sent on Sunday regarding the schedule)
• PLEASE practice multiplication facts!  The students need to really know them quickly, and without having to use strategies to solve them.  We will be starting multi-digit multiplication and long division soon, and having those multiplication facts memorized will be a HUGE help!  On Google Classroom (just log in with your child's username and password, then save that to your computer, and you will then have access whenever) I put some multiplication websites and game directions under the "classwork" tab and then under the "Websites" topic.  Thanks for your help with practicing these facts!

• Please remember to check, and initial, your child's planner every night.  Homework and important notes are written in the planner daily.  Thanks for your help with this!
• Please send a snack with your child that is NUT FREE every day, as we do not eat lunch until 12:10.  Thanks!

Important Dates to Remember:

• Oct. 29- Nov. 2 - Leader of the Week = Alex
• Oct. 31 - Fall Festival (includes the Pumpkin Run, Class Parties, and more..)
• Nov. 2 - Mystery Reader
• Nov. 5-9 = Leader of the Week - Jillian
• Nov. 5th - Helping Hands campaign begins
• Nov. 6th - Jingle for Jammies
• Nov. 7th - Happy Birthday Alex and Riza
• Nov. 7th - Early Release & Buddies
• Nov. 9th - Veteran's Day Assembly
• Nov. 9th - Mystery Reader 
• Nov. 12-16 = Leader of the Week - Peyton
• Nov. 16 - Mystery Reader
• Nov. 18th - Happy Birthday Armin
• Nov. 21-23 - Thanksgiving Break
• Nov. 26-30 = Leader of the Week - Riza
• Nov. 27 - Picture Retake Day
• Nov. 28-Dec. 1 - Scholastic Book Fair
• Nov. 30 - Mystery Reader

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:  
We are continuing Unit 2: Personal and Persuasive Essays this week.   We will be working on developing reasons to support the thesis statement we wrote last week, as well as writing lists of ideas to support those reasons.  We will also work on writing mini-stories to support the ideas we came up with.  These mini-stories will help us to elaborate for our essay.   ***I uploaded pictures of the Essay anchor charts for this unit  under the "Writing" topic on our Google Classroom. ***

Reading:  

We will continue our next Reading Unit: Reading Informational Books this week.  We will continue to focus on the different Text Structures in informational texts.  The students will continue to learn what each of the text structures are, the importance of them, and how to identify them in a text.   The students will also spend time this week taking notes using the different text structures.  The text structures are - Description, Sequence, Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution, and Cause and Effect.  We will use lots of different texts as we learn these structures, especially texts on weather.  We will be doing a PBL unit on extreme weather to tie in our reading, writing, and math curriculum, as well as current events.  More info to come on this PBL.   ***I uploaded pictures of the text features anchor chart and the text structures anchor chart to our Google Classroom on the "Reading" topic.*** 

Read Aloud:

I will continue reading the book Out of My Mind to the class.  This is an amazing book about an extraordinary eleven year old girl who is the smartest kid in her school, but no one knows it because she is stuck inside her head.  This book allows for some very heart warming conversations about acceptance and inclusion.  I LOVE this book!  

Math:  

 We will continue working on Ch. 5: Multiply with Two-Digit Numbers.  This week we will spend more time estimating, using the Distributive Property to multiply, multiplying by a two-digit number, and problem solving.  In this chapter, the students will learn the Turtle Head method to help them multiply by two-digit numbers.  I am attaching the link to the video below, and I will also post a link to the video on our Google Classroom under the "Math Study Guides and Anchor Charts" topic.  Our Ch. 5 test will be Wednesday, Nov. 7th.

***Knowing your multiplication facts is extremely important as we move forward in math, so keep practicing those facts! 

Turtle Head Multiplication Method

***In order for students to show mastery with a standard, they will be doing "Check-ins" throughout the year to show that they didn't just memorize the skills for the test, but that they retained the skills, thus showing mastery.  My goal with the check-ins is to make sure that the 4th grade Math Standards are mastered by all students by the end of the year! ***

Spelling:  

We will begin learning the patterns of the words for our next spelling sort in our units.  We will also take our Sight Word test on Friday, Nov. 2nd.  Remember these are the words that do not follow a pattern, and need to be memorized.  Students will need to not only spell the words correctly, but be able to read them in order to "pass" this group of words.

Science:

 We will begin our next Science chapter on Rocks and Minerals.  This is a fun chapter, with lots of labs and exploration.  We will be doing several Mystery Science labs with this chapter as well.

Have a GREAT Week!

Happy Birthday (on Saturday) Noah!!

Unity Day

Unity Day

Unity Day Message: Together against bullying and UNITED for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.

We discussed the following questions as a class:

*What can you do to speak up about bullying?

*How can you reach out to someone who is being bullied?

*What does it look like to be a good friend?

*How can we help the person being the bully?

We listened to Dr. Lake read aloud the book The Juice Box Bully to us.  (The link is below if you want to check it out!)

Dr. Lake's Read Aloud

We then signed the pledge you see behind us in the picture.  We WILL  Speak up, Reach out, and be a friend!

Happy Birthday Rose!!

Leader of the Week - Alen

Weekly Update: Oct. 22-26

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• PLEASE practice multiplication facts!  The students need to really know them quickly, and without having to use strategies to solve them.  We will be starting multi-digit multiplication and long division soon, and having those multiplication facts memorized will be a HUGE help!  On Google Classroom (just log in with your child's username and password, then save that to your computer, and you will then have access whenever) I put some multiplication websites and game directions under the "classwork" tab and then under the "Websites" topic.  Thanks for your help with practicing these facts!

• Please remember to check, and initial, your child's planner every night.  Homework and important notes are written in the planner daily.  Thanks for your help with this!
• Please send a snack with your child that is NUT FREE every day, as we do not eat lunch until 12:10.  Thanks!

Important Dates to Remember:

• Oct. 22 - Rose's Birthday
• Oct. 22-26 - Leader of the Week = Alen
• Oct. 26 - No School 
• Oct. 27 - Noah's Birthday
• Oct. 29- Nov. 2 - Leader of the Week = Alex
• Oct. 31 - Fall Festival (includes the Pumpkin Run, Class Parties, and more..)

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:  
We are continuing Unit 2: Personal and Persuasive Essays this week.  We will continue collecting ideas as essayists, using elaboration prompts to grow ideas, and  choosing a seed idea for our essay - a topic that you want to explore or to argue for,  We will be turning this seed idea into a thesis statement.  ***I uploaded pictures of the Essay anchor charts for this unit  under the "Writing" topic on our Google Classroom. ***

Reading:  

We will continue our next Reading Unit: Reading Informational Books this week.  We will continue to focus on the different Text Structures in informational texts.  The students will continue to learn what each of the text structures are, the importance of them, and how to identify them in a text.   The text structures are - Description, Sequence, Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution, and Cause and Effect.  We will use lots of different texts as we learn these structures, especially texts on weather.  We will be doing a PBL unit on extreme weather to tie in our reading, writing, and math curriculum, as well as current events.  More info to come on this PBL.   ***I uploaded pictures of the text features anchor chart and the text structures anchor chart to our Google Classroom on the "Reading" topic.*** 

Read Aloud:

We are finishing Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn today.  We can't wait to hear how this book ends!  It has been very suspenseful and exciting.  I will begin the book Out of My Mind tomorrow.  This is an amazing book about an extraordinary eleven year old girl who is the smartest kid in her school, but no one knows it because she is stuck inside her head.  This book allows for some very heart warming conversations about acceptance and inclusion.  I LOVE this book!

Math:  
We are continuing to work through Ch. 4: Multiply with One Digit Numbers.  This week we will multiply by zeros, review, and then take our CH. 4 test on Wednesday.  We will begin Ch. 5: Multiply with Tow-Digit Numbers.  Our first lesson will be multiplying by tens.  Knowing your multiplication facts is extremely important as we move forward in math, so keep practicing those facts! 

Spelling:  

We will begin learning the patterns of the words for our next spelling sort in our units.  We will also take our Sight Word test over the group 2 words on Thursday, Oct. 25.  Remember these are the words that do not follow a pattern, and need to be memorized.  Students will need to not only spell the words correctly, but be able to read them in order to "pass" this group of words.

Science:

 We will continue to work on our first Science unit: Energy Conversions this week.  In the third chapter of this unit the students will investigate the question "Where does the electrical energy for the devices in Ergstown come from?"  The students will explore and investigate energy sources, converting energy from sources, designing a wind turbine, using what they learned to redesign a wind turbine, and creating arguments about converters.  

Red Ribbon Week Information:

Have a great week!

Leader of the Week - Caroline

Weekly Update: Oct. 15-19

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• We have library on Monday, so please remember to bring your books to return or renew.
• Friday, Oct. 19, is the end of the first quarter.  It is also a half day of school.
• PLEASE practice multiplication facts!  The students need to really know them quickly, and without having to use strategies to solve them.  We will be starting multi-digit multiplication and long division soon, and having those multiplication facts memorized will be a HUGE help!  On Google Classroom (just log in with your child's username and password, then save that to your computer, and you will then have access whenever) I put some multiplication websites and game directions under the "classwork" tab and then under the "Websites" topic.  Thanks for your help with practicing these facts!

• Please remember to check, and initial, your child's planner every night.  Homework and important notes are written in the planner daily.  Thanks for your help with this!
• Please send a snack with your child that is NUT FREE every day, as we do not eat lunch until 12:10.  Thanks!

Important Dates to Remember:

• Oct. 15-19 - Leader of the Week = Caroline
• Oct. 19 - End of First Quarter
• Oct. 19 - Half Day of School (Dismissal is 11:40), Buddies, and Ability Awareness activity.
• Oct. 19 - I will be taking a personal day to go out of town for my daughter's soccer tournament.  
• Oct. 22 - Rose's Birthday
• Oct. 22-26 - Leader of the Week = Alen
• Oct. 26 - No School 
• Oct. 27 - Noah's Birthday
• Oct. 29- Nov. 2 - Leader of the Week = Alex
• Oct. 31 - Fall Festival (includes the Pumpkin Run, Class Parties, and more..)

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:  
We will begin Unit 2: Personal and Persuasive Essays this week.  In this unit, the students will learn that writer's use an essay frame to help structure their writing  The students will learn how to write a thesis statement with three reasons.  Each reason will have three examples to support the thesis statement.  (I will post a picture this week of the anchor chart that shows the essay structure to Google Classroom.)  We will also explore several strategies for growing insightful ideas including important people, places, and objects as inspiration.  

Reading:  

We will continue our next Reading Unit: Reading Informational Books this week.  We reviewed text features last week, and will be finishing up our "Text Features About Me" project.  This week we will begin our focus on the different Text Structures in informational texts.  The students will learn what each of the text structures are, the importance of them, and how to identify them in a text.   The text structures are - Description, Sequence, Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution, and Cause and Effect.  We will use lots of different texts as we learn these structures, especially texts on weather.  We will be doing a PBL unit on extreme weather to tie in our reading, writing, and math curriculum, as well as current events.  More info to come on this PBL.  

Read Aloud:

We are still finishing Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn.  We are loving this book!  We are identifying some clues the author leaves for us as we read, and some are even making predictions about the "mystery" in the book.  They never want me to stop reading when it is time!  We can't wait to finish this book and solve the "mystery" of the unknown character that we now know is "Theresa."  Hopefully we can finish this week.

Math:  
We are continuing to work through Ch. 4: Multiply with One Digit Numbers.  This week the students will learn the Distributive Property, more multiplication with regrouping, and how to multiply by a multi-digit number without regrouping.  We will also spend some time on problem solving.  Our test is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 24th.  The study guide is on our Google Classroom.  

Spelling:  
I sent an email home on Friday, Oct. 12, regarding the changes to our spelling for the year.  I also attached a list of 4th grade Sight Words that the students need to memorize if they do not already know them.  A sight word test will given every Friday over a group of words.  The first test will be this Thursday (since Friday is a half day) over the words in group 1.  The words will be on Spelling City by tonight.  Look for "4th Grade Sight Words - Group 1" if you would like your child to practice these words using different activities or games.  Each group will be on Spelling City.  

This week we are going to practice some new spelling routines and activities with a list of Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives.  There will NOT be a test over these words.  Next week, I will send home the next sort for your child.  Again, these words are not to be memorized.  You can practice different sorting activities at home in order to learn the patterns of the words.  Our focus is learning the patterns, not memorizing.  Tests will be at the end of each unit, and groups will test on different days.  I will make sure you are aware of your child's test date as soon as they are given the last sort of the unit.  Again, all of this information and more was given in the letter I sent home Friday.  

Science:

 We will continue to work on our first Science unit: Energy Conversions this week.  In the second chapter of this unit we will investigate why devices in Ergstown output, or fail to output, energy.  We will explore energy converters, energy past and present, energy in the system, and design arguments about devices.  This is a quick chapter, with lots of hands-on exploration.  Ask your kiddos about the systems they explored and learned about last week.  I think they enjoyed being given the parts to a system, and they had to figure out how to make the system function - no directions or modeling.  It was fun to sit back and watch their thinking.  We had GREAT discussions afterwards.  

Red Ribbon Week Information:

Have a great week!

Diversity Book of the Month

“Each Kindness” is our book of the month.  In this book a new girl at school is left out and treated badly.  After the teacher’s lesson on kindness, one of the girls who was being mean realized it.  However, it was too late! 😢 Ask your kiddo what they learned about kindness and what was so sad about the ending.

#concordcares

#lindberghlearns

Mystery Writing Celebration

What a treat!  We celebrated our writing by watching a mystery, “Zootopia!”  We discussed all the mystery elements in the movie after we watched it.  I think the kiddos enjoyed their surprise!

Mystery Reader - Jack’s Mom

Jack’s mom shared the book “Randy Riley’s Really Big Hit” with the class today!  A perfect book since Jack LOVES baseball! ❤️⚾️ We enjoyed the fun story and fabulous pictures!  Thanks for visiting us today!

Happy Birthday Michael!!

Leader of the Week - Rose

New Logic Puzzle Fun

We spent time playing with each of the new logic puzzles/games today.  (One is still being shipped though) The kiddos had a lot of fun exploring and playing! Thanks PTG!!!

Weekly Update: Oct. 8-12

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• PLEASE practice multiplication facts!  The students need to really know them quickly, and without having to use strategies to solve them.  We will be starting multi-digit multiplication and long division soon, and having those multiplication facts memorized will be a HUGE help!  On Google Classroom (just log in with your child's username and password, then save that to your computer, and you will then have access whenever) I put some multiplication websites and game directions under the "classwork" tab and then under the "Websites" topic.  Thanks for your help with practicing these facts!

• Please remember to check, and initial, your child's planner every night.  Homework and important notes are written in the planner daily.  Thanks for your help with this!
• Please send a snack with your child that is NUT FREE every day, as we do not eat lunch until 12:10.  Thanks!

Important Dates to Remember:

• Oct. 8-12 - Leader of the Week = Rose
• Oct. 8 - I am out in the afternoon for a Words Their Way (spelling) training.
• Oct. 11 - Michael's Birthday
• Oct. 15-19 - Leader of the Week = Caroline
• Oct. 19 - End of First Quarter
• Oct. 19 - Half Day of School (Dismissal is 11:40), Buddies, and Ability Awareness activity.
• Oct. 19 - I will be taking a personal day to go out of town for my daughter's soccer tournament.  
• Oct. 22 - Rose's Birthday
• Oct. 22-26 - Leader of the Week = Alen
• Oct. 26 - No School 
• Oct. 27 - Noah's Birthday
• Oct. 29- Nov. 2 - Leader of the Week = Alex
• Oct. 31 - Fall Festival (includes the Pumpkin Run, Class Parties, and more..)

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:  
We will finish drafting our Mystery Pieces by Tuesday.  We are using our Super Sleuth Editing pages we completed with our partners last week to put the finishing touches on our pieces.  We will celebrate on Wednesday.  

Our next Writing Unit is Personal and Persuasive Essays.  The students will write their On Demand on Thursday (it's like a "pretest" for writing), and I will introduce the unit on Friday with an Essay Boot Camp.  
Reading:  
 We will continue to focus on Theme until Wednesday this week.  The students will be able to identify the theme of a text, as well as use evidence from the text to support the theme they chose.  The students will also be able to explain the difference between Theme and Main Idea.  I added the anchor charts for all of Reading Unit 1 (characters and theme) to the Google Classroom.  You will find them under the "Classwork" tab, and then under the "Reading" topic. 

On Thursday, we will begin our next Reading Unit: Reading Informational Books.  We will start with reviewing what text features are, and how they are important to readers of information. 

Read Aloud:

We are still finishing Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn.  We are loving this book!  We are identifying some clues the author leaves for us as we read, and some are even making predictions about the "mystery" in the book.  They never want me to stop reading when it is time!  We can't wait to finish this book and solve the "mystery" of the unknown character that we now know is "Theresa."

Math:  
We are continuing to work through Ch. 4: Multiply with One Digit Numbers.  I sent home the vocabulary cards for this chapter on Friday.  Use them at home as needed.  I will update the Classroom with the study guide as soon as the 4th grade teachers review it for any corrections or changes needed.  I will email to let you know when it is there.  

This week the students will be exploring multiplying a 2 digit number by a 1 digit number.  We will have some hands-on lessons for this skill as well.  Place value and rounding will be skills that will be used during this chapter too.  
Spelling:  
Our second spelling test will be on Tuesday, Oct. 9.  New words will be coming home on Wednesday.  The 3rd test will be Thursday, Oct. 25.

Science:

 We began our first Science unit: Energy Conversions this week.  In the first chapter we will be answering the question How does the electrical system work?  We will be learning about the electrical system while trying to solve a real world problem (in a fictitious town) of what happened to the electrical system the night of the blackout? The students will be able to explain what a system is, what can electrical energy in a system be used for, and what the different forms of energy (light, motion, sound, and thermal) are.  We will finish the chapter on Tuesday, but will continue to explore this topic with a Mystery Science lesson and investigation for the remainder of the week.  Our problem is still not solved for Ergstown.  We have only just begun exploring energy, as we have 3 more chapters until the Unit: Energy Conversions is complete. 

Have a great week!

Exploring a System in Science

I gave the students a solar panel, 2 wires with clips, a metal conductor, and a fan.  I told them to use the parts to complete the system, and make the fan spin.  It was so fun to sit back and watch these Scientific Engineers work.  After each group made their fan spin, we discussed why it worked and how we can apply what we learned to help us find a solution to the blackouts in Ergstown (our fictional town with a problem we are investigating and trying to solve).

Mystery Reader

Thanks to Hannah’s Grandpa Barry for coming and reading to us today!  He chose a biography titled “Queen of the Diamond” to share with us.  It was a great book, with lots of lessons!  Since we are learning about Theme, the students discussed the different themes from this book.  There were several, but never give up on your dreams, and be true yourself were my favorite!  Thanks for reading to us today!  

Cahokia Mounds

And we are off...

Pics below are from the museum.

Waiting for the bus drivers! 

Top of the mound!  The Arch was in the background, but not showing up in our pic. 😢

Below are our parent volunteers!  Thanks so much for your help and patience today! (Christina - sorry you left before I got a pic of you and Kaybree.😬 If you took one, please email at to me.

















Only half of the steps up to the top! 😳 Some kids say it was 150 steps, some say 157, some say 148 - I say it felt like a thousand! 🤣