Weekly Update: Nov. 26-30

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• This week we are collecting personal care items for Helping Hands.  If you are able to send some items in, that would be awesome!
• Picture Retakes are Tuesday, Nov. 27.
• We will be going to the Scholastic Book Fair on Wednesday and Thursday as a class.  If you wish to send money for your child to purchase books from the Book Fair, please make sure to put the money in an envelope with your child's name on it.  Thanks!
• 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 Reember:

• Nov. 26-30 = Leader of the Week - Riza
• Nov. 27 - Picture Retake Day
• Nov. 28-Dec. 1 - Scholastic Book Fair
• Nov. 30 - Mystery Reader
• Dec. 1 - Winter Festival at Concord
• Dec. 3-7 = Leader of the Week - Destiny
• Dec. 4 - Alen's Birthday
• Dec. 5 - Early Release and Buddies
• Dec. 5 - World Holiday Celebration
• Dec. 5 - Garden Glow - Lindbergh Night at the Botanical Gardens
• Dec. 7 - Mystery Reader
• Dec. 10-14 = Leader of the Week - Hunter
• Dec. 20 - Winter Parties
• Dec. 21 - End of the Second Quarter
• Dec. 21 - Half Day of School
• Dec. 22 - Jan. 2 - Winter Break
• Dec. 27 - Concord Family Bowling at 2:00
• Jan. 3 - School resumes

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:  
We are continuing Unit 2: Personal and Persuasive Essays.  We completed our personal opinion essays, and are moving on to writing persuasive essays.  We are going to tie this writing piece to our PBL Question: How can we educate others about the importance of understanding extreme weather.  We will develop our thesis question and reasons together as a class.  We will use the notes we have been taking about hurricanes during our reading time to help support the reasons with evidence.   

Reading:  

We are continuing Unit 2: Reading Informational Books.  We will be learning how to synthesize different texts when taking notes.  We will continue to identify the different text structures and text features.  

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 be finishing up Ch. 6 this week.  We will be dividing larger numbers, numbers with zeros in the quotients, and multi-step division word problems.  We will review on Thursday, and our test will be Friday, Nov. 30th.  

**A picture of the Long Division anchor chart, and the Ch. 6 study guide are on the Google Classroom.**

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

***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 next Sight Word test on Friday, Nov. 30th.  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.

Social Studies:

 We will begin Ch. 4 this week.  We will focus on answering the question "Why do people explore?" We will also be reading and learning about different important explorers.  We begin this chapter with a pretty fun activity, so stay tuned for a post on the Blog with pics.  

Have a GREAT Week!