Weekly Update: Jan. 21-25

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:

• Jan. 21 - No School
• Jan. 25 - Mystery Reader
• Jan. 25 - Family Bingo Night
• Jan. 29 - Hunter's 1/2 Birthday
• Jan. 29 & 31 - Parent Teacher Conferences 
• Feb. 1 - No School K-5 ONLY

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:  

We will continue with Unit 3:Bringing History to Life.  Students will use the essay format they learned from Unit 2, as well as the narrative format they learned from Unit 1, to complete their information pieces about history.  Our writing will connect with our Reading and our Social Studies for this unit.  We will be writing about the Causes of the American Revolution, important people during that time period, the actual American Revolution, as well as arguing for and against the Patriots and the Loyalists.  

Reading:  

We will continue with Unit 3: Reading History: The American Revolution.  We will spend time reading articles about the American Revolution.  We will read about the Causes of the American Revolution, the important people during that time, as well as the two sides -the Loyalists and the Patriots.  We will be researching for our writing pieces, and taking notes about what we learned from our reading.  We will be learning the difference between Primary Sources and Secondary Sources, as well as synthesizing texts during our research.  

Read Aloud:

We will continue reading another one of my favorites, Walk Two Moons, this week.   Walk Two Moons is a young adult novel by Sharon Creech, narrated in first person through Salamanca Tree Hiddle, better known as Sal. While traveling across the country to Idaho with her grandparents, she tells of her new best friend, Phoebe Winterbottom. Her own story unfolds at the same time.  In this book, the message "Don't judge a person until you have walked two moons in his moccasins" appears over and over.  We will discuss what this means in reference to each character, as well as to ourselves.  

Math:  

We will begin Ch. 9: Operations with Fractions.  We will learn how to add and subtract fractions with like denominators, add and subtract mixed numbers, how to solve word problems with fractions, and how to multiply fractions by whole numbers.  We will also continue to practice Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple.  Our Ch. 9 test is currently scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 31. 

***Knowing your multiplication facts is extremely important as we move forward in math, so keep practicing those facts!  We will continue to practice multi-digit multiplication and long division.

***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:  

All students will be given their new sorts on Tuesday.  ALL students will be testing over these new sorts on Thursday, Jan. 31st.  This gives the students two weeks to work with these words.

We will continue to have sight word tests, however they will be every other week so that the students are only taking one "spelling" test a week.  Our next sight word test will be on Friday, January 25th.   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 continue with the American Revolution again this week with Ch. 11:  To Declare Independence or Not.  We will focus on learning who the Loyalists and Patriots were, as well as learning about some of the important people during this time and whether they were a Loyalist or a Patriot.  The students will be divided into groups, and each group will be given an important figure to focus their learning on.  They will create a slide for their person, and will share what they learned with the class on Wednesday when the slide show is presented.   The groups are also taking on the role of either a Loyalist or a Patriot.  They will gather notes to support either why they want to stay loyal to Great Britain (the Loyalists), or why they want their independence for Great Britain (the Patriots).  All the Loyalist groups will gather together, and all of the Patriot groups will gather together, and they will prepare for their debate.  On Friday, the Loyalists and Patriots will have a debate over the current issues in the 13 colonies during this time.  

We will also continue watching some Liberty Kids videos as we follow along the timeline of this time period.  As I said in a prior email, the Liberty Kids videos are a fun way for the kids to watch and learn about these important historical events.  There are 4 fictional characters that are in the videos, taking place in all of these events, in order to tell the story.  The rest of the characters, and all of the information, is true.  They are VERY educational!

Have a GREAT Week!