Weekly Update: April 8-12

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• PJ's, Stuffed Animal, and Movie Day IS today!
• 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:

• April 8-12 - Leader of the Week = Nate
• April 16 - Cadence's Birthday
• April 19 - NO School
• April 22 - We DO have school - snow day makeup day
• April 29 - May 3 - Leader of the Week = Serah

MAP Testing Dates:

• MAP ELA  - April 29, May 1, and May 2.  We will test first thing in the morning (9:00) until 11:00/11:30, depending on the test.  
• MAP Math - May 6 and May 8.  We will test during the same time frame as the ELA tests.  

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:

We are continuing with our Poetry Unit this week, as well as writing an opinion piece to a given prompt for MAP testing practice.  This week in poetry we are  focusing on figurative language, primarily Similes, Metaphors, Hyperbole, and Idioms.  We will also learn to write Haikus and action poems.  These kiddos are writing some great poems!  Just like last week, while students are independently working on their poetry, I will pull groups based on the opinion piece they write today.

Grammar:

This week we will continue to focus on commas, and how to use them to make our writing more clear.  We will also focus on using commas to format dates, locations, professional titles, and lists of items  .After the minilessons on these topics, the students will be using noredink.com for more practice and an assessment.  

Reading:  

We will continue to work on test prep - reading between the lines to infer about a character, the character's point of view and perspective, the character's achievements and motivation, and we will also review main idea and details using boxes and bullets.  This is not only good practice for a test, but also as a great reminder for our every day reading.  

Read Aloud:

This week we will continue reading another of my favorite read alouds, Among the Hidden.   This is the first book out of seven in the Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson.  This is a book about a fictional future in which drastic measures have been taken to stop overpopulation.  My students loved this book last year, and could not wait to read the rest of the series on their own.  I do have the entire series for our classroom library that I will get out for them once I finish the first book.  

Math:  

We will continue with Ch. 14: Geometry.  In this chapter we will learn how to draw points, lines, and rays, drawing perpendicular and parallel lines, modeling angles, classifying angles, drawing angles, measuring angles, solving problems with angles, triangles, quadrilaterals, and drawing lines of symmetry.  This chapter has A LOT of vocabulary.  I sent home the vocab cards on 4/1/19 for this chapter.  Please make sure you keep them some place safe so that you can study them throughout the chapter, and before the test.  Our test will be Thursday, April 18.  The study guide is on our Google Classroom.  

***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 Monday, April 8.  We will test over these sorts on Thursday, April 18

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, April 12th.   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 are continuing with our Mystery Science Unit: Energizing Everything.  In this unit we will learn about energy, motion, and electricity.   This unit will encourage students to think about the energy that things need to move.  Students will explore how energy makes things go, from powering vehicles to moving one's body.  Students will experiment with rubber band racers to discover the relationship between how much energy is stored in a material and how much is released.  They will investigate the role that hills play in making roller coasters move and the energy transfer that happens when two objects collide.  Students will realize that thinking about the world in terms of energy helps them make sense of how and why things speed up and slow down.  Hands-on activities focus on engineering, testing hypotheses, and using results to develop their ideas.

 Have a GREAT Week!