January Update

Hi Fabulous Fourth Grade Parents!

I want to thank you all for your support in all the crazy projects we have been doing.  Without your help, we would not be able to do these memorable activities.  Half-Way Day was very successful!  If the level of exhaustion from the 3rd and 4th grade teachers is a measure of success, I think the kids had a great time and learned a lot about fractions.  :)   It was a very fun day for all of us!

Poetry Outloud Junior is coming up the end of January.  Your child has selected a poem from one that we have learned this year  They need to have that memorized by the end of this week.  We will be having classroom recitations and then we will have large competition toward the end of the month.  I will get back to you with the date.

The end of the semester is this week and your children's PowerSchool is up to date as of today.  I want to remind you of our late work policy:  assignments will be accepted for 80% 1 day beyond the due date, 70% 2 days beyond and 60% 3 days beyond.  No late work is accepted beyond 3 days late.  This is a school wide policy and not just my policy.  I am very proud of your students!  In my 5 years of teaching, this is the year with the fewest missing assignments.  That shows me that these kids take responsibility for their education and I am sure they are going to be very successful!

Have a great week!  Remember early release on Thursday and no school on Friday!

Welcome Back!

I am excited to get back into the routine of the classroom!  We had a lot of fun with the Middle Ages and the students were very excited for the tournament.  Now that the excitement of the tournament and Christmas holidays have passed we will be on hyper drive!  We have so much to on our agenda in the next few weeks.  Following is what you can expect:

• Math:  FRACTIONS! - They are finally here and are my favorite math concept to teach!  As a student I never understood fractions and I refuse for that to happen to my students.  We have a lot of fun with fractions and the students typically do very well.  We will be finding equivalent factions, adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators and finding fractions of a set.
• Half-Way Day! - This will be coming up mid-January and I will send more information home soon!
• Literature - We continue Robin Hood and will finish by the end of January
• Excellence in Writing - Our first narrative summary will begin this week.  Students will re-write the "Ant and the Grasshopper".  They will use the story sequence and create their own characters based on this story.   This story line is what A Bug's Life was based upon.
• Grammar - this week we will be working on subject/verb agreement
• Science - Meteorology - study of weather, clouds, air pressure, storms and the layers of the atmosphere.
• WEATHER JOURNAL AT HOME!  - Students will be logging the weather at home in a journal as we learn about meteorology.  Please expect this to come home on Monday.  It will be due at the completion of the unit.
• Greek and Latin - we are on our third set of words
• Cursive - we will writing in cursive from this point forward  The only exception will be for notes, as the students need to write more quickly during note taking.  

I hope you all had a fabulous break and are ready for more 4th Grade!