A note from me; followed by this week's planner (Sept. 27- Oct. 1) We are close to completing the first nine-weeks of school. Grades will be cut off Oct. 8, and report cards will go home soon after fall break. I'm carefully watching the progression of my students. The majority of the class are steadily progressing, but there are few that have not made significant improvement. I will be calling for conferences for those students and parents to come in to see me, and let's try some different strategies; maybe for studying/target those areas of weakness that need more attention. Everyone learns at different rates, but we all need to make improvement. If I ever see a student stall out or seem to flat-line, (where they are not making any improvement or are regressing), look for me to call you and set up a meeting. We need to stay current on your child's progress.
Talk with your children, and ask them if they are getting additional help from other teachers at school. Some children are getting pulled out by our reading and math Title teachers, for V-Math, gifted/other specific needs. We have in place a Problem-Solving Team that focuses on students that are not making the progress that they should be. This team works with teachers giving them suggestions and different strategies to help struggling students.
This week's plans-
Math
Mon.- Continue probability and graphing ordered pairs
Tues.- Review for test of Wednesday (ordered pairs/probability)
Wed.- (Test)They will have to label-x/y axis, quadrants, and plot points
Thurs.-Rounding pp. 20-21
Fri.- Fact Fluency Test on (Multiples of 3) Review Thursday's lesson.
Reading
Unit 2/Week 2: Coyote School News
Day 1-* (RP)-Reading Practice Book pages (63-64) & Lang. Worksheet on Regular and Plural Nouns, (SPB)Spelling Practice Book p.25
Day 2-(RSP) pp. 65-66, SP-p.26
Day 3-(RSP) pp. 67, SP-p. 27-28
Day 4-Spelling and Language Test on Regular/Plural Nouns & (RPB) pp.68-70
Day 5-Reading Test (Turn in station work-10% of Reading grade- This is done in class).
**Daily-study spelling words, vocabulary words from story, read 15 minutes each night, record reading in Reading Logs-(10% of Reading grade)
Unit 2/Week 2 Spelling words: videos, teeth, potatoes, themselves, lives, leaves, cliffs, roofs, halves, moose, radios, sheep, cuffs, beliefs, patios, banjos, tornadoes, tomatoes, hoofs, loaves, portfolios, embargoes, handkerchiefs, calves, lassoes
Voc. Words to Know:dudes, roundup spurs, bawling, coyote
AL History- Finishing up our study on the 5 Regions of AL and the Early Indian inhabitants of AL starting with the Paleo Indians believed to have come across from Asia to North America by way of an ice bridge that stretched across the Bering Straits. Next came the Archaic, the Woodland, and last, the Mississippian. Students should be able to tell about each region and group of Indians for the test; natural resources that each had or used. The regions are found on page 5 in Chapter One.
Also, students should be able to tell about the different groups of Indian's shelter, food, tools, if they were hunters, gatherers, or farmers, anything that they've learned about in regards to how they buried their dead, any religious beliefs, or governing practices like, did they have an equal society, leaders in the community, etc... I think we should be ready for a test by Wednesday. Make sure to study the vocabulary words from Chapter One, study guide and foldable that your child has completed. If you do study with them, and sign their study guides, your child will get an additional 5 points toward their test score.
Science-We are finishing up on our Sound Unit in AMSTI.
*All sound projects are due on Sept. 30. We will be presenting them on that day.
Music- Students have homework from Mrs. Sisco (practicing their recorders; using their music books).
I hope this helps you at home, if your student has not been faithful to record their homework in their planners. I have a planner on my whiteboard where I list class work assignments. I also remind students at the end of the day what to take home. Maybe you can start some type of reward system at home to help your child become more responsible for filling out their planners each week. I post my weekly plans up on my board every Monday. We might add to or make changes if need be throughout the week, if for instance, we had an assembly or fire drill, and we need to postpone til the next day. Otherwise, this is my plans for the week.
Good day,
Theresa Wade
Knowledge is Food for the Brain: Take a Bite
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Week of September 20th-24th
Good evening,
We had a mar-vel-ous Monday! Tomorrow is picture day. Students come with your best smile for the yearbook. Parents please make sure to sign the blue sheet that came home today about our school being a title school where every student has an equal opportunity to get help from our title reading and math teachers if they need it.
We just started the first story in Unit 2 of Reading Street, What Jo Did. Remember parents, we will always spend five days on each reading selection. Your child should be bringing home one page each from their Reading Practice and Spelling Practice workbooks which covers our new spelling words for this story, vocabulary words, and the skill that we are covering this week, cause and effect. I introduced common and proper nouns today. They had a worksheet with common and proper nouns to get started on tonight. I will go over it more thoroughly tomorrow. Today was day one of the story. Every day four, I will give the spelling and language test. Day five will always be our reading test. Students should be studying their math facts and spelling words each night, along with keeping a reading log of 15 minutes each night. The reading log will count as 10% of their reading grade, as well as, completed station work of 10%, which leaves 80% for the weekly selection tests.
I will give a multiplication test on Friday just on multiples of three.
Science sound projects will be due September 30. Please don't send them in earlier. I want to keep the element of surprise. This project is worth 100 points. If your child turns in their project late, I will take off 10 points for each additional day the project is late. Your child received a study guide for AL History chapter one today. It's imperative that they learn how to study their study guides and vocabulary definitions! The tests come from their study guides. If you help your child study their study guide and sign it, your child gets 5 additional bonus points added to their test grade. That goes for both science and social studies.
We started working with probability today. Tomorrow we will be working with M&Ms. Math is fun!
Mrs. Nelson is organizing a parent's night, "A Day in the Life of a Fourth Grader". We found that showing parents a typical day of a fourth grader has really proved beneficial to our parents; seeing is believing. Look for this to happen in October. You'll actually walk in the shoes of your children.
We had a mar-vel-ous Monday! Tomorrow is picture day. Students come with your best smile for the yearbook. Parents please make sure to sign the blue sheet that came home today about our school being a title school where every student has an equal opportunity to get help from our title reading and math teachers if they need it.
We just started the first story in Unit 2 of Reading Street, What Jo Did. Remember parents, we will always spend five days on each reading selection. Your child should be bringing home one page each from their Reading Practice and Spelling Practice workbooks which covers our new spelling words for this story, vocabulary words, and the skill that we are covering this week, cause and effect. I introduced common and proper nouns today. They had a worksheet with common and proper nouns to get started on tonight. I will go over it more thoroughly tomorrow. Today was day one of the story. Every day four, I will give the spelling and language test. Day five will always be our reading test. Students should be studying their math facts and spelling words each night, along with keeping a reading log of 15 minutes each night. The reading log will count as 10% of their reading grade, as well as, completed station work of 10%, which leaves 80% for the weekly selection tests.
I will give a multiplication test on Friday just on multiples of three.
Science sound projects will be due September 30. Please don't send them in earlier. I want to keep the element of surprise. This project is worth 100 points. If your child turns in their project late, I will take off 10 points for each additional day the project is late. Your child received a study guide for AL History chapter one today. It's imperative that they learn how to study their study guides and vocabulary definitions! The tests come from their study guides. If you help your child study their study guide and sign it, your child gets 5 additional bonus points added to their test grade. That goes for both science and social studies.
We started working with probability today. Tomorrow we will be working with M&Ms. Math is fun!
Mrs. Nelson is organizing a parent's night, "A Day in the Life of a Fourth Grader". We found that showing parents a typical day of a fourth grader has really proved beneficial to our parents; seeing is believing. Look for this to happen in October. You'll actually walk in the shoes of your children.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Reteach Week- Sept 13th-17th
It's hard to believe we've completed the first unit, (five selections) from our Reading Street series. Times quickly getting away from us. Just to make you aware in the future, after we complete each unit, we'll have one week to reteach skills that students did not grasp, and do mini-writing workshops with our students. This week we are concentrating on personal narrative writing. You child is working on a writing prompt about the first time they were a newcomer somewhere and how they coped in a difficult situation. We've also started what is called our CSI time each day where a designated time will be allotted to continue working with those children that need additional help with a skill or to help advance those students that need more challenging content. Things are going well. Students are getting excited about building their musical instruments. They've already started researching their instrument of choice. The due date will be September 30. A penalty of 10 points will be deducted per day for late projects. Students will also be given a science notebook grade for their work and reflections in relation to our Sound Unit in AMSTI. So far we've built background knowledge, studied chapter 14 in our textbook and tested on it. Students have assembled a dropping chamber in class; which is an activity dealing with the differentiation of sound and a telephone with cups, cord, and paperclips. We made a four way conference call today. Tomorrow we will be making an instrument called the string-bean. AMSTI is a fun educational way to learn concepts. It'a all hands-on, mind-on learning.
Don't forget about Grandparent's Day this Friday at 12:15 p.m. for those of you who did R.S.V.P. There has been a big turn out so far. I'd like to get pictures of students with their grandparents. If a grandparent intends to check out their grandchild, they must be on the list of people that are allowed to sign them out. Otherwise, students may not be checked out.
THIS WEEK'S PLANS
*FOURTH GRADE WILL NOT BE GIVING ANY READING, SPELLING, OR LANGUAGE TESTS THIS WEEK.
*Wed., Sept. 15- AL HISTORY VOCABULARY TEST (TAKEN FROM THE VOCABULARY WORDS FROM THEIR MAP SKILLS UNIT PACKET IN THEIR BINDERS)words like: geography, map key, cardinal directions, compass rose, etc...
*THURS., Sept. 16- **If math tests have been run off, we will be taking a data/graphing test that covers all of Chapter 4 in the math textbook: pictographs, bar graphs, line graphs, line plots, tally charts, data files, surveys, etc. . .
Your child should have approximately 30 minutes of homework daily. At least 15 minutes reading and documenting minutes read on their reading log sheet. Parents sign once a week. One sheet will last the whole nine weeks. Their reading logs will account for 10% of their reading grade. Also, you should be seeing a ring of math facts come home each night to work on memorizing their facts. They need to be able to answer a fact in 3 seconds to become automatic. I allow students to bring home any hardback textbook that they need to, if you so desire. The only one that is not hardback is the grammar book. I am thinking about scanning a page or two each week for additional practice and posting it to this blog if I'm allowed by copy-write laws. I'll check with Mrs. Nelson first.
Parents bare with the transition this first nine-weeks. Fourth grade is a big change from third just like fourth is from fifth. Like I've told most of my parents, from K-3rd the emphasis is teaching students to read. From fourth on, students are reading to learn and learning how to take notes on graphic organizers to help them study and organize their thoughts. It's an adjustment period. You might see a dip before they begin to soar, but I guarantee you'll see progress, and your child will be well equipped for fifth grade. Please excuse any type-os. It's late. I couldn't access this blog from school. There was a block. Hope this helps enlighten you to what's going on in our classroom.
Sincerely,
Theresa Wade
Don't forget about Grandparent's Day this Friday at 12:15 p.m. for those of you who did R.S.V.P. There has been a big turn out so far. I'd like to get pictures of students with their grandparents. If a grandparent intends to check out their grandchild, they must be on the list of people that are allowed to sign them out. Otherwise, students may not be checked out.
THIS WEEK'S PLANS
*FOURTH GRADE WILL NOT BE GIVING ANY READING, SPELLING, OR LANGUAGE TESTS THIS WEEK.
*Wed., Sept. 15- AL HISTORY VOCABULARY TEST (TAKEN FROM THE VOCABULARY WORDS FROM THEIR MAP SKILLS UNIT PACKET IN THEIR BINDERS)words like: geography, map key, cardinal directions, compass rose, etc...
*THURS., Sept. 16- **If math tests have been run off, we will be taking a data/graphing test that covers all of Chapter 4 in the math textbook: pictographs, bar graphs, line graphs, line plots, tally charts, data files, surveys, etc. . .
Your child should have approximately 30 minutes of homework daily. At least 15 minutes reading and documenting minutes read on their reading log sheet. Parents sign once a week. One sheet will last the whole nine weeks. Their reading logs will account for 10% of their reading grade. Also, you should be seeing a ring of math facts come home each night to work on memorizing their facts. They need to be able to answer a fact in 3 seconds to become automatic. I allow students to bring home any hardback textbook that they need to, if you so desire. The only one that is not hardback is the grammar book. I am thinking about scanning a page or two each week for additional practice and posting it to this blog if I'm allowed by copy-write laws. I'll check with Mrs. Nelson first.
Parents bare with the transition this first nine-weeks. Fourth grade is a big change from third just like fourth is from fifth. Like I've told most of my parents, from K-3rd the emphasis is teaching students to read. From fourth on, students are reading to learn and learning how to take notes on graphic organizers to help them study and organize their thoughts. It's an adjustment period. You might see a dip before they begin to soar, but I guarantee you'll see progress, and your child will be well equipped for fifth grade. Please excuse any type-os. It's late. I couldn't access this blog from school. There was a block. Hope this helps enlighten you to what's going on in our classroom.
Sincerely,
Theresa Wade
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Already September
Things are popping in the classroom, literally speaking. We are finishing up with the textbook content on Sound and Light with chapter 14. Now comes all the fun hands-on activities with our Sound Unit from AMSTI, (Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Institute). Our chapter 14 test in science will be this Thursday,
Sept. 9th. Students reread chapter 14, study your study guides, and be able to match vocabulary words with their definition. Parents if you help your child study their study guides and sign it, you're child will receive an extra 5 points added to their test score. This also applies to AL History study guides.
Math is all about graphing: bar graphs (vertical & horizontal), line graphs, and line plots. A test on data/graphs will probably be around Wednesday, Sept. 15th next week if everyone seems ready.
We've been working hard with multiplication facts in the classroom. Your child should now know 1's, 2's, 5's, 10's. We started with doubles today. Every Friday I will be giving a math facts test that will average into 10% of their math grade. Please make it a routine to practice their math facts along with their spelling words. They have fact cards on metal rings to take home and practice.
Reading Street- You should be seeing Reading Practice worksheet pages, spelling, and language pages coming home as homework. They'll have at least a page a night to do. Spelling and grammar tests will also be given every Day 4 of the story. Day 5 will be their reading selection test. Since we had a holiday, the days will not line up with regular school days with Fridays always being test day. It goes according to how many days that where working on a certain selection. Today is Sept. 7-Day 1 of Letters Home From Yosemite, so Day 4 will fall on Friday, and Day 5 on Monday. We spend 5 days on each selection. After 5 stories, students will have to take a benchmark test on the computers to see how well they are comprehending the various skills taught. We've worked with sequencing, author's purpose, now main idea and supporting details. They're also tested on grammar and vocabulary strategies that we worked with.
AL History- Students have been working on map skills, using legends, keys, and cardinal directions. This was tough for a lot of them.
Fourth grade is all about learning how to study. Be patient. Grades might dip at first before they pick up. It's a big adjustment from third grade. From K-3 students are learning to read. From 4th on, they're reading to learn, and learn strategies that will help them take notes and study with, (graphic organizers).
Grammar tends to be the toughest for most, especially subject/predicate. This week I'll touch on dependent and independent clauses, but I will not take a grade on this.
I would like to have conferences with all parents that have students that had low grades on the progress reports that went home today. We need to quickly get these students on the right track. Report card cut off will be before fall break, and that's coming up real quick. We'll only have about 2-3 major tests in all content areas before the cut off.
I had a little trouble with my blog site, but now it's up and working. I hopes this helps with communication.
Sept. 9th. Students reread chapter 14, study your study guides, and be able to match vocabulary words with their definition. Parents if you help your child study their study guides and sign it, you're child will receive an extra 5 points added to their test score. This also applies to AL History study guides.
Math is all about graphing: bar graphs (vertical & horizontal), line graphs, and line plots. A test on data/graphs will probably be around Wednesday, Sept. 15th next week if everyone seems ready.
We've been working hard with multiplication facts in the classroom. Your child should now know 1's, 2's, 5's, 10's. We started with doubles today. Every Friday I will be giving a math facts test that will average into 10% of their math grade. Please make it a routine to practice their math facts along with their spelling words. They have fact cards on metal rings to take home and practice.
Reading Street- You should be seeing Reading Practice worksheet pages, spelling, and language pages coming home as homework. They'll have at least a page a night to do. Spelling and grammar tests will also be given every Day 4 of the story. Day 5 will be their reading selection test. Since we had a holiday, the days will not line up with regular school days with Fridays always being test day. It goes according to how many days that where working on a certain selection. Today is Sept. 7-Day 1 of Letters Home From Yosemite, so Day 4 will fall on Friday, and Day 5 on Monday. We spend 5 days on each selection. After 5 stories, students will have to take a benchmark test on the computers to see how well they are comprehending the various skills taught. We've worked with sequencing, author's purpose, now main idea and supporting details. They're also tested on grammar and vocabulary strategies that we worked with.
AL History- Students have been working on map skills, using legends, keys, and cardinal directions. This was tough for a lot of them.
Fourth grade is all about learning how to study. Be patient. Grades might dip at first before they pick up. It's a big adjustment from third grade. From K-3 students are learning to read. From 4th on, they're reading to learn, and learn strategies that will help them take notes and study with, (graphic organizers).
Grammar tends to be the toughest for most, especially subject/predicate. This week I'll touch on dependent and independent clauses, but I will not take a grade on this.
I would like to have conferences with all parents that have students that had low grades on the progress reports that went home today. We need to quickly get these students on the right track. Report card cut off will be before fall break, and that's coming up real quick. We'll only have about 2-3 major tests in all content areas before the cut off.
I had a little trouble with my blog site, but now it's up and working. I hopes this helps with communication.
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