February 1st--February 5th

Mark your calendar:
2/2 No School—Teacher Institute Day
2/4 District Spelling Bee—Good luck, Amy!
2/9 Failure Notices
2/12 Valentine's Day Party
2/15 No School—President's Day
2/19 Six Flags Reading Club Deadline
2/25 Spring Pictures
2/26 Ozzie's Reading Club Deadline
2/26 Movie Night

Let's look ahead at our week...

Spelling:
Lesson 20: words and endings that begin with consonants. The test will be on Friday.

English:
We will have a pretest on our next unit: Adjectives. Once the pretests are graded, we will begin daily lessons and contract enrichment assignments.

Reading:
We will wrap up our literature book club novels from the “Orphan Train Adventures” series. Our final meeting will be on Thursday, February 4th. All book club sheets will be collected on that day. We will also begin writing “Reader Responses” to different writing passages and continue practicing reading strategies.

Math:
This week will be devoted to problem solving and T-chart responses. We will also move on to selected lessons in Chapter 21. I will combine Chapter 20 & 21 for one test sometime during the week of February 8th. I will list the omitted lessons and exact test date in my next blog on February 5th.
Fourth graders are expected to know their facts so that can apply them easily to new math concepts.
*Important: If your child has a different math teacher, please visit her blog for weekly math updates.

Social Studies:
The Midwest Map quiz will be Thursday, February 4th. The students will need to know the location and spelling of each state. Capitals will be worth a quarter of a bonus point each. We will finish Chapter 8 by the end of the week. The Chapter 8 Social Studies Test is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, February 9th.

Science:
We will continue with our electricity unit throughout the week. There will be an open book graded assessment on lesson one on Wednesday, February 3rd. We will move on to Lesson 2 by the end of the week. It will explore how electricity and magnetism are related.

January 25th-January 29th

Mark your calendar:
1/29 Mr. Lee's Science Magic
1/29 Prairieview Bingo Night

Congratulations!
Amy Wang and Jake Burrows did an excellent job representing our classroom in the Fourth Grade Spelling Bee. Amy Wang was the winner! She will represent fourth grade in the District Spelling Bee on Thursday, February 4th at 1:00.

Let's look ahead at our week...


Spelling:
Lesson 18: words and endings that begin with vowels. The test will be on Friday.


English:
We will continue to work on our Pronoun Unit and Contract Enrichment work. The Pronoun Test will be moved to Thursday, January 28th.


Reading:
We will continue with our literature book club novels from the “Orphan Train Adventures” series. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, January 27th. All book club sheets will be collected on that day and new chapters will be assigned. We will also begin writing “Reader Responses” to different writing passages.


Math:
Our geometry unit continues! Next week we will work on Chapter 20.

Fourth graders are expected to know their facts so that can apply them easily to new math concepts. Due to Mr. Lee's program, math will be from 1:35-2:15 on Wednesday thru Friday.
*Important: If your child has a different math teacher, please visit her blog for weekly math updates.

Social Studies:
Our next destination: The Midwest! The Midwest Map quiz will be Friday, February 5th. The students will need to know the location and spelling of each state. Capitals will be worth a quarter of a bonus point each. We will begin lesson one on Monday.

Science:
This marks the start of our study of physical science. Our first chapter will explore electricity. This week, we will make two different kinds of circuits and learn about conductors and insulators. On Friday, Mr. Lee will come into our classroom to conduct electricity-related experiments for most of the day. Please have your child wash their hair the night before (Thursday) and refrain from using any hair products. One experiment works better with freshly washed hair.

January 18th-January 22nd

Mark your calendar:
1/18 Martin Luther King Day—No School
1/18 District 66 Eat-Out—Home Run Inn
1/29 Prairieview Bingo Night (permission slips are due by 1/26/10)

Let's look ahead at our week...

Spelling:
Lesson 17: Review Unit. The alternate format test will be on Friday.

English:
We will continue to work on our Pronoun Unit and Contract Enrichment work.

Reading:
The class will read a selection from our reading text entitled “Happy Birthday Dr. King!” (We did not get to this last week due to IOWA testing.). Our skill focus for the week will be “cause and effect” with a strategy focus on “clarifying.” We will review new vocabulary words and focus on comprehension skills. In addition, we will continue with our literature book club novels from the “Orphan Train Adventures” series that we began with “A Family Apart.” I will introduce the book club sheets that each student will have to fill out prior to their group meeting.

Math:
Please review the vocabulary from Chapter 19 at home. Due to IOWA testing, we did not have time to fill out our vocabulary/terms sheet. We will work on these study sheets in class on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Chapter 19 math test is scheduled for Thursday, January 21st. We will fill out “How to Study” sheets in preparation for the test.Fourth graders are expected to know their facts so that can apply them easily to new math concepts.
*Important: If your child has a different math teacher, please visit her blog for weekly math updates.

Social Studies:
The Chapter 7 Social Studies Test will be Wednesday, January 20th. We will fill out “How to Study” sheets in preparation for the test.

Science:
The Chapter 3 Science Test will be Friday, January 22nd. We will fill out “How to Study” sheets in preparation for the test. Our next unit will be "Electricity."

January 11-January 15th

Mark your calendar:

1/18 Martin Luther King Day—No School

The IOWA Basic Skills testing will be taking place this week. Please make sure that your child gets plenty of rest and eats a good breakfast each morning. The children will be given time to eat their healthy snacks during the morning. Testing is scheduled to take place from Monday through Thursday.

Let's look ahead at our week...

Spelling:

No spelling this week due to Iowa Testing. We will have three practice Spelling Bees this week in preparation for the Fourth Grade Spelling Bee “Spell-Off” that will take place next week.

English:

We will continue to work on our Pronoun Unit and Contract Enrichment work.

Reading:

The class will read a selection from our reading text entitled “Happy Birthday Dr. King!” Our skill focus for the week will be “cause and effect” with a strategy focus on “clarifying.” We will review new vocabulary words and focus on comprehension skills. In addition, we will continue with our literature book club novels from the “Orphan Train Adventures” series that we began with “A Family Apart.”

Math:

We will have IOWA testing during math time on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week. We will continue with our lessons in Chapter 19 as time allows. Please review the vocabulary from this unit at home. By the end of the week, your child will have a vocabulary/terms review packet to study. The Chapter 19 math test is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, January 21st.
Fourth graders are expected to know their facts so that can apply them easily to new math concepts.

*Important: If your child has a different math teacher, please visit her blog for weekly math updates.

Social Studies:

We will focus on The Civil War and The Civil Rights Movement this week. If lesson pacing allows, we will have the Chapter 7 Social Studies Test sometime next week. I will confirm an exact date at the end of this week. I will send home lesson summaries this week in preparation for the upcoming test.

Science:

Our goal this week is to complete Lesson 2 and 3 in Chapter 3. There will be an open book graded assessment this Friday on these lessons. The Chapter 3 Science Test will be sometime during the week of January 18th. I will post the exact date at the end of this week.