January 25, 2016

January 25, 2016

Reading:

We really learned a great deal about extreme weather the past two weeks when researching subtopics about weather.  On Friday, everyone present taught others about what they had learned from a poster they created to use as a teaching tool. 

  

                                                     

This week we will begin our Book Clubs.  Students are reading Holes, A View From Saturday,

 Chasing Vermeer and Because of Winn Dixie.  Mrs. Charland and I have assigned the students to a Book Club based on their Lexile reading level from their winter NWEA scores.  We are excited to discuss our books and share our ideas with each other.  In addition, students will focus on Greek and Latin roots for word work this week (corp, pop and art).  When students have independent reading time, they may read their book for Book Club, read self-selected stories on Raz-kids.com and read other books they choose.  

Math:

Today, we finished our chapter in math about tally tables, picture graphs, bar graphs and line graphs. Students will take a chapter assessment this week and we will begin our next math chapter about data.  In chapter 5, students will find the mean, median, mode and range in a set of data, create and read stem and leaf plots and predict outcomes.

Writing:

We are beginning our new unit writing opinion essays.  It is always exciting to write about something you feel passionate about and want to express your opinions.  I have already heard students say they will write stories to their parents to try to convince them to get a pet, to a teacher to stop giving homework, to a principal to change how much time students are given for recess.  It should be a great unit!  I am looking forward to hearing the fourth graders' opinions and reasons that support their ideas. 

WINTER CARNIVAL BASKET

We are collecting items for our fourth grade classroom basket for the silent auction at our Winter Carnival on Friday, February 26th.  The theme for our classroom basket is "Traverse City".  Please send in any items you would like to donate to our basket this week.  

Upcoming Events and Happenings

* Friday, January 29th - field trip to Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore 

 - students must bring a sack lunch and drink

- dress in warm layers

- we will leave the school at 9:15 a.m.

- we will return back to school at 3:00 p.m.

- chaperones should arrive at 9:00 a.m.  -  please plan to follow the bus to the location

2/2/16 Darkness to Light Parent Presentation

2/9 PTO meeting

2/16, 2/18, and 2/24 Parent Teacher Conferences

2/26 Westwoods Winter Carnival

2/29 Kindergarten Roundup Parent Meeting

Homework and Spelling Packets are due back on Thursday!