Already October?!?!

Time flies when you're having fun! I can't believe this week begins October!

Last week, we had a lot of fun learning happening in our room. In MATH, we finished up our lesson on factors and began making multiplication flash cards for the facts we need to work on the most. This includes the doubles (3x3, 4x4, 6x6, etc.) and the 3's. We will slowly add to these flashcards so the students all have flashcards to study. We also had our first multiplication timed test last week. Students all begin on their 2's facts. They have two minutes to complete as many facts as they can out of 60. If they get all 60 completed and correct, they move on to their 3's. This keeps going until they pass their 9's. I will be giving you a report on where your student is at our Fall Conferences coming up in a few weeks.
I hope all of you got to see the new multiplication chart we implemented due to the number of students that are struggling with facts. Students are expected to practice their multiplication facts for at least 30 minutes a week. These charts will be checked on Mondays along with their reading chart, so be sure your student brings it to school every Monday. If they do not have it on Mondays or if they have it but have not completed their correct amount of time, they do spend their morning recess making up this missed time.
Our next lesson in math will be on Multiples and we will start this on Monday. I am hoping to get through this lesson fairly quickly so we can have our Chapter 2 Math Test by Wednesday and begin Chapter 3 this week as well. Chapter 3 will start with multiplication and division of larger facts. Mrs. Whitten will begin teaching Chapter 3 and she's excited to get started.

In READING, we read a story titled Kai's Journey to Gold Mountain. This was a historical fiction story about a little boy who was an immigrant from China in the 1930's. He sailed over to the USA and stayed on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay until he was interrogated and given the right to go with his father into the USA to live. This is based on true facts, so the students got to watch a few videos on immigrants who went through this process in order to become a US citizen. This next week, students will complete centers based on this story, one of which is to find five facts about Angel Island they didn't already know using the websites I provide at the center. Students seemed to be very interested in this story, so feel free to read it with them on-line if you have access. Just go to www.thinkcentral.com and have your student log-in. They should be able to find their reading book and read this on-line without a problem.

In SCIENCE last week, we took our final data on our soybean plant experiment. We found that soybeans can grow in the dark, but they are not mature, producing plants. They were not healthy and green like the ones growing in the light and they did not have leaves and strong stems either. We came to the conclusion that plants can grow in the dark, but they are not healthy and will eventually die, as some of ours did. Since the students who put their plants in the dark were upset that their plants died, everyone whose plant didn't grow was able to plant a new seed to put under the grow light. We will watch to see if these grow better and hopefully, we will get to watch the plants to full maturity if we can keep them alive long enough!

In SOCIAL STUDIES, Mrs. Whitten finished her unit on the Southwest. Thank you to all the parents who donated food for our feast we had last Friday. It was delicious! Mrs. Whitten and I plan to keep this up for each of the regions of the United States since the students enjoyed it so much and learned a great amount. The students will be giving their presentations on their states this next week. I will post pictures of their presentations when they give them!

In LANGUAGE ARTS, we will begin learning about simple and complete subjects and predicates. We will have our skills test over this, as well as our vocabulary on Friday, October 5th.

Please be watching for some important notes regarding Parent/Teacher Conferences to come home this week. I will be sending the first one home on Monday asking your preferred time for a conference.

Keep checking your students backpack each night for their class work and homework. Just a reminder that students have homework every night MONDAY-THURSDAY that is due back to school the next day. Several students are really struggling with this and are missing recess to complete their homework. Even if they complete it at night, but forget to bring it to school, they have to re-do it here at school. I have explained to them that it is their responsibility to get the homework back in their backpack when they complete it to make sure it gets back to school the following day.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let me know. Thank you for your time. Have a great first week of October!

This Week in Our Room

IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW THIS WEEK:
Thursday, Sept. 27 - 10:00am and 7:00pm - 4th grade music program performance in the gym
Friday, Sept. 28 - MAP TESTING for MATH
Friday, Sept. 28 - EARLY DISMISSAL at 1:20pm


Last week, we were quite the busy group.

In MATH, we started chapter 2 on estimation and factors. The student really struggled with this concept, but after many lessons spent on this, I think most of the students gained a better understanding of estimation. We moved on to factors, and a lot of the students had a hard time with this due to the fact that they weren't comfortable with their multiplication facts. I encouraged the class to study their basic multiplication facts at home every night for at least 5-10 minutes. We will be starting a multiplication calender much like our reading calendar in the very near future for this, so please make sure your student is working on these each night. We will be starting multiplication timed tests this next week as well, so be looking for that to come home. We continued the week with common factors between two numbers and then finding the greatest common factor of those two numbers as well. The students seemed to do well on this, but many of them had to use their multiplication charts to help them with their facts. I could not remind them enough how important it is to know these facts since we don't spend time learning them in fourth grade. We will continue with chapter 2 this week, which will move on to multiplication of two and three digit numbers. If your child is having difficulty with multiplication, this week may be a struggle for them. Please know that by helping them practice their facts each night, they will get better and better in no time.

In READING, we did Centers for Week 2. These centers focused on the vocabulary words, synonyms and antonyms, letter writing, and a technology center where the students were able to make a baseball card for a character in the story we read last week. This helped them focus on character traits, which was our focus skill.
We also had our first week of small, leveled reading groups. I met with the students in small groups and read a short story with them and we discussed the vocabulary words, character traits and motivations, as well as comprehension. The students seemed to enjoy these groups. We will meet in these groups every other week. We will be starting a new story this week with new vocabulary words, so be looking for new vocabulary words to come home.

In SOCIAL STUDIES, Mrs. Whitten finished the first week of her unit on the Southwest region of the United States. The students have really enjoyed learning about these four states. Each child was put into a research group to learn more about one of the states. They each have jobs they are responsible for completing in order for their research to be complete. They will present their research projects next week, provided they are done with their projects. We will take pictures of their projects and I will be posting them on the blog, so be looking for these! The students have been working very hard on their research, so they are quite proud of their work. We will continue working on these this week, hopefully finishing them up and presenting them by the end of the week.

In SCIENCE, we have continued to record data on our soybean plants. The students have found that the plants in the dark are growing! They were quite surprised by this, however, they did notice that the plants in the dark are not turning green or producing as big of leaves as the plants in the light. We will continue to look at these this next week to see if the students can come to any conclusions on whether plants can grow in the dark.

The students have been working very hard in music for their music program that will take place this week. Our performances will be on Thursday at 10:00am and 7:00pm. Please make sure if your student has a speaking part that they will be able to make it to both performances if possible.

I wish all of you a very nice upcoming week! If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

Success!

We have been very hard at work the past several days. We had a wonderful time on our Soybean field trip yesterday as you can see from the picture!

We have finished chapter 1 in MATH. Students had their test on Tuesday and did an AWESOME job! I was so proud of them! I could tell from their scores that the students have been working very hard in class and at home to learn the concepts taught. I'm certain this will continue throughout the year.
We have just begun chapter 2. This chapter includes concepts on estimation and rounding. This seems to be difficult for fourth graders, so be sure you are asking your child about math each day. Anything you can do at home to help with estimating would be greatly beneficial to your child. If you go to the store, asking questions such as, "If we have $10.00, do we have enough money to buy milk, bread, and a package of candy?" Have them estimate the cost of each item to see if they think there is enough money. This is a real life concept that students will need to learn and continue to work on. If you need any other ideas of how to help at home, please don't hesitate to ask.

In READING last week we had our Centers. During Centers weeks in Reading, students are given a checklist of centers to finish for the week. They get as many of these done as possible and turn them in on Friday. Also during the week, I meet with leveled reading groups. I did not meet with leveled groups the first week of Centers, because I wanted to show the students how Centers were run in the classroom. Centers should always be independent since I will be working with other students in small groups while the rest of the class is working on their centers.
This week in Reading, we are reading a story about Jackie Mitchell. Jackie was the first female pitcher to play in the major leagues with men. She is famous for striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. We are continuing to work on character traits, motivations, and actions with this story as well as mapping out the story for comprehension. Students will have their comprehension test tomorrow (Friday).
I have also had a few students tell me that when their vocabulary words come home they are getting thrown away. I'm not sure if this is true, or if they just aren't showing parents their words they are supposed to be studying. If you have not seen Vocabulary come home this week, please let me know. Students will be tested over these words next Friday, September 21. These words will come home every other Monday on colored paper. If you ever see colored paper in your students backpack, please look at it. Colored paper means it's important (most of the time).

In LANGUAGE ARTS/SPELLING this week we are working on the other two types of sentences. These types of sentences are imperative (question) and exclamatory (exclamation). Along with exclamatory sentences, we also have discussed interjections. Interjections are words that are said with strong feeling such as WOW, GREAT, etc. These words are separated in an exclamatory sentence with a comma or exclamation mark. We will continue to discuss these types of sentences next week.
In SPELLING, students are working on words with variant vowels and dipthongs. To you and me, this means that words that have the 'o' sound can be spelled with an au or aw. Words with an 'oi' sound can be spelling with an oy or an oi, etc. Students have also told me that spelling lists are getting thrown away or not making it home on Monday nights. EVERY MONDAY NIGHT there should be a spelling list coming home with your child on colored paper. Please be looking for this in their backpacks. They need to study these words every night for 5-10 minutes to prepare for their test on Fridays. If they do not bring it home, don't forget you can access it on www.spellingcity.com


In SCIENCE, we are continuing to watch our soybean plants very closely. They have sprouted and have started to grow. We have covered half of them with a black trash bag to see if plants can grow without light. We will collect data for the first time today, so the students are excited to take the bag off very quickly to measure their plants to see if they are growing in the dark.
We also had our field trip to the KSU North Farm for our Soybean kick-off! The students had a great time seeing the soybean fields, sweeping for bugs on soybean plants, and seeing the bugs under a microscope. Students also got to see the equipment used in the fields to plant and harvest the soybeans. The picture shows our class in front of the harvesting machine used in the fields.

Don't forget that this Friday, September 14, is our Bergman Ice Cream Social from 6:00-8:00pm. You can purchase tickets at the door if you haven't had a chance to get them yet. There will be a live band at this event as well! Come and have a great time with the rest of the Bergman families.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about happenings in the classroom, please let me know. I'm here to help your child in any way I can.

Have a great weekend!