Thanks to You All

I want to thank each and every one of you for attending your child's parent/teacher conference. Every single one of you came and learned about your child's progress in fourth grade. It means a lot to me that you took the time to come to their conference and learn about what they have been doing in class.

In MATH, we are working on fractions! The students are having a great time with this and seem to be enjoying it. We will continue with this chapter, while at the same time, begin using the formative tests to prepare for state assessments. These tests are just like the actual state test, but they are shorter and focus on one skill at a time. It helps us to know what skills we need to focus more on in order to better prepare them for the state test. We do several of these together as well as independently, so the students can get a feel for what the questions will be like on the test. I encourage them to ask all the questions they want to on these formative tests, because when they are taking the state assessment, we can't answer all of their questions, depending upon the question.

In READING, Miss Burns has been doing an excellent job of teaching the students about drawing conclusions as well as predicting outcomes in a story. The students have been meeting in leveled reading groups this week working on these skills as well. They will have their vocabulary test this Friday, February 22, so be sure to work on these words at home. They will also be tested on the skills mentioned above.
We have also been working on formative tests in reading. Our reading assessment will begin in 8 short school days, so we really need to brush up on our skills!

We have not had a lot of time for language arts or science the past week, but we will pick back up with our last investigation on sound next week. Students will learn how sound travels through solids and through air during this investigation. We have been using a lot of our afternoon science/language arts time to take our formative tests for reading and math and becoming more familiar with these skills.

Thanks again for attending conferences last week. I really enjoyed getting to share your child's progress with you.