Room 17

I am looking forward to our opportunity this week for your child to communicate with you about their 4th grade learning experiences and for our dialog. If you have an in-person conference scheduled on Mon or Wed, please arrive on time and keep in mind that each appointment is 15 minutes. 

• On Monday we will be tallying our Math Month minutes, so please make sure your child brings in their calendar with your signature for their total number of minutes.
• Check out some of our Stewart Stars on the Math Month VoiceThread at http://tinyurl.com/StewartMathMonth
• March is Reading Month, so our weekly activities will kick-off right away. This year's theme is Cowboy/Western and each Friday will be a special theme day. (Book Bandits this week)
  
• We are scheduled on Tuesday for a Skype videoconference call with a class from Pennsylvania who will answer our questions about their region!

Last week was busy with celebrations and tests! Check out the Valentines and 100s day photos on the sidebar.  We will be reviewing our progress on those assessments as well as starting some new projects this week.  Stay up-to-date on the Math Calendar with your child's minutes and we look forward to presenting conference slideshows with you soon.

Curriculum Update:

Math: Traditional division algorithms; Unit 7 (Fractions)

Reading: Finishing & responding to our class novel

Writing: Haiku poetry

Science: Energy

Social Studies: Southeast region

Monday is the 14th and that means time to celebrate Love in our world! Our class party will be a good way to kick off a busy week of learning. We are also in the middle of Math Month and students should be recording their minutes on their calendar each night. If everyone contributes we can reach our goal of 9,000 minutes! Below are our plans for learning in each subject:

Reading/ELA- Unit 3 review, study guide & assessment

Math- Finishing Unit 6, study guide, & assessment

Social Studies- Beginning our tour of the Southeast region

Writing- Haiku poetry

Science- Matter test (Monday) & beginning our Energy unit

Today's day off was hopefully safe and restful for everyone! When students return they will be receiving their 2nd Marking Period Report Cards.  This is a good opportunity to celebrate the learning that they are doing this year, to reflect on goals and to set new goals for the future. Also this week students will bring home a conference letter describing to you the options for Spring Conferences.  This time around I am going to have the students play a larger role in their conference as they will put together a presentation for their family prior to any parent/teacher contact. The focus of a student-led conference is on learning, goal setting and the student's role in their own success. 

The next few weeks  will be filled with more exciting lessons:

Math: Unit 6-division strategies; measuring angles

Reading: Folk tales, biographies; homophones; class read-aloud

Science: Matter; measuring matter & volume. Test next week.

Social Studies: Ch. 5- population density of the Northeast. Assessment next week.