Weekly Update 9/14/13

School picture day will be coming up on September 25th.  If you would like to order school pictures please fill out the picture order form that came home in your child's mail folder on Friday, and return it to school with your child by the 25th.

This Wednesday, the 18th will be our first early release day.  Students will be dismissed beginning at 1:40. Please make sure to discuss with your child what their plans will be for going home that day in case it varies from the normal routine.

In reading this week, we continued to work with various non-fiction texts.  The students worked with partners to learn a strategy called Close Reading, which allows them to navigate and comprehend complex expository text more easily.  Children highlighted headings, underlined topic sentences, and found key words that enabled them to respond to questions about what they were reading.  Reading partners did a wonderful job helping each other with this strategy!

In math, we have been practicing column addition and subtracting with regrouping.  The students also worked on solving word problems and determining whether they needed to find an estimate or an exact answer to the problem.  We used our Close Reading in math as well, as students searched for words like "about" to alert them that estimation was needed.

We wrapped up Chapter 1 in our Missouri books for social studies with learning about ways we can conserve the important renewable and non-renewable resources of our state.  Now that mid-quarter is approaching, we will be switching our focus to science for the next several weeks.  Our first science unit will cover ecosystems. 

The students are nearing the end of the writing process for their personal narratives.  This week we focused on learning how to divide longer pieces of writing into paragraphs.  They have been using editing checklists with writing partners to check for correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.  I have been conferencing with the students to review all of their hard work.  Several children have now moved on to the publishing step of writing their final drafts.

Students took their first eValuate tests in both math and reading this week.  All students in grades 3-5 take these tests throughout the year as a way to practice for end of the year MAP state testing.  The eValuate tests cover the entire fourth grade curriculum, so often times students will not know how to answer every question on the tests early in the year.  The tests do not count towards their report card grades, but instead are used as a tool for me to see what topics the children need instruction on and to monitor their progress throughout the year.  You will begin to see these tests come home in the students' mail folders soon. I was very proud of the class's effort and we took a fun "brain break" after our tests by breaking out some dance moves!