Our second week....

...was a great one. the students have done a great job adjusting and adapting to the routines, procedures, and expectations of 4th grade!

A few important reminders:

- student should be reading AT LEAST 20 minutes each night

-please complete and return the forms sent out last week (re: conduct, computer use, and student photos)

- over the weekend you should have also recieved a bright orange permission slip for me to use your students name and picture in this blog, please complete it and return to school, feel free to ask if you have questions

-if you need more forms please let me know

This week in math we focused on place value and representing numbers in different ways. You child should be able to explain to you how to write a number in standard form, word form, and expanded form. One of the more exciting things we did in math was "Design a Monster". Students were given a set of blocks with different values. After building their monster they found it's value based on value of each block. We then ordered the monsters by value from least to greatest. This would be a fun activity to do at home as well. Use the key to try it out yourself :)

Green Triangles = 1
Orange Squares = 10
Blue Rhombuses = 100
Red Trapezoids = 1,000
Yellow Hexagons = 10,000

In reading we focused on choosing "just right" books and how that helps your child grow as a reader. We also began talking about good habits that help readers grow such as predicting, making a mind movie, wondering, etc. We will explore these more deeply in the coming weeks. 

In Social Studies we did a broad overview of NC geography. Hopefully your child has a general idea of the location of the 3 regions of our state and characteristics of each of them, including bodies of water, cities, and natural resources.

In writing we are continuing to gather ideas for writing topics and build stamina- seeing how long we can write each day without stopping. We are just starting to talk about what it means to take an idea (short entry in their Writer's Notebook) and "grow it into a story by adding details, using their senses, etc. 

Happy 2nd Day of School!

Welcome to the 2014-15 school year! 

We are off to a wonderful start in 4th grade!

A HUGE thank you to all of you for the generous donations of supplies for our classroom. Our cabinets are well stocked and we should have enough for a large chink of the year!

I thought I would share a few things with you that I am starting to get questions about, we will get more in depth at our Parent Info Night, but for now:

-students may bring a snack each day, we will usually eat them during independent reading time, no candy, only water to drink (bugs are a big issue)

- our lunch time is 10:55, recess will usually follow (unless we go outside early to avoid the heat) and specials are from 12:05-12:50

-reading homework is for 20 minutes each night

- DON'T FORGET, we now get out of school at 2:35, not 2:20 like years past

-if you need extra copies of any beginning of the year forms, please let me know

Here's a little peek into our day...

We talked about math in general, and I had students write sticky notes about what they did and didn't like about math. Once we got each students ideas on the chart we grouped them based on repeated comments. This was VERY helpful for me to see that many of them prefer to work alone and many more dislike repetitive tasks. 

 My preferred way to teach math is through stations. This will each student spend time working the way they are comfortable, while also pushing to try new things as well.

Thank you again for a wonderful start to the 2014-2015 school year!