This week we have continued reading our read aloud book, Zach's Lie. Students have been so into this book and get so upset when I have to stop each day. We have been working on asking questions while reading for a better understanding, visualizing what we are reading and writing reading reactions that encompass all the reading comprehension strategies we have taught so far this year. In book clubs, we have been talking a lot about the difference between an inference and a prediction. Students have had amazing conversations about the books we are reading.
Next week we will finish our read aloud book.We will also review all the comprehension strategies that we have talked about and learned throughout this book. Students are going to be so excited about our next read aloud!!
Writing
You all are going to be amazed with the personal narratives these kiddos have been working on. Compared to their pre-assessment, they are hitting these pieces out of the park. This week we focused on endings and how to leave the readers satisfied with our stories. We learned about lots of different choices for endings. Some students wrote several and picked their favorite one. We have also worked really hard on punctuation within dialogue.
Next week we will be working on revising and editing and then publishing our final copies. I can't wait to read them all start to finish and I know they are excited to share them with you! We will be have a "Brown Bag Breakfast" October 14th from 8:00-8:45. Please see the note in your child's Friday folder and let me know if you can make it!!
Math
This week we have continued our study of multiplication. We have talked about facts, relationships between numbers and more. Students learned strategies for all facts 0-12. Be sure to ask them and be practicing those facts each night!!
We also stopped and spent some time on word problems, specifically multi-step ones. I was noticing that students were just looking for numbers in a word problem and would do whatever operation we were learning about. We discussed the importance of really understanding word problems and what they were asking. This is something that we will continue to hit throughout the year. Next week we will discuss factors, review and test over this unit.
Science
Students were super excited about starting Science. We have discussed the importance of science notebooks and observations this week. Students were given a picture of a location in Columbia. Using their science notebooks, students had to observe the picture and write about it (simple instructions). I then collected all the pictures and gave them someone else's picture. Students had to go around trying to find the description of the picture on someone else's science notebook. They found this pretty hard. We talked about what was helpful in an observation. On Friday, we did it again. The observations were amazing. This activity about the importance of observations is going to be very helpful as we start our very first experiment on Monday.
Word Work
I LOVE Mondays when I get to meet with word study groups. It is so fun to hear students talk about words. I meet with five different groups. Students are grouped based on spelling patterns they need to understand. Throughout the week, they get to do lots of fun activities with their "rule" of words. Be sure and ask your child about what group of wrods they are studying.
Important Dates
- October 4th- Picture Day
- October 5th- Planetarium Field Trip
- October 14th - 4th grade "Brown Bag Breakfast" 8:00-8:45
- October 19th- Early Out
- October 28th- Fall Room Parties
- October 31st- NO SCHOOL- teacher work day
- November 7th- Parent Teacher Conferences 3:30-7:00
- November 8th- NO SCHOOL (election day)
- November 10th- Parent Teacher Conferences 3:30-7:00
- November 11th- NO SCHOOL (teacher's work day)
- November 14th- Veteran's Assembly & Grandparent's Day
- November 15th- Picture Retake Day
- November 16th- PTA meeting at 6:30
- November 23-25th- Thanksgiving Break
