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How can it already be December?  Even though December is a busy month, we have 3 weeks of uninterrupted instruction.  I look forward to the explorations and learning we will do before the winter break.

Items of Note:

• Social Studies test on the Northeast will be on Wednesday
• P.T.O. Meeting is on Wednesday, December 3 at 6:00 pm in the Multipurpose Room
• The Book Jacket project due date is coming up quickly. Your child should have finished his/her book and have begun work on the project.

READING

Read Aloud:  Little Wolf’s Book of Badness by Ian Whybrow.  What type of thinking are we doing?  Predicting, text-to-text connections, character motivation. Keeping thinking notes in reading notebook.

26 Fairmount Avenue by Tomie DePaola - Review and discuss chapter 3.  Identify and clarify ideas from the time period (1938).  Identify how the importance of family comes up over and over.  Assignment:  Read chapter 4 and complete activities.

Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing  by Judy Blume - Review and discuss chapter 3.  Summarizing - building strategies to summarize big ideas and not to dwell on minute details.  Continue character analysis of Fudge.  Assignment:  Read chapters 4&5 and complete activities.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - Review and discuss chapters 3&4.  Character Analysis of Peter.  Assignment:  Read chapters 5&6 and complete activities.

Mrs. Hill has been checking in with students on their independent reading. Students have been working with her to generate reading goals.

WRITING

Thanksgiving Traditions:  Students will use their new knowledge of the traditions of Thanksgiving to make personal connections to identify their own family traditions.

MATH

Unit 4:  Decimals and Their Uses

In this unit we will explore the base-ten place-value system of decimals.  Students will use manipulatives to understand the values of numbers in the tenths place and in the hundreths place.  Students will learn to add and subtract numbers with decimals by lining up the decimal points and puting in a zero place-holder.  We will review the metric units of measurement and see the relationships between different units and how the decimal point moves.  And of course, decimals and money!

Lesson 4.1 Decimal Place Value

Lesson 4.2 Review Basic Decimal Concepts

Lesson 4.3 Comparing and Ordering Decimals

We will continue the basic facts quizzes up to the Winter Break.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Monday we will review the major concepts of the unit.  Homework will include the end of chapter review.  The test will be on Wednesday - multiple choice and short answer. Students have been taught on multiple occassions how to write complete answers.  Points will be deducted from the test if there are incomplete sentences or ideas.

SCIENCE

Changes in Matter - We will explore what matter is made of, physical and chemical changes, and find answers to the question “How does matter react chemically”.  Many ideas and concepts explored in our previous chapter will carry over to this unit of study.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing all our families a wonderful holiday weekend. 

 

Murray has partnered with the YMCA to create an after school program.  On Friday an enrollment packet was sent home outlining the program and enrollment procedures.  Please visit the YMCA link to find out all the details:  http://ymca.murrayblogs.org/   Here are a few important facts to know.

• There is no fee for participation in the program.

 

• Forms will be accepted and processed in the order received.

 

• Forms will be accepted NO EARLIER than 8:00am on Tuesday, November 25th.

 

• Megham will be stationed in the Gym to accept forms on Tuesday, November 25th, beginning at 8:00am.  The line will form indoors on the Murray side of the gate.

 

• Students in Kindergarten through 6th grade are eligible to enroll.

 

• Space is limited! We have an enrollment cap of 80 students for each block (MWF, TuTh).

 

• We will maintain a waiting list after available slots are filled.

 

• The program will run M-F 2:30pm-6:00pm.

READING

The fourth graders will be helping the Kindergartners in Ms. Laws’ class with a weaving project on Monday and Tuesday.  To compliment this activity, we have been reading Annie and the Old One by Miska Miles.  In this Native American story, we learn about a young girls struggle to accept that her grandmother is near death.  The art of weaving is threaded throughout the story.

We had a great first week of Guided Reading!  The students were very focused and offered valuable insight into our group discussions.  Students did a great job working independently on their reading assignments as well as their independent reading.  Keep up the great work!  Mrs. Hill, our literacy support teacher, has been coming in to meet with students one-on-one to discuss progress with independent reading and to help the children establish short-term reading goals.

Each student has been assigned to one reading group.  We will continue work this week with the following stories:

26 Fairmount Avenue by Tomie DePaola - Review and discuss chapter 2.  Identify and clarify ideas from the time period (1938).  Assignment:  Read chapter 3 and complete activities.

Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing  by Judy Blume - Review and discuss chapter 2.  Identify strategies used to maintain understanding and record thinking for longer chapters.  Begin a character analysis of Fudge.  Assignment:  Read chapter 3 and complete activities.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis - Review and discuss chapters 1&2.  Identify elements of fantasy. Redefine the genre of fantasy.  Assignment:  Read chapters 3&4 and complete activities.

WRITING

Thanksgiving Traditions:  Students will use their new knowledge of the traditions of Thanksgiving to make personal connections to identify their own family traditions.

MATH

Unit 3 Review and Test on Wednesday.  Monday and Tuesday will be review days.  A study guide/review packet will come home on Monday for homework.  Test on Wednesday.

Social Studies

Lesson 3:  The Plentiful Sea - we will explore how pollution affects watermen and the Chesapeake Bay community.  Identify similarities between watermen and lobstermen.

We are near the end of the chapter.  There will be a chapter test the week of December 1.

• Thank you to all of the parents who came for Report Card pick-up on Wednesday.  It was wonderful having a few moments to check in with each other.
• The next book response has been assigned.  Students will be creating a New Book Jacket for the book they have read independently.  We went over the parts of a book jacket extensively in class and reviewed the need to always write in our own words.  It is never okay to copy directly from another source and make it seem like it is our own writing.  The description of the project and grading rubric were sent home on Thursday, November 13.  The project is due Thursday, December 11.
• Parents:  If you want to contact me through the blog, please go to the link at the top that says “Contact Ms. Finke”.  This will give you my email address.  The “Comments” section of the blog is for you to comment on things that have been posted on the blog that you would like other people to read.  Email will be just between you and me.  And, I check email daily where as with the blog I only sign-in once a week to update the information. 

READING

As I started to do a quick review of the First Thanksgiving, I realized we had a lot of missing pieces.  We spent the two days last week learning about the first Harvest Feast and took time to differentiate the facts from the myths.  We worked with a cool interactive website that help us to research information as a true historian does http://www.plimoth.org/education/olc/index_js2.html .  Since we spent our time on that, we did not get to the intended read aloud.

Read Aloud:  How Many Days to America: A Thanksgiving Story, by Eve Bunting

Reader Response:  Students will compare the challenges the characters faced in this story to the challenges of the Pilgrims who arrived in the 1600s.

Read Aloud:  Little Wolf’s Book of Badness, by Ian Whybrow

Reader Response:  Keeping thinking notes and providing evidence for our thinking

Guided Reading Groups Begin

Students will be reading one of the following books with me in a small group:  26 Fairmount Avenue by Tomie DePaolo, Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis.  Students will meet with me a couple of times a week for discussions and will read on their own to prepare for each meeting. More details to come next week.

MATH

Game:  Division Arrays to further explore the relationship between multiplication and division

**Lesson 3.7 Finding Air Distances (journal page 65)
**Lesson 3.8 A Guide for Solving Number Stories (journal page 66-68)
**Lesson 3.9  True/False Number Sentences (journal pages69-70)
**Lesson 3.10 Parenthesis in Number Sentences (journal pages 71-72)

 

Wednesday, November 12:  Parent/Teacher Conferences

 I sent home a slip on Tuesday 11/4 to remind you of your conference time.  Please remember that our conferences are only 10 minutes each.  Parking can be challening on this day so please give yourself some extra time.  I will observe the schedule in order to meet with all parents. If additional time is needed, we can plan a conference for a later date.

READING

Read Aloud:  How Many Days to America: A Thanksgiving Story, by Eve Bunting

Synopsis:  This story begins in an unnamed Caribbean Island where there is conflict between soldiers and citizens.  A father and mother decide to steal away in the middle of the night with other families to sail to America.  They encounter many challenges in their search for freedom.

Students will keep thinking notes and also work on making predictions.  The predictions will be recorded on a chart and will require further evidence to support thinking.

Reader Response:  Students will compare the challenges the characters faced in this story to the challenges of the Pilgrims who arrived in the 1600s.

Nonfiction Reading:  Students will read current issue of Time for Kids magazine.  Students will write a letter to President-Elect Obama to share issues that are important to them that they would like him to address while in office.

MATH

We will further explore the relationship between multiplication and division.  Students will create arrays to help identify how equal groups can be made to multiply and divide.

Here is an example of an array that represents 5 x 4 = 20:

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

 

Basic Facts quiz on Friday.  Please help your child to set up a routine to study multiplication and division facts nightly.  Studying a variety of ways helps children to recall facts in different situations.  Students have been encouraged to:  Study fact triangles, make flashcards, find computer games, and skip count.  Skip counting helps students to develop sense of multiples and factors.

 

 

SOCIAL STUDIES

 

We will begin our study of the Northeast.  In this unit of study students will develop an understanding of the geography of the region, thriving natural resources, and industry.

 

Homework:  Students be responsible for reading and taking notes at home.  Reading and note-taking strategies will be reviewed in class.