Columbus Day Week

And we're off! At least that's how it feels lately--so many things going on in and outside of the classroom and so much to get done. We're having fun while we're doing it, but boy, are we busy! Here's a quick update of our classroom and the week to come:

Tuesday we are actually following a Monday schedule (as per the district). This means that the children will only have one day of Chinese this week. Last week in Chinese, the kids worked with their assignments, "China in my Eye". They will continue their projects on Thursday.

This week the kids will have bus evacuations, a visit to the Fire Safety trailer, and extra music practices for their upcoming 4th grade show. Show times are given under the Calendar section of our blog.

Last week the kids worked to create their own blogs! We picked an icon to represent ourselves, learned how to log in/log out, and comment on each other's blogs. These blogs are for educational purposes only. We have gone over the rules with the students and have asked them to report any comments that are questionable to the teachers. The teachers are also visiting the blogs as often as we can. We have told the kids that it is okay to log-in from home and post a question, just to get the hang of the blog. We will be working on uploading projects to our blogs shortly, and eventually the blogs will be used for only reflection and online portfolio purposes.

This is a review week in our reading series, so this means that no new strategies, grammar topics. or spelling patterns will be taught. We will spend the entire week reviewing all of the concepts of the past 5 weeks. We will have only one spelling list this week and the test format will be multiple choice, rather than having the kids write down the words from memory. We will be working with some of the spelling patterns in class as a review.

In science we are working to end our volcano unit. This week we will focus on the pros and cons of a volcano eruption, review the healing process of Mount St. Helens, and talk about various types of rock that form the continents. With everything we have going on in class and a shortened week on top of it, we will not have our final volcano test until Monday or Tuesday next week (our original hope was to have things wrapped up on Friday). I will finalize the day of the test once we get more information on music practice schedules. The kids will, however, be given their study guide for the test mid-week so that they have plenty of time to study!

We will work on Unit 3 in math this week. Unit 3 focuses on multiplication and division; number sentences and algebra. The first section allows the kids to practice their basic multiplication facts (which will be great for extra mad minute practice!). We will be working with fact triangles and fact families this week. The students will receive their Unit 2 test back on Tuesday. Please remember that this score is broken down into 2 parts: the first score is the score that is the summative--these are concepts that were to be learned during the unit. The second part is the formative score--this is used by me for future planning, but is not recorded in the grade book.

Picture Day envelopes went home on Friday. Money is not due until our actual picture day--October 19th, but if you would like to send in your money ahead of time, I can hold on to this for you. We will be taking our pictures before math time on that Tuesday at 11:00.

I think that covers everything. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me! I hope you all had a great long weekend!