* Midterms went home with your child on Friday. Please sign and return 1 copy to school by this Friday, May 6th.
* MAP testing is this week! The kids will be taking tests on the computer for both math and reading. The testing times are as follows:
--Mrs. Galazka's math class = Tuesday, May 3rd 10:45-12:10
-- Mrs. Galazka's reading class = Wednesday, May 4th 1:30-2:45
-- Miss Lee's math class = Thursday, May 5th 10:45-12:10
***Please make sure your child eats a healthy breakfast and gets plenty of sleep before the tests. We use these tests to analyze your child's growth in both math and reading. They also help us when making some decisions about classes and needs for next year. *** You will receive a summary sheet of your child's MAP test scores from fall and spring in his/her last report card on June 9th.
* Allergy season is upon us. While 4th graders are great at using kleenex, we are coming to the end of our kleenex supply. If you have an extra box at home and are willing to share it, your donation would be greatly appreciated!
* This week in reading our theme is "Wild Horses". The kids will work with nonfiction text to identify different cause/effect relationships. We will also work with fiction text to review hyperbole and figurative language in writing.
* Our spelling list this week deals with final sounds in words such as: -al, -il, -ol, -el, and -le. It's quite a challenging list so please make sure your child spends extra time working with the words.
* In grammar we will review how to correctly use good, bad, better, and best. Who knew there were so many rules to learn when comparing with the word "good"?
* In math we reviewed Unit 8 concepts today in class. The kids will be taking their Unit 8 test on Thursday. Your child has study links and 2 review tests to study from. I will also be offering 2 study sessions during the first half of lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday. We will review any concepts being tested as well as double digit multiplication and long division. The kids will have an extra sheet of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems added to their Unit 8 test. It's important that they keep all of these skills sharp for the end of the year. We will begin Unit 9 on Friday. A parent letter explaining our new unit will come home at that time. Our next unit deals with fractions, decimals, and percents.
* The kids took their test over the colonies today and tomorrow we will begin our new science unit on matter! Hopefully you have received the note that lists the food items we will be using during the lessons (this was sent home with your child on Friday). None of the items will be ingested. Most of the items will be used for observation purposes. This unit offers students a wide variety of hands-on experiences with matter. The unit is grouped into 3 clusters: properties of matter, changing states of matter, and mixing matter. In the "Properties of Matter" cluster the students identify materials that make up the world. They sort materials by states of matter--solid, liquid, gas--and create a definition of matter. Next they will compare an assortment of solids, liquids, and gases, and list their properties. We will then explore the weight and volume of solids and liquids in a series of investigations, learning that changing the shape of the solids and liquids does not affect their weight or volume. The kids all received their own science notebook to take notes in during their investigations, as well as their own student reference book. I have also added a link titled "Matter" to the educational websites section of our classroom blog. Feel free to check it out to gain some background information of what your child will be studying!
* In writing the kids will create a believable problem for their characters. We will use this to help them organize the shape of their personal stories and create a rising action. They are doing a great job with using strong verbs as speech tags for dialogue. It's so much fun to read their character descriptions--we have quite a creative and humorous group!
* I think that is all for now. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Have a great start to the month!
