May 3, 2010

Today was an exciting day and the week is looking great! Thank you all so much for the beautiful flowers you brought today. Our room is so colorful and smells great.

Here is a look at what we are up to.

Reading: This week we are starting literature circles with various Geronimo Stilton Books. Students will be completing 4 different “adventures” with the book. Math: We are learning how to complete multiplication problems with 2, 3, and 4 digit number. We learned partial products method last week and this week we are learning lattice method and traditional method (the one we all learned) They have lattice homework tonight. See if they can teach it to you!

Spelling: The kids did awesome on their first dictation test Friday. This week’s paragraph came home today. Students need to copy it tonight for homework. On Friday they will have their test where they will be read the paragraph and have to write it as it is read. This is how 4th grade does it so it is good practice.

Writing: For the last 3 weeks of school students are going to be in writer workshop. They will hopefully go through the entire writing process between now and the end of the year and have a published book at the end. This is our goal.

Science: The environment projects are coming along. Students have learned about producers and consumers. Now they are researching different producers and consumers in their environment. We will be learning about decomposers and the food chain this week. We will have times the last week of school where you can come in and see their projects. I will get you times very soon.

After winter break our class wrote letters to a new group of college students learning to be come teachers. Each child had their own pen pal. Today our pen pals come to our school and helped us learn about consumers. Ask your child about their pen pal.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We are nearing the end of the year. Parents, please help your child stay focused on school for another 13 days. J

Carol Tracy