Mrs.

Cards Fourth Grade Class

Pine River Elementary
Room #18
September 29, 2014

-archived on the web at http://cardfourthgrade.weebly.com/



Place Value,
Addition, and
Subtraction
We moved quickly through our first unit
in the Math Expressions program, and I
began the assessment process last week.
The children had great practice adding,
subtracting, and estimating large
numbers as well as applying place value
concepts during the last few weeks, and it
was exciting for me to watch them
accurately represent their math thinking
through drawings, writing, and math
discussions so early in the school year.
The Homework and Remembering sheets
that students completed daily are
essential parts of the program designed
to review previously taught concepts and
reinforce the daily lesson, and I
appreciate your support in making sure
your child completed the work at home
each evening if it had not been completed
in class. That work is also meant to help
you understand and reinforce the
concepts that are being taught. Soon, I
will upload your childs assessment score
in Skyward and we can discuss his/her
performance on that assessment during
our upcoming conference.
Writing Workshop
The children are spending our writing
workshop period by acting like
professional writers! They are currently
learning specific strategies to use to
revise and edit their personal narratives.
Like real authors, the children collected
ideas based on their experiences and
knowledge in order to draft original
pieces of writing that described events in
their own lives with clarity and detail.
The goal for the students pieces of
writing is to bring forth more significance
by writing powerful personal narratives
that describe the first or last time they
did something, a time they learned
something new, or a time they felt a
strong emotion. Just as readers choose
books by writers who affect them, it is
important for the students to convey
stories that impact their readers. Based
on my conferences with students, I
believe they are reaching that goal. I am
looking forward to sharing your childs
writing with you in October.

Walk to School Day
You are invited to join our class for the
annual Pine River walk on Walk to School
Day, October 8. Details will be in the Pine
Bough. Just arrive with your child in the
morning if you would like to board the bus
with our class and enjoy a morning autumn
stroll along King Road back to school.

The Card File
Study Habits
The amount of vocabulary and information
that students are required to know
increases significantly in fourth grade as
students move from learning to read to
reading to learn. In order to learn and
understand new words and concepts, the
children need to develop effective study
habits. You can help at home by providing
a regular place for studying that:
is quiet (some students work
better with quiet music in the
background),
has good lighting,
is free from distractions (the TV
and forms of technology are off),
has all the tools needed for
studying (pencils, pens, paper,
dictionary, reference materials).

Here are some study strategies that have
worked well for my students in the past:
1. flashcards (traditional or digital)
2. visualization
3. mnemonics (acronyms-e.g. HOMES
for the Great Lakes)
4. make a web or outline
5. reread the information
6. put the information in your own
words (paraphrase it)
7. put the information in categories
8. make associations with ideas,
words, or people that you know
9. review handouts, notes, reading
material, vocabulary

If your child gets stuck on a new word or
concept while studying at home, have him
or her write the question on a sticky note.
Place the note in the study materials
where there was confusion and move on
and do the rest of the studying. Then,
your child can bring the question to me
the next day for help.


Structures of Life
We are currently working in our
Structures of Life unit in science. In this
unit, the children are investigating the
structures and behaviors of living things
including butterflies, plants, and crayfish
that have been and will be thriving in our
classroom. The children released our
adult Painted Lady Butterflies last week,
and this week they will take a Butterfly
Test on Thursday. Then, we will shift our
focus to plants.

You can increase your childs
understanding and interest by asking
about the investigations at school and
providing experiences at home. As we
begin studying plants, you might search
for and count the seeds found in various
fruits and vegetables as you prepare
dinner (the children will learn that all
plant parts that hold seeds are technically
fruits). You could also look for seeds in
nature that are being scattered by wind,
water, and animals.


Conferences
Elementary conferences will be on
October 15th and October 16th. A note is
being sent home today for you to
complete so that I can schedule a
conference that best fits your schedule.
Please complete and return the form as
soon as possible.

Word Study
Students were placed in word study
groups based on their performance on a
word study inventory that was given at
the beginning of the school year. On
Monday of each week, the students take a
spell check to measure their success in
spelling words related to the previous
week's spelling pattern/principle. Then,
each group receives a set of new words
centered on a new spelling
pattern/principle. During the week,
students complete a variety of tasks in
class to practice the weekly word
pattern. This work is recorded in a word
study notebook. In addition to the daily
class work, students are encouraged to
study at home by practicing in Spelling
City or doing at-home studying. Following
is a link to an overview of our word study
program on our classroom website with
pictures and a link to Spelling City.

http://cardfourthgrade.weebly.com/word
-study.html


The United States in
Spatial Terms
We are finishing our exploration of the
foundations of social studies. This review
of the concepts studied in third grade
was designed to help the students
connect their prior knowledge to our
further exploration of the four main
disciplines of social studies. The students
will take an assessment over this unit on
Tuesday to measure their understandings
of the roles of historians, geographers,
economists, and political scientists and
the questions those individuals might ask
about a place. Knowledge of the
vocabulary will also be tested.
Our next unit in social studies will be
United States Spatial Geography and will
begin later this week.

Moby Max
Last week, the students began working in
Moby Max during our computer lab time
to practice skills at their individual math
levels. The children can also access their
accounts from home for additional
practice. Following is a link to the Moby
Max login page (also linked under the
Math Website Links tab on my
classroom web page).
http://www.mobymax.com/mi3028

Remind
Many of you have signed up for Remind,
and I will continue to send important
update texts using this communication
tool +throughout the year. If you have not
signed up the texts, you can join us using
this simple process: