Room 204 Update January 26, 2014 Spring Street School Mrs.

Liportos class

General Information Tts hard to believe, but we are only three weeks away from our February vacation! If your student is going to be out either before or after the vacation, please let me know. I appreciate the heads up for planning purposes. The next few weeks are going to be extremely busy and we have a lot of things going on, so it really does help me to know who will be out. Help is needed! For our MCAS testing (both mock and regular) I buy small packs of tissues to keep at their desks for those students that need them. If you can help out with pocket packs of tissues that would be very helpful. (Students- the mystery number this week is 250!) Thanks! IMPORTANT DATES *Valentines Day Party- Friday, Feb. 14, 1:00-2:15 *MCAS Long Composition Tuesday, Mar. 18 *MCAS English Language Arts Tuesday, Mar. 25 and Wednesday, Mar. 26 *MCAS Math Tuesday, May 13Wednesday, May 14 Homework Students that are going to submit an entry to the Curiosity Challenge should

have it into class by this Thursday, January 30th. I have the labels they can fill out to put on the back of their entries and I hope to send them all out on Friday morning. I encourage all of the students to give it a try. The website, if you need more information is http://www.cambridgesciencefestival.org/2 014Festival/CuriosityChallenge.aspx Also this Thursday, students will have a quiz on Citizens Rights in Social Studies. They should be studying for this to prepare ahead of time. Language Arts The reading strategy that we will be working on for the next few weeks is synthesizing. This can be a more difficult skill for students to understand. A student once said, Synthesizing is like inferring, but super sized! Similar to inferencing, synthesizing is taking what youve read and your own knowledge to put together new ideas. Synthesizing often takes place when students take multiples pieces of information from the text to create new ideas/understanding. Well be working on this skill through our whole class and guided reading. Writing

Last week all of the students decided on a topic to base their informational writing around. We have a wide variety of topics being written about in the classroom, everything from Legos and Rainbow Looms to grandfathers and hockey! This week the students will start to translate their thoughts from their planning pillars into written paragraphs. Math At the beginning of this week we will be assessing unit 6, focusing on long division, number stories with remainders and angles. I cant believe we are already at the half way mark for the year! Also in math this week we will be checking in with the students to see what they have learned so far this year. On Tuesday and Wednesday the kids will take their mid-year math assessment. This will be a good tool to tell us what skills they have truly mastered and what skills they still need to work on mastering. Next week we will begin unit 7 on fractions. Math Club this Tuesday will be a review before the unit 6 assessment. All are welcome at 8am. EVERYDAY MATH FAMILY LETTERS on-line address:
http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/parents/4 th-grade/view-family-letters/

They can also print the Study Links from the Everyday Math Online site: www.everydaymathonline.com Social Studies This Thursday, the class will have a Citizens Rights quiz which includes information on the Constitution, the Bill or Rights and the 3 branches of our government. A study guide was sent home last week. Your child may want to revisit videos from class: http://www.illinoisfirstamendmentcenter. com/video.php on the First Amendment and http://smartsongs.org/bill-of-rightsrap about the Bill of Rights. Science At the beginning of the week we will be going over the information for our annual fourth grade Invention Convention! I will discuss this with the students in class on Tuesday and the packets will come home with them on that day. Please take a few minutes to go over this information with your fourth grade and then sign the top page of the packet. I am hoping to have all sign-off pages returned no later than Friday this week. I appreciate your support! Also this week in science we will begin to get into our invention unit. This will be a chance for students to put on their creative hats and put to use some of the information they have learned about simple machines. Well begin by looking at some common objects and coming up with new

If you cannot access them, please let me know. If your student forgets to bring home the Study Link for homework, they can be printed from the following site: http://www.mrnale.com/StudyLinks_Grade _4.htm

and unusual uses for them. Later in the week will start inventing! Our first project will be a Thingamajig, where students have to use various materials to invent something new. UPCOMING INVENTION CONVENTION ASSIGNMENT DATES: !"#$#%&'()"*#!+,-"&#./0# 123-4,#56#78-"8-9##:'#78;"8-<#./==# 78;"8->'8#?'8;"8->'8#@/@#A#BC=D3* . Happy Birthday!!! Peter Stamoulis 1/5 Emily Beers 1/10 Kathie Gonzales 1/11 Grace Creamer 1/12 Abigail Kamin 1/16 Gabriel Mendilian 1/30 *Specials*
MUSIC: Tuesday 10:45-11:25 AM ART: Wednesday, 11:25-12:05 PM Health: Thursday 9:15-9:55 AM CHORUS: Friday 10:45-11:25 AM PHYSICAL EDUCATION: Friday 2L25-3:05 PM MEDIA: Every Other Wednesday, 2:45-3:00 PM

January Birthdays:

As always, your questions/comments are welcome. Please send me an email or a note to school. Kristen Liporto