Room 204 Update February 23, 2014 Spring Street School Mrs.

Liportos class

General Information

I hope you were all able to enjoye the week off and that you did something fun with your fourth grader, whether it be going away, playing a board game, etc. We had a great time visiting my parents in Florida and going swimming, to the beach and relaxing (not so easy to do with a four year old around). Lowell National Historical Park (Lowell Mills) field study forms were due before vacation. Please make sure your child returns it to class on Monday if it wasnt returned before the break. I will need three chaperones for this field trip. I will select names from a hat (there were so many that offered to chaperone, thank you so much) and contact people this week. This is a reminder that ALL tennis tubes need to be returned by Friday, February 28th. If your family is not able to participate in filling a tube at this time please return the empty tube because they will be reused. Thank you to those that have already returned their tube before vacation. The SSS Fun Fair is going to be on Sunday, March 23rd from 12:00-4:00. This year our class theme for the Basket Raffle (which is always a big fundraiser for the school) is XBOX. Suggested donatations

for this basket are Target gift cards or cash towards the purchase of an XBOX and accessories. We will be collecting donations until March 11th. If you have any questions, please contact the Basket Raffle Committee, Gretchen Monopoli - gmonop@yahoo.com Kim Coghlin - kimcoghlin@townisp.com Liz Bergquist - liz_bergquist@hotmail.com IMPORTANT DATES *MCAS Long Composition Tuesday, Mar. 18 *Lowell Mills Field Study- Wednesday, Mar. 19 *SSS Fun Fair, Sunday March 23 *MCAS English Language Arts Tuesday, Mar. 25 and Wednesday, Mar. 26 *April Vacation- Apr. 21-Apr. 25 *MCAS Math Tuesday, May 13Wednesday, May 14 Homework A few weeks ago I gave each student their current total from their reading logs so far this year. The minimum number of minutes that should have been read at the end of this week is 800. There are many students that are well above this amount and there are some students that are below this, as well. Please check in with your fourth grader to see what their total is as of last week. Students should be reading at least 40 minutes a week, but I strongly encourage them to aim for at least

100 minutes weekly. The current classroom average based on the reading logs that were turned in before vacation is 242 minutes a week! Congratulations to our first few Super Readers of the year! I hope we can add more names to the list as the year continues. !!!!!! SUPER READERS!!!!!! The following students have read over 10,000 minutes this year and have been added to the Liporto Super Readers Hall of Fame! Noah Quadri 12/6/13 Gabriel Mendilian 2/7/14 Writing This week will be looking at the mock long compositions that were written before vacation and discussing areas that we have strengths in as well as areas we will continue to work on. Copies of the students writing went home on Friday before vacation. Well also spend time this week continuing to look at opinion writing. Language Arts This week will be our final week working on synthesizing. We will use what we have learned to apply this to summarizing with nonfiction text. We will also practice summarizing by looking at fables and determining what the moral or big idea of the tale is in each story. We will also be looking at the grammar skill of possessive nouns. I have noticed in the writing that students are not when to use the apostrophe to show possession. Math We will be finishing up with unit 7 in math this week. We

will work with fractions in probability using spinners and various games and then will review all fraction skills. Math Club this Tuesday will be all about fractions! All are welcome at 8am. EVERYDAY MATH FAMILY LETTERS on-line address:
http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/parents/4 th-grade/view-family-letters/

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 They can also print the Study Links from the Everyday Math Online site: www.everydaymathonline.com Social Studies- from Mrs. Luby We will look at the natural resources that make the South Region work! Why are its water, warm climate, rich soil, sunshine, and oil/natural gas important to the region and the country? Continue to practice the South Regions states and capitals for the upcoming quiz on Thursday, March. Check the Social Studies resources for helpful sites. Science After vacation in science we will be starting another Science Court case to apply the knowledge we have learned about simple machines. In Science Court: Work & Simple Machines, Mr. Sludge accuses Mary Murray of being

the laziest worker at Robocorp because she never breaks a sweat. But is Mary lazy or just smart? The students will become the jury in this exciting case (Students, the secret number this week is 1,370 the number of miles Mrs. Liporto travelled to visit her family this vacation week). UPCOMING INVENTION CONVENTION ASSIGNMENT DATES: !"#$"%&'"()'"#$"%&'"(*+*(,(-./012( 34%56$"%7(78'596(:$(;<$;1<$6(=&%8(%8$&<( &"#$"%&'"7>(;'7%$<7>(1"6(?'22$<?&19( ;<$7$"%1%&'"@ Happy Birthday!!! February Birthdays: There are no student birthdays in Feb. *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 2:25-3:05 PM MEDIA: Every Other Wednesday, 2:45-3:00 PM

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