Hi Families!
Quick notes to know:
- Ongoing – Bluestem Reading Opportunities Blue Stem Book Awards
- September 6th, 2021- No School-Labor Day
- September 8th and 9th – Vision and Hearing Screenings
- September 9th and 10th – NWEA 4th Grade
- September 10th, 2021 – (Observe) Patriot’s Day
- September 13th, 2021 – Comstock Curriculum Night – 6 PM. Virtual
- September 15th, 2021-Early Release
- September 17th, 2021 – All School (Virtual) Assembly.
- 9/25 Scholastic Book orders due (Flyers coming home Monday) online code P83VZ
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- Just a reminder: Students should be writing down their daily homework assignments in their agenda (spiral calendar notebook). We do this as a class at the end of the day with a written example on the board. We ask that parents look over what is written each day and initial the bottom. We will check over that day the following morning and stamp or initial. If we see missing assignments or information, we will notate it in the agenda. Also, at times we may write a brief note in the agenda as well, as it is a great communication tool. You may choose to also write reminders or brief notes as well, (some examples; had difficulty with math homework, is a walker today instead of carpool, etc.) As a backup, I update a homework calendar at the end of each day, this is in case a student can’t read their writing or forgets to write something down. The calendar is housed here on the website. You can also use this link to add it to your personal calendar.
- Please check out the Bluestem reading opportunity that is being offered, details in attachment: Blue Stem Book Awards
- I am putting in a Scholastic book order. Please do not feel obligated to order! Sometimes scholastic offers 1.00 books as well. You can choose to have your books shipped to your home or delivered to me with our class order *then I would send it home in a backpack). With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS).
Class Order Due Date: 09/25/21
Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/P83VZ
Shop Digital Flyers for Our Grade with Your Child: https://clubs.scholastic.com/grade4
All orders also earn FREE Books for our class. Thank you for your support!
- We hope you will join us for curriculum night which will be held virtually this year, details to come soon.
NEXT WEEK:
Reading and Writing,
This week, students will listen to the story “Thank you Mr. Faulker.” Students will compare and contrast the central themes in the three stories we have been focusing on; “A Bad Case of the Stripes,” “Mark Miller,” and “Thank You, Mr. Falker.” Students will also continue to practice skills we learned last year such as making connections “spinner spider” from a text to self, to another text and to the world. We will also review “fix up bear” as we learn even the best readers sometimes will need to stop and reread text to improve comprehension. Over the next two weeks, we will use the skill “Questioning Owl” – how good readers ask themselves questions about the story they are reading. We will also work on “Inferring Iguana” and discover how to “read between the lines” and use clues the author gives us about plot and character development.
After we wrap up “Thank you Mr. Falker,” we will start the chapter book, “The Hundred Dresses” by Eleanor Estes. We will continue reading this book for the next few weeks, as we utilize different comprehension strategies to understand the story deeply.
This story had a theme of acceptance and treating each other with kindness, which students will be exploring. We will also use our comprehension strategies to become better readers by deeply understanding the text.
Over the next two weeks, we will continue to roll out the expectations for our last 3 Daily 5 topics; Word Work, Work on Writing and Read to Someone. Students will work on learning the expectations and practice these skills for use throughout the year in Language Arts centers. My hope is by the end of next week, all 5 parts of the Daily 5 will be open for use. Once this happens, there will be weekly assignments in each part of Daily 5 for students to work on.
In the next two weeks, students will have a listening center story about economic concepts, work on cursive writing, and use typing.com. We will also write a letter to a person who has helped us, in the style of “Thank You Mr. Falker.”
We just learned the process and routine for our spelling homework as a whole class with the same list. This week the students will start their individual spelling groups. These groups were decided by using a filtering test and students were grouped by which spelling patterns they needed to work on. We will be completing the routine and starting spelling in our groups, despite needing to start on a Tuesday. Students will merge Monday and Tuesday’s homework, while the rest of the week will remain the same with a test on Friday. Just a reminder the normal spelling schedule is as follows:
Monday
– Your child will sort their words into categories like the ones we did in school. Your child should read each word aloud during this activity. Ask your child to explain to you why the words are sorted in a particular way; what does the sort reveal about spelling in general? Ask the student to sort them again as fast as possible. You may want to time them.
Tuesday
– Do a “Write Sort”
– Your child should lay down the header (bolded) words or letters to help distinguish each rule.
– Child reads the word out loud and puts into the correct category.
-Adult will check to see if the word is in the correct category.
– Child will write down the sort in the word work journal.
Wednesday
– Do a “Blind Sort” with your child.
-Lay down the header (bolded) words to help distinguish each rule.
-Adult will read the word aloud and the child will point to the category it belongs to. Adult will put down the word after the child has pointed to the correct category and the child will move the word under the appropriate heading.
-If your child makes an error without seeing the word, show the word and have them sort it, but then try the blind sort again with words that they miss with their initial try.
Thursday
-Do a “ blind write sort”.
-Use the list of spelling words from Monday.
-As you call out the words in a random order, students should write them in categories, identifying the similarities between the words.
-Call out any words your child misspells a second or even a third time.
-Rewrite the list in the correct categories.
Friday
-Test Day (complete a speed sort the morning of, if there is time)
Please keep in mind, I may ask specific students to rewrite the lists more frequently if I believe a student needs additional practice. This will be communicated with you via the agenda planner.
4th grade math,
This past week the students learned a variety of strategies to solve multiplication problems. Ask your child what strategies they learned for X4, X6, or X9. We also began our number corner calendar that has Ancient Egyptian numbers. Next week the students will study multiplicative comparison and equations.
Science/Social Studies,
We are starting a social studies unit on economics. This unit will continue for the next several weeks. Students will be learning economic terms and vocabulary. We will work on creating an economic vocabulary book. We will learn about consumers, producers, budgets, opportunity costs, resources, scarcity, import and export.
We will also be analyzing scenarios and applying economic concepts to the scenarios. We will read “One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference,” written by Kate Smith Milway. Then we will complete activities regarding the story and the economic principles introduced in the story, such as budgeting, saving, profit and loans.
We will also read “Rock, Brock and the Savings Shock” by Sheila Bair. We will complete activities afterward, by analyzing the economic choices each boy made and the impact those choices made at the end of the story.
Later during this unit, Ms. Naomi will be a guest teacher and teach students a lesson about “food miles.” She will show students how far items have to travel to reach our grocery stores and also teach about sustainable practices.
We have a field trip in the works to a local apple orchard to learn about local agriculture and the economic concepts involved in farming, including crop failure. We are waiting for final approval and arrangements for bussing, but please be on the lookout for more details to come on this field trip.
We will continue phenology and solo spots, alternating each week. Please make sure your student is prepared to be outside on a regular basis.
I hope you have a wonderful week!
