Happy January!

winter2Hope everyone is enjoying the winter wonderland we live in! I haven’t posted in a while, so I thought I’d better catch up!

We have been hard at work writing personal essays and now we are learning to write “literary” essays. This is a skill that can be challenging for fourth graders! They are learning to determine the “big idea” of a piece of literature, and then to defend their thinking by providing “evidence” from within the writing. Everyone is doing a great job and soon they will be turning in their final essay.

In math, we are now moving on to a unit of story problems involving all operations. These are important because they involve everyday, “real-world” math situations, in which they have to determine the math operations (often more than one!) to use to solve the problem.  Again, as with their writing, this involves a lot of critical thinking skills! The students are learning to talk about how they are thinking with each other.  This inspires each thinker to see things in ways they might not have seen before!

Tuesday, January 26th is the date set for the science test on matter! Students will be coming home with flashcards today to practice.  Watch for a review sheet tomorrow (Friday, Jan. 22) to start working with your student studying for the test.  Next week, students will be switching classrooms for their next science unit! Students love getting to know the other fourth grade teachers and WE love getting to know them!

Two last dates to know are the next spelling quiz is on January 29th, and our Valentine’s Party will be February 12th at 2:30 pm.  Students will be making their own valentine’s boxes for a contest if they choose (completely optional to be a part of the contest!!!!).  Otherwise, I will provide a bag for them to decorate and put their valentines in.  So start searching online for that cute valentine’s box to make if you choose!

Stay warm!!!  -Love, Mrs. Q

 

No Spelling This Week!

abc applesHi Everyone!  Just announcement that we will not have new spelling words this week!  Instead we will have a review of the last 4 word lists.  On Monday, Oct. 21, we will pick up with Unit 5.  Just a reminder that the regular spelling words can be found here on the blog under the heading!  Thanks and have a great week!

2 Q Update!

Hi Everyone!

It will be a wonderful 2 weeks here before Christmas break!  We have a few exciting things coming up!  Everything from snow cones to Diversity Day, another writing celebration and holiday party!!  I love this time of year!  The children’s energy is charged with anticipation.

Just a couple of things to be aware of:

1.  Many students are complaining that their gym shoes are too small and don’t want to wear them to gym.  Unfortunately, this poses a safety issue for the gym teachers, as once the floor has lots of mud and dirt on it, it becomes very unsafe to run around on and students slip, fall down, and get hurt.  We would like to ask you to please replace their tennis shoes with larger ones that they may keep in their lockers.  If your family is struggling with financial hardship right now, please let us know and we will find a way to provide shoes for your child.  Thank you!

Your student is writing an “All About” book right now and may ask to bring something in for our next Writing Celebration on Dec. 20th.  We are putting on a “All About Museum” for the first graders and they may want something for their exhibit.  The students will mainly be teaching the first graders from their books and this is purely “optional” to have something to go along with their books.  All live animals would have to be checked out with me, and possibly accompanied by an adult.  🙂  Please remember this is purely optional!  A stuffed animal is perfect too!!  lol

Unit 3 in math is all about measuring.  If you need a centimeter ruler at home, let us know, we do have some paper ones to send home.  We are learning the difference between centimeters and inches.  🙂

This week we are on Unit 11 for spelling.  Remember all words can be found here on the blog under the spelling tab.  Next week (Dec. 17th), we will not have spelling words, we will just review all words we’ve had thus far.  We will not have a homework packet next week either.  My gift to you!!

And last of all, our Holiday Party will be Friday, Dec. 21st at 12:40 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.  Let me know if anyone needs help with Christmas stocking items.  I will surely be glad to help!

I am so grateful for these beautiful children you entrust in my care every week!  I wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!   Love, Mrs. Q

 

A Great First Week!

We had a great start to our first week of school!  Parents, thank you for sending me such wonderful kids!  Above are some pictures of our first week activities.  We had a few “Get to Know You” activities, as well as establishing our “Caring Community”.  This week we jump into our first week 0f spelling and social studies.  (Watch for our Spelling Preview sheet to come home tomorrow – Monday!) We also have our first visit to the school library where we check out our first Reading Counts books.  Our official library day will always be on Wednesdays. However, we will be able to return Reading Counts books daily after taking and passing our quizzes, in order to get new books to read nightly.  Occasionally, we won’t be able to get into the library for one reason or another. If this happens, don’t panic!  Just grab a book to read off of your own shelf at home!  You can take a quiz on that one too!  Just let me know that it is a book from home and we’ll look to see if there is a quiz!  Otherwise, we can do a “Book Blog” too, and that counts for points!  (We’ll teach you how to do that here at school!)

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Spelling Site!

TN_30-08-07_30Students and Parents!

I have just added a site that lists our spelling words and gives fun activities to practice our weekly lists!  Just look under our blogroll for spelling activities!  We are on Unit 11.  So here’s one more fun thing to do on your snow day kids!!

Spelling

TN_5-12-07_08c

Hi Everyone!  Hope you are off to a great week!  Coming home yesterday was a preview sheet for our spelling program (it had a couple of apples on it with worms and a list of 5 words written by your child).  Each Monday, this will be the sheet you want to watch for as far as having words to practice throughout the week for spelling.  We will be doing certain spelling exercises here at school on a daily basis and taking a short quiz over the words on Friday.  Once we learn the words, your child will be held accountable to spell those words correctly in their daily writing.  This week’s words are:  an, can, there, we, your and a bonus word – September. Please review these words with your speller sometime throughout the week!  This will help your child build their automatic recall and confidence in writing.  Thanks for all of your help and for sending me such great kids!!!!  🙂