DATES:
Monday, Oct. 1.............FUNDRAISER ENDS
Saturday Oct. 6.............EVERYTHING FOR KIDS SALE - 9am -2 pm
Thursday Oct. 4............SCHOOL PICTURES
Friday, Oct. 12.............Outdoor Discovery Center field trip


Parent email alerts:
I have been trying to make a parent group with your email addresses in order to alert you when I post to the blog, etc. I am having some technical difficulties and Ms. Baker is helping me. Hopefully that will be ready next week. Meanwhile, you can join my fusion page and I will see if we can get that to work. I emailed the class the link to my fusion page where they can access the blog, Spelling City, and links to other math sites for help which I will add to. You can access it quickly that way.


Field Trips- these are the real dates! We have a field trip to the Outdoor Discovery Center on October 12th. 4th and 5th grade is going on a field trip together as well- more information is coming. If you want to volunteer you MUST have a WISH form submitted. Volunteers for 5th grade are coordinated by WISH.


Math:
We continue MEAP review prep. We spent a lot of time on Order of Operations and also learned about numerical expressions. EX: six decreased by 3 is 3 = 6 - 3 = 3.
We will be taking the test on Wednesday. We have been talking quite a bit about not skipping any steps when working the order of operations problems. This is when the mistakes pop up!

Reading:
We have worked on MEAP Prep., comprehension strategies, and reading for information strategies this week. Compare and Contrast is a text structure that students frequently encounter and use ever day and we continued our work with this. Cause and Effect is another text structure we worked with this week. We learned about signal words to look for in reading and use in writing this structure. We read an article about Tornadoes and searched for cause and effect situations and responded to comprehension questions. We read How many Days to America and student wrote their questions and thinking in order to focus on the strategies of questioning and monitoring their comprehension.



Reading at home: I am hoping students have been reading at home frequently. In October we will begin our monthly reading assignments which consists of reading a novel at home, creating a project, and presenting it.
 
Writing:
  Students' first writing piece, a narrative about something from their summer, is due Monday. I give minimal assistance for this first piece in order to see what we need to focus on.

Spelling:
  Our spelling skill for next week (Lesson 3) is irregular verbs. If you go on my fusion page, there are directions to get to Spelling City where students can play games and take practice tests over the spelling lists for each week. I am planning to send a spelling list each week.


Science: 
Students will have a quiz on Wednesday over lessons 1-4 which focus on the reason for seasons and how Earth's rotation and revolution around the sun make a year and a day.
Our science unit is Objects in the Sky. We have continued to investigate what causes the seasons by watching video clips and having demonstrations and discussions. Students also performed demonstrations. The 2 main reason for the seasons:
  1) The tilt of the Earth's axis (23.5 degrees)
  2) The relationship of the sun to the Earth in its rotation around the sun- basically how directly/indirectly the sun's rays are striking locations on Earth. 
  We also used data from charts to graph the daylight hours of 3 cities during the solstices and equinoxes and then analyzed the information.