Our field trip to the Grand Rapids Symphony and the Van Andel Museum was fun and cold! Thank you to the parents and grandparents for coming along with us and braving the walks to the bus, etc in the cold weather. I also sent a thank you to our bus drivers for getting us back to school safely in some yucky weather that afternoon.

Homework: Page 109 in the workbook- all.
  

For all:  Reading: Read every day.

  

For some: Delta Math Review-  (This weekend some students may not have the packet at home as they were to get it returned on Friday.)

Several students brought home a packet to review concepts they need to continue to practice at home and school. These are to be turned in to me on Monday for a check in. There was a note attached to the front about them not having to be completed, just show that some work has been done.
 
  For all:  February Book Project- Focus on Character (DUE MARCH 3)  

  We went over this again on Friday. Students know:

- They should done with their books. 

- If they are completing the assignment at home on their own technology, it 

    should be emailed to me by Tuesday morning.

- If anyone needs time on Monday to use a computer, the entire assignment should be written out and ready to just be typed in.

------------------------

March Book Project: Create a book jacket for your book.

I went through the March assignment and handed out directions for this on Friday. 

I will attach it and copy it to this blog page. The due date is on the assignment page - March 30. Monday we will go to the library in case anyone needs to choose a book.

 
MATH:  
 There are tutorials for division and some practice in order of the concept to be taught. 

  We continue working in our Division unit. This includes dividing whole numbers, decimals, and powers of 10 and problem-solving. Although many students were not taught long division in 4th grade, we have been practicing since early in the school year with single digit divisors. We are already into 2-digit divisors. We have spent a lot of time this week using various problem-solving strategies. Some answers require, rounding up, some using the divisor and remainder as a fraction or decimal, and sometimes the answer is the remainder. We also began learning to divide when there is a decimal in the dividend.
 
READING: We continue in the genre unit reading Sign of the Beaver. It revolves around the theme of facing challenges. We have been reading as a class and in pairs to discuss this novel. Students are working on comprehension and strategies, quoting from  and paraphrasing text, and using text clues to respond to questions and find meaning of unknown vocabulary. Our read aloud is Echohawk and relates to social studies and the genre unit book. 

  Each week we are taking one day off of this novel and focusing on nonfiction. This week we read, "The History of Yum" about the Hershey company's history and about Recees's Pieces history.  

WRITING:   Students compared and contrasted the two articles on a graphic organizer and will write a short compare/contrast piece on Monday. Students completed their version of the book "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" focusing on how commas and apostrophes can change meaning. We will share these on Monday.

                                                                                                                                       

SCIENCE: 

  Students are working in their groups to research and report on a planet or dwarf planet. Groups were given a page for notes and we discussed standards that will be assessed. They have the choice of creating a poster, google presentation, or Prezi. If they have another idea they may ask.

   

Spelling  Students took Spelling Test 20 on Friday. Next week's lesson is about the homophones "there, their, and they're". 

We will continue to learn about comma rules, have more lessons on using quotation marks, and continue to learn about and use figurative language.
    

Here is what the assignment for the March Book Project looks like:

 

MARCH BOOK PROJECT  -  Create Book Jacket!

DUE: Monday, March 30

For your March book project, use your creativity and knowledge of your book to design a fantastic, wonderful, unique book cover for your novel.

You will choose a chapter book and create a book jacket. I will provide a template for the book jacket. Look at the cover of some of your favorite books to get an idea of the format.

BOOK COVER PROJECT

You will need to include:

FRONT COVER:

___ Title - large & bold

___ An illustration (This should be appealing)

___ Author (This should be smaller than the title and at the bottom) 

BACK COVER:

                    ___ An intriguing summary (BLURB) of the book.            

SPINE:

          ___The title and author’s name.

INSIDE FRONT FLAP:

                   ___ A description of the main character.

BACK FLAP:

___ A favorite part

EFFORT:

___ Spelling, neatness, punctuation are important! It should look like

       you spent time on it.

Week of February  23rd

   

FIELD TRIP: Tuesday, February 24th  
  Symphony and Grand Rapids Museum. Cost is $7.  

WE DO HAVE SCHOOL FEBRUARY 27TH- 
  (Previously a break day)
 
Homework:
  For some: Delta Math Review-  (This weekend some students may not have the packet at home as they were to get it returned on Friday.)

Several students brought home a packet to review concepts they need to continue to practice at home and school. These are to be turned in to me on Monday for a check in. There was a note attached to the front about them not having to be completed, just show that some work has been done.
 
For all:  Reading: Read every day.
 
For all:  February Book Project- Focus on Character (DUE MARCH 3) This assignment has a technology component. As some students do not have access to this at home, some time will be given in class for this part. 
 Students should have a book chosen (fiction) and begin reading. I went over the assignment and took questions. I will discuss it each week and it's on planners as an ongoing assignment. At the bottom of the blog I copy and pasted the assignment. You'll also see it as an attachment on email. Students have the assignment and rubric (on the reverse side of their assignment page)
  Some students do not have access to technology at home so I will give a couple days (March 2 and 3) for some in-class work time on the computer. I told the kids that they should have everything written out and prepared to complete the tech part of the project if they need time in class.

MATH:  
 There are tutorials for division and some practice in order of the concept to be taught. 

Students took the Multiplication of Whole Numbers and Decimals test on Wednesday. Some students that were absent were to take it Friday. They will take it on Tuesday and Wednesday depending upon the days they were absent. We began working in our Division unit on Thursday. This includes dividing whole numbers, decimals, and powers of 10 and problem-solving.

READING: We continue in the genre unit reading Sign of the Beaver. It revolves around the theme of facing challenges. We have been reading as a class and in pairs to discuss this novel. Students are working on comprehension and strategies, quoting from  and paraphrasing text, and using text clues to respond to questions and find meaning of unknown vocabulary. Our read aloud is Echohawk and relates to social studies and the genre unit book.
 
  WRITING:                                                                                                                                       
   Several students read their "Snowman" stories last week- they were terrific!  They really did well focusing in on using similes and a variety of sentence structures to make their stories more interesting! 

  We reviewed comma rules last week and have done some practice work. I read Eats Shoots and Leaves to the class. This book has the same sentence on 2 pages side by side. Each one uses commas in a different place which changes the meaning. The kids really enjoyed this book and we are going to be making our own version this coming week.

SCIENCE: We discussed the tides, reviewed the moon phases and lunar eclipses. We have also been reviewing the reason we have seasons and information related to this. 

  Students have their groups and chose the planet or dwarf planet they will research next week. Groups were given a page for notes and we discussed standards that will be assessed. They have the choice of creating a poster, google presentation, or Prezi. If they have another idea they may ask.

  Spelling  Students will take the Lesson 19 (oi/oy) Spelling Test on Monday
   

 Our field trip to the Grand Rapids Symphony and the Van Andel Museum is this coming Tuesday, February 24th.  Some things to remember: 

- The cost is $7

 -Please have your child wear a hat, gloves, and warm coat- it will be cold and we do have a couple short walks between venues.

- Wear shoes that are comfortable for walking outside and around in the museum.

- Bring a sack lunch and a drink- (we will have to eat on the bus)

- Students may bring technology on the bus, but this will need to be left on the bus- we'll return to same buses. Students are responsible for their possessions.

Week of February 9th

Week of February 9th

FIELD TRIP February 24th    
  Symphony and Grand Rapids Museum. Cost is $7.

WE DO HAVE SCHOOL FEBRUARY 27TH- 
  (Previously a break day)

  *Homework this weekend-  
 
For all: Math- Workbook Pg 90

For some: Delta Math Review- 
 Several students brought home a packet to review concepts they need to continue to practice at home and school. These are to be turned in to me on Monday for a check in. There was a note attached to the front about them not having to be completed, just show that some work has been done.

For all:  Reading: Read every day.
For all:  February Book Project- Focus on Character (DUE MARCH 3)
This assignment has a technology component. As some students do not have access to this at home, some time will be given in class for this part. 
 Students should have a book chosen (fiction) and begin reading. I went over the assignment and took questions. I will discuss it each week and it's on planners as an ongoing assignment. At the bottom of the blog I copy and pasted the assignment. You'll also see it as an attachment on email. Students have the assignment and rubric (on the reverse side of their assignment page)
  Some students do not have access to technology at home so I will give a couple days (March 2 and 3) for some in-class work time on the computer. I told the kids that they should have everything written out and prepared to complete the tech part of the project if they need time in class.

MATH:   

     We have been reviewing all concepts in our Multiplication unit. Monday we will do the test review pages, Tuesday review, and Wednesday is the test. We will begin in our Division unit next. This includes dividing whole numbers, decimals, and powers of 10.

READING:
We began our next genre unit novel at the end of the week. It revolves around the theme of facing challenges. We will be reading and discussing the novel as a class and in pairs. Our read aloud is Echohawk and relates to social studies and the genre unit book. We read a lot about how they have morning corn and eat corn cakes, corn pudding, corn mush, and parched corn. I brought in some cornbread on Friday and this was a hit with most kids! 
 
WRITING:                                                                                                                                       
  Final Drafts are due on Wednesday. Students have been working on a short story focusing on sentence fluency, simile/metaphor, prepositional phrases, and Onomatopeia (sound words). We have done some mini-lessons about these concepts. Students have an assignment page that includes a checklist of exactly what they will do, what standards they will be graded on, and graphic organizers to refer to about the concepts listed above. We will continue to work on using commas and comma rules, using quotation marks, and parts of speech.

SCIENCE:
We discussed the tides, reviewed the moon phases and lunar eclipses. We have also been reviewing the reason we have seasons and information related to this. We will begin projects about the solar system at the end of next week.

Spelling 
Students took Lesson 18 Spelling Test on Friday.
  Next week's skill is spelling words with oi and oy.
  I have been sending the spelling list home each Monday. I have been talking with the class about the fact that even though we don't take the word test anymore, those words come up in the skills and proofreading parts of the test. Knowing how to spell these words will be very helpful!

February Book Project

We are focusing on characterization this month. You will complete a project that explains details about the qualities/characteristics of your main character.

How to present the project:

1)     This project must be completed on an iPad or computer

2)    You may choose from the following presentation ideas

            *Prezi, ,     *Go Animate,    * Your idea

        *Popplet,     *iMovie,         *Google presentation

3)    Email or share the project to me

·      Be sure to choose a format that you know how to use unless you are willing to learn something new at home.

My presentation will be ________________________________

Project Minimum Requirements

(If you check these off as you complete them, you’ll know you have  everything you need!)

____ Book title and author

____ Your name

____ A picture of the character- Your creation or a picture from the book

____ 6 adjectives (describing words) that describe his/her personality

             Use your character traits list!

 ____ 4 MAJOR events from the character’s life.

 ____ The character’s major accomplishment

 ____ A line of dialogue that the person said OR might say

 ____ Write a question you would ask the character if you met him/her.

 ____ What do you like most about this person?

 ____ Who in your life is like this person?

Week of February 3rd

Week of February 3rd

REMEMBER:
   2 HOUR DELAY WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH
   WE DO HAVE SCHOOL FEBRUARY 27TH- (Previously a break day)

  *Homework this weekend-  
Math- Workbook Pg 95 and 96 (all)  
Social Studies- some students have to complete a pamphlet. I told them to be sure they had the social studies book and the pamphlet in their backpacks for this.
This is in their planners.
Reading: Read every day and:

  February Book Project- Focus on Character (DUE MARCH 3)
This assignment has a technology component. As some students do not have access to this at home, some time will be given in class for this part. 
 Students should have a book chosen (fiction) and begin reading. I went over the assignment and took questions. I will discuss it each week and it's on planners as an ongoing assignment. At the bottom of the blog I copy and pasted the assignment. You'll also see it as an attachment on email. Students have the assignment and rubric (on the reverse side of their assignment page)
  Some students do not have access to technology at home so I will give a couple days at the end of the month for some in-class work time. I told the kids that they should have everything written out and prepared to complete the tech part of the project if they need time in class.

MATH:   

     We continue in our Multiplication of Whole Numbers and Decimals. We have been  multiplying larger whole numbers such as 456 x 34 and also decimal numbers such as 4.56 x 2.3 as well as multiplying with zeroes in the decimal such as 3.34 x .04. We have been reviewing how to place the decimal correctly in an answer. Part of our discussion is predicting whether our answers will be larger or smaller and why. For instance, $4.48 x .5 is going to be smaller because we are looking at 1/2 of $4.48. This is an important part of understanding decimals beyond just knowing the algorithm!
   We have been multiplying by powers of 10 with exponents. We will continue to work on both of these concepts, problem-solving and reviewing other past concepts as we have been daily. I'm expecting the test for this to be early the week of the 16th. I will let you know.


Delta Math Tests- 
 Several students brought home a packet to review concepts they need to continue to practice at home and school. These are to be turned in to me on Monday for a check in. There was a note attached to the front about them not having to be completed, just show that some work has been done.

READING:
We began our next genre unit novel at the end of the week. It revolves around the theme of facing challenges. We will be reading and discussing the novel as a class and in pairs. Our read aloud is Echohawk and relates to social studies and the genre unit book. We read a lot about how they have morning corn and eat corn cakes, corn pudding, corn mush, and parched corn. I brought in some cornbread on Friday and this was a hit with most kids! 
 
WRITING:                                                                                                                                       
  Students began a short story focusing on sentence fluency, simile/metaphor, prepositional phrases, and Onomatopeia (sound words). We have done some mini-lessons about these concepts. Students have an assignment page that includes a checklist of exactly what they will do, what standards they will be graded on, and graphic organizers to refer to about the concepts listed above. We will continue to work on using commas and comma rules, using quotation marks, and parts of speech.

SCIENCE:
We reviewed the moon phases and the reason why we have these. We began discussing the solar and lunar eclipses. We will finish this and add in information about the tides next week.


Spelling 
Students will take the Lesson 17 Spelling Test on Friday. The skill was lesson making plural words. 
  Next week's skill is comparatives and superlatives. (greater/greatest)
  I have been sending the spelling list home each Monday. I have been talking with the class about the fact that even though we don't take the word test anymore, those words come up in the skills and proofreading parts of the test. Knowing how to spell these words will be very helpful!

February Book Project

We are focusing on characterization this month. You will complete a project that explains details about the qualities/characteristics of your main character.

How to present the project:

1)     This project must be completed on an iPad or computer

2)    You may choose from the following presentation ideas

            *Prezi, ,     *Go Animate,    * Your idea

        *Popplet,     *iMovie,         *Google presentation

3)    Email or share the project to me

·      Be sure to choose a format that you know how to use unless you are willing to learn something new at home.

My presentation will be ________________________________

Project Minimum Requirements

(If you check these off as you complete them, you’ll know you have  everything you need!)

____ Book title and author

____ Your name

____ A picture of the character- Your creation or a picture from the book

____ 6 adjectives (describing words) that describe his/her personality

             Use your character traits list!

 ____ 4 MAJOR events from the character’s life.

 ____ The character’s major accomplishment

 ____ A line of dialogue that the person said OR might say

 ____ Write a question you would ask the character if you met him/her.

 ____ What do you like most about this person?

 ____ Who in your life is like this person?