Marvelous Monday

Hello all! Hope you had a great weekend! We had a busy day....

We started the day with Power 1/2 Hour. Then we barreled right into Reading. We learned our new vocab words, and listened to our new story. After that, we talked a little more about narrative elements: resolution and conflict. Fun with that! In English we talked about creating solid topic and thesis statements. Additionally, we worked on a grammar assignment with nouns. We practiced and shared. In Math, we worked with compasses, creating an inscribed circle. It was tricky! Then, we learned a new math game: Polygon Pair Up. We played with partners.

Homework:

1. Reading Log due Thurs
2. Spelling Packet due Friday
3. English pg 76 #1-9 due tomorrow
   
4. Math Journal Page 16 due tomorrow
5. Finish Social Studies Vocab journal, due tomorrow

Reminders

• Wednesday: 100 pennies to wear flip flops
• Thursday: Chicken Biscuit Sale $2.50
• Friday: Scholastic Book Orders Due
  

Links for Computer Lab

You may use your login and play Top it! Subtraction or Addition. Ask Mrs. Fiete if you want to play the game with a partner. Math Link

You may play a game about Nouns!

You may watch a Brainpop about nouns.

Learn more about the winter holidays we heard about in our story by watching this brainpop.

In Speak The Language last week, we learned about business letters. Here's another brainpop for you to understand more about them.

Also in Speak The Language, we learned/reviewed fables. Here's a great website to remind you what fables are, and then some you can read!

Fantastic Friday

OOPS... I saved this as a draft instead of posting! Better late than never?

Week two complete? Check!

Today was a whirlwind day. We started with our morning work quiz, reading test, and spelling test. SNOOZE! Then we did an English assignment about declarative and interogative sentences. After Spanish, we helped our Brown Family by taking out the ENTIRE SCHOOL'S recycling bins. Then we did "Speak The Language" with some more reading-based terms. After recess we went back to work on Math. In math, we used straws and twist ties again to create larger shapes. In Social Studies we worked on our vocab journals.

Tonight, there's no homework. Friday Folders are coming home. I encourage parents to review student grades and ask questions.

Two things of note:
Scholastic book orders due next Friday 9/3
Chicken Biscuit sale ($2.50 each) next Thursday 9/2

Thoughtful Thursday

Schwew! Our brains are tired tonight! We started the day with Reading, where we reviewed a lot of prefixes and suffixes, and their meaning. Then we dug into our story to find words with prefixes and suffixes. We took a break for Spanish. For English, we did "Speak the Language" where we review some of the words we might encounter in our testing adventures. We talked about what they mean and when to use them. Following that, we wrote in our writer's notebooks. During math we talked more about quadrilaterals and parallelograms. Social studies brought a vocabulary journal to work on. Schwew! Tomorrow will only bring more challenges and opportunities!

Homework:

1. Reading: finish the prefix/suffix chart: due tomorrow
   
2. Reading Test tomorrow
3. Spelling test tomorrow
4. Spelling packet due tomorrow
5. English wksht 1/2 due tomorrow
6. Math Study Link 1-4 due tomorrow

We have Spanish tomorrow. Don't forget Book Orders are due next Friday, Sept 3rd!

Wacky Wednesday

Well, it was a wacky day in room 217. It started with yours truly, Mrs. Fiete, singing about losing her chalk; then moving on to singing "Don't Stop Believing." Some of the students started to sing along with me! It was great! But alas, all the shenanigans had to come to an end with the 9am bell.

We started the day with reading. We read a poem by Mya Angelou. We talked about its imagery, as well as discussed why it was chosen to be paired with our story. Students used their appointment clocks to break into pairs, where they read the story aloud and answered some comprehension questions. In English, we chatted more about the different types of sentences and nouns. After music, we got our pictures taken. (CHEESE!) We went to the computer lab for a while. After lunch and recess, we got to do some really cool math. We used straws and twist ties to create geometric shapes: triangles and quadrilaterals (squares, rhombus, parrallelogram, rectangle, trapezoids). Students will be bringing home their straws home tonight--- ask them to show you their shapes! Also, ask them to describe the shapes-- why is it a square and not a rectangle? We finished up our day with a little social studies and working with maps. All in all, not a shabby day.

Homework:

1. Reading Log due tomorrow
2. Spelling Pretest Tomorrow
3. Finish Math Journal Page 8
4. Spelling Packet due Friday

Reminder: Book Club Orders are due NEXT friday: 9/3

Links for Computer Lab

Language Arts Games

You can play any of the prefix or suffix games.
You can watch the brain pop on sentence fragments.

-OR-


Math Games

Play games.

You can play Top-it addition by yourself or with a friend (get permission to play with a friend first, please)

Oops I did it again!

I missed TWO days this time. Man, I guess I'm still in summer mode. I apologize for the lack of posts. Hopefully your student was able to keep you up to date with what we've done in class.

Today, we took our DIBELS test. Remember, this test measures how fast students read. This year, they added a comprehension component. Today, we also popcorn read our story. We continued to work in English on declarative (statments) and interrogative (questions) sentences, as well as nouns and pronouns. We even got to write in our Writer's Notebooks for twenty minutes! We went to the library and practiced finding fiction books, then checked out new books. Finally, we ended the day with a MATHATHON. Lots of math! We're learning about lines, line segments, points, and rays. We also learned a new game we'll play tomorrow called "Top It." It was a jam-packed day!

PLEASE REMEMBER PICTURE DAY IS TOMORROW!!

Homework:

1. Reading log due Thursday
2. Spelling packet due Friday
3. Spelling pretest Thursday
4. English Page 17, #17-25 -- circle the nouns and pronouns in blue too! Due Wednesday-- tomorrow
5. Math Study Link 1-2 due Wednesday, tomorrow. (Students should be bringing home a letter about math that includes answers to the study link so that you can help them!)
6. Scholastic Book Orders due 9/3/2010

Belated Thursday

Hey everyone! Sorry for my belated Thursday post. Yesterday, our computer systems at BCSC went down completely! YIKES! I had a meeting after school, and by the time I got home I completely forgot about posting. I guess I need to get my brain in gear for this school year! I apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.

Yesterday, we worked in our English books with complete sentences and fragments (as your student what a fragment is!). We also took a spelling pretest. We voted on our class read aloud: Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff. We took a division timed test. In the afternoon we took a pre-assessment for this year's math series. This test will not be graded. It just helps us see at the end of the year how much our kidlets have grown in the brain power!! We finished up the day learning about how to make inferences in literature. We worked on a sheet together!

I won't post homework since, well.... yesterday is over. :) I'll be sure to post tonight!

Here's to a super day!!!

From the Desk of Mrs. Winings

Dear Fourth Grade Parents,

The state of Indiana requires that all fourth grade students have their hearing screened. The hearing screenings were completed on August 16^th and 17^th. Please note that only parents of students who did not pass the screening will be sent a letter stating that retesting will be completed in the next two weeks. If your child does not pass the second screening, parents will be contacted by phone to discuss results and any recommendations. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Thank you,

Cindy Winings

Speech/Language Pathologist

317-852-1498 ext 1127

cwinings@brownsburg.k12.in.us

Wacky Wednesday

Three days down and we're still rockin' out! Today, we talked about our writer's notebooks, went to the library, took a lexile test in the computer lab, took a multiplication timed test, popcorn read our story, talked about narrative elements, and started learning about maps and our global address in Social Studies.

Kids made lots of money today from compliments and filling out their assignment notebooks! BANDITS! :)

Tomorrow we have Spanish as a special.

Homework:

Reading Log due tomorrow
Spelling Pretest tomorrow
Reading workbook pages 1 and 2 due tomorrow
Adding pictures to global address (optional)
Collect items to decorate your writer's notebooks on Friday
There will be a reading test on Friday
Spelling Test Friday

Keep up the AMAZING week. I'm so excited about these wonderful people I get to spend the day with. THEY ROCK!

See you tomorrow morning!

Tuesday's Homework

Another great day! We had hearing assessments this morning, if students have any discrepancies in their testing, Mrs. Winings will let you know. We took a math timed test, listened to our story, and reviewed our lifeskills. Tomorrow, we have Music, library AND computer lab! Whoo! We took a beginning of the year assessment in the morning. We're off to a great start and I'm very excited to be a part of this great group of people!

Homework:
Reading log due Thursday
Spelling packet due Friday
Spelling pretest Thursday
Spelling Test Friday
Lifeskills crossword due tomorrow (students should bring home definitions on a separate sheet to help!)

Parent Help?

I'm in need of some parent help with an organization task. With our new math series, we have a number of workbooks. On of these workbooks is filled with pages for students to take home as homework or to show their parents what they've learned. In order to create less confusion for the students (I hope!), I want to not hand out those workbooks, but instead pull out the pages for each lesson and group them into a file folder. So I'd pull out all of the lesson one pages, and put them in a file folder together. All of the lesson two pages (one from each workbook) would go into another file folder. I'd love to have a parent volunteer come in and help with this organizational task. If you would be interested/willing, I'd really appreciate it. Please contact me if you're available. If not, there will be plenty of opportunities for you throughout the year!!

317.852.1498 ext 1192
sfiete@brownsburg.k12.in.us

First Day of School

Schwew! We survived our first day of school! It was a great day, despite all the administrative things we needed to get done in the classroom. Expandable files are ready to go, and we're on track for a great year! Today, we completed a first day writing piece, took an addition timed test, reviewed this weeks's spelling words, and previewed this week's story.

Tonight's homework:

Reading log due Thursday
Spelling packet due Friday
Spelling pretest Thursday
Spelling Test Friday
Parent Contact Info Sheet

Hope you guys have a restful night and I'll see you in the morning, ready to learn!