The week before Spring Break has come and gone, and here we are now at the week after already! We had a fun field trip at Lacomedia today learning the real story of the Three Little Pigs. The show took place in a courtroom, which was convenient because we just learned about the judiciary branch (It's almost like someone planned that ;)). We also learned about the other Branches of Government, as well as Checks and Balances within those branches. We are working on comprehension skills in reading to prepare our minds for the TerraNova test in a couple weeks, and in English, we learned how to classify Pattern 4 sentences. We started fractions in math, and the kids are loving them so far because they're "easy." Let's hope they keep that good attitude as they get a little more complicated over the weeks. This week in Bible we learned about the first kings of Israel and how the Covenant God made with Abraham (all the way back in the beginning of the Bible) connects to the covenant made with Israel's second king, David. And how the covenant is finally fulfilled with the birth of Jesus in the 42nd generation! Have a restful break and enjoy looking at some pictures from our field trip!
It's been a long time since the last blog post. So sorry about that! We had a BUSY 3rd Quarter, to say the least! States and Capitals are finally finished (some students are thrilled, but the project-lovers are bummed) and we are taking some time off Social Studies to focus on science. We will be continuing to learn about the Lithosphere next week. The past couple weeks in reading, we have been focusing mostly on test-taking skills and strategies. We will continue to weave these strategies into regular reading instruction as we move into our new class novel, Ben and Me (a story about Ben Franklin's life). English has consisted of Pattern 3 sentences. The students now have a bright yellow "cheat sheet" for reference as they classify sentences. We will continue with Chapter 10 next week. In Bible, we have finished our study on Biblical truths and will start an in-depth look at "God's Brave Messengers" (stories about God's prophets). If you check out the Spelling and Bible tab, you will find 4th Quarter Verse Sheet, as well as a list of spelling test dates (to avoid confusion about which list we are on). Summative Math Test over chapters 9, 10, and 11 will be Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday, students can use their notes to help them! I don't know about you, but for me, I am losing all patience for this un-Spring-like weather! Get here faster, Spring Break!! Happy weekend!
We are busy, busy, busy learning our states and capitals! This includes a wide variety of projects (some the kids are loving, and others... not so much). The project for this week is the Riddle Book, which we are lovingly renaming "Question Book." All they need to do is write 5 questions about their state: who? what? where? when? why? (how? is extra credit). They have little slips that they can write these questions on, along with an illustration to match the questions. Then, they just glue them into their construction paper booklet. I have an example in the classroom for them to look at (feel free to come in and check it out anytime yourself if you need clarification). The project, as well as the test for Middle States, will be on Friday (2/6). Have a great Superbowl weekend, and wear all those pajamas inside out on Sunday night! Fingers crossed!
**Please sign report cards and report card envelopes and return. I'm still missing a few! **Please sign-up for items to bring in for our Love Party on February 13! Here's the link: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e49aea628a3f94-valentines What a crazy week of snow days and substitutes! Good news: I made it back from Japan safely. Bad news: I made it back just in time for the last day of the quarter. This means we have a little catching up to do in terms of turning in missing assignments. I will send home missing assignments reports on Tuesday, and all assignments listed will be due on Wednesday. If they are not turned in, they will turn to a zero in the grade book. I will send out a Remind 101 on Tuesday!
What a fun week! The Christmas program on Tuesday was adorable! It's especially fun being a 4th grade teacher on Christmas program nights because so many of my students get special parts! Didn't they all do fantastic?! Enjoy the slideshow of selfies and more! :)
This week was FAST! We are still doing literature circles for reading and will continue that through next week. We started a new writing assignment in English that goes along with our read-aloud book, The Chocolate Touch. Our stories are called "Cloudy with a Chance of Chocolate" (instead of meatballs), and the kids are already LOVING it! We will be working on this from now until Christmas break, and will even be putting our typing skills to the test next week. Bible is still all about servanthood, and I will be assigning a small challenge to the kids for Christmas Break to encourage them to find creative ways to be servants to the people around them. We WILL be having spelling next week, so check the spelling tab to see which list to study. Our Science test for chapter 4 will be on Monday, and we will be reviewing together on Friday. Check the homepage to see the review sheet (in case the kids don't finish it or bring it home). We will be doing a small amount of Social Studies next week before Christmas Break. Math... Oh, math. We are starting our difficult multiplication unit now. The one where we do 2x2 and 2x3 (and more) multiplication problems. I will be posting SEVERAL videos to the Math Helps tab this week and next to assist the students in completing their homework. This should make life a little easier for all of us. PLEASE make sure they don't forget how to do these kinds of problems over Christmas Break!! The videos will be there FOREVER, so if they have some down time, make them practice a little multiplication to keep them fresh. This is crucial, because we will be moving through quickly to long division, fractions, and decimals as soon as we return from break. One last thing, CHRISTMAS PARTY. We will not be packing lunches at this party, simply because it's so close to Thanksgiving. We will pack lunches at our next part in February (for Valentine's Day). If you are free to volunteer on Friday morning (December 19) from 10:15 to around 11:30, e-mail me! We could use your help for our Amazing Race! :) In the afternoon, we will just be having pizza and watching "Frozen" and all are welcome to join for that, as well. This will be my last post before Christmas Break, so if you have any questions, write a comment here or send me an e-mail! Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thank you for the surprise birthday party! The kids really did keep it a surprise this year... I had NO idea! You are all such a blessing to me, and I am SO thankful for your generosity and kindness! Our week was very busy! We began literature circles again with a light, easy read, Mystery in the Snow (a Boxcar Children novel). We will be reading this book for the weeks leading up to Christmas Break. Each week, the kids will read a certain number of chapter and complete their assigned role (and role sheet) for Friday's discussion. In addition to the role sheet, they will also have a small project to complete each Friday. It is a project that will be done in class, so no worries about that. English is struggling along. We have been having a hard time remembering the "Question and Answer Flow".. or, at least, specific parts of it. The question, "whose?" tells us the PPA (Possessive Pronoun Adjective) OR PNA (Possessive Noun Adjective) in a sentence. I have been trying to post some English videos more frequently, but I have learned that the last video I posted was removed? I'm not sure why, but I cannot figure it out! I have tried a lot! We will not be doing any more chapters before Christmas, but will be taking some time to do a fun writing assignment until Christmas. Since that will free up some of our time, we will be doing some English centers and practicing these skills that are a struggle. Math is about to get very complicated! We will be doing A LOT of multiplication, including 2 and 3 digit multiplication. MAKE SURE the students know their facts, and keep your eyes peeled for new math videos along the way. In Science we have been discussing classification of organisms, and all the differences and similarities between animals that can be used to group them in unique ways. The kids seem to really enjoy science, so it's fun for me, too. Servanthood is the theme in Bible, and we have been discussing all the different groups of people we can be servants to. We have also been talking about specific ways we can be servants... these kids have some really great hearts. Their desire to be servants is contagious, and I hope they will actually act on some of their awesome ideas for acts of service. Christmas Program is at Apex Church on Tuesday, December 9. Students need to arrive at 6:30pm. Peepbox book reports about Christmas books are due next week, Tuesday, December 16! Check out the homepage for the Peepbox instruction sheet. Have a great weekend!
We have a full-time aid in our classroom now, Miss Hammons. Tennis is her greatest passion, as she is a certified tennis instructor, and runs a tennis camp in Connecticut in the summers. Her other passion is kids, and she is heading to Graduate School soon to get a degree in physical education. We are thrilled to have her help! Check your child's green folder today for an update on what has been going on in our classroom. If your child has any missing assignments, you can find a Missing Assignments Report in the very front of their green folder. You can also keep track of their grades by checking Net Classroom regularly. I will be going to see Dayton Christian High School's production of "Annie" tonight at Franklin High School.. hope to see some of you there! Otherwise, have a super weekend!
We are having a very difficult time with self-control lately. Especially in terms of talking. We talk whenever we want, even if it means interrupting Miss Koch or a classmate. We talk wherever we want, even if we are sitting in chapel. We talk however we want, even if it is in a harsh tone or an unkind word. We learned in chapel this week about different people in the Bible who were obedient to God. Even if they didn't want to, and even if they thought their ways were better, they were obedient anyway. A hero is someone who is admired for their noble actions. These characters are heroes.. their noble actions of obedience are examples of what happens in our lives when we are obedient to God... He is pleased with us! Encourage your child with me to be a Hero for Christ!
1 Thessalonians 4:4: Each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is Holy and Honorable." The past couple weeks have been a little chaotic in our classroom, so we did quite a bit of review on policies and procedures this week. We are trying to get back into some better habits to be more responsible. We have been working a lot of skills in reading this week, including dividing words into syllables and using dictionary skills. We finished up chapter 4 in English today and will be starting Chapter 5 on Monday. This chapter includes natural and inverted order sentences, identifying helping verbs, and Pattern 2 sentences! Shurley English still seems to be a bit of a struggle for the general population of our classroom, so if you ever have some free time on your hands, working on some grammar skills would be a great help to your child. Below is a link to the jingles about parts of speech that we sing. Listening to those would be extremely beneficial, especially the preposition jingle and the helping verb jingle. Those things truly need to be memorized in order for Shurley English to be truly effective. In Bible this week, we discussed a lot about how we are valued by God as His image bearers. We are His most prized creation, and that's where we should place our value in life. Not on our possessions or our looks, but on our character and our value in God's eyes. Next week, we will be talking about how sin breaks our bond with God, but also how Jesus restores it so we can still be God's hands and feet. There will be no spelling list next week since it's a short week. This week in spelling, we practiced clapping out syllables in words, and finger tapping the sounds within each syllable. We talked about digraphs (2 letters, 1 sound, always consonants), too. Hopefully talking about the phonics of spelling will help us do better and better on our tests. We finished up our Invention Unit with a discussion about the economy. We discussed buying and selling of products, how to determine a product's value, and how the value of products can change based on certain factors. We also talked about supply and demand and how those are some of the factors that affect value, as well. Test is Monday. Review that study guide and make sure to know some of the inventors and their inventions, as well. Have a great weekend, and I look forward to meeting with most of you later next week!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoDhKhV5b10&list=PLqoYtqf5Wp-GVfVgBGtMse3iW4grs3A_u Today marks the end of our first quarter of school! I don't know if you feel the same as me, but I can't believe how FAST that went by!! Today was quite a day! We started out the morning carrying around, showing off, and playing with our inventions. The excitement was REAL... and it lasted all day. Mix in birthday treats with the already amped up crew of mine, and you can imagine the amount of work we accomplished today haha. It was a fantastic time, though. Invention pictures to come later! Looking ahead to next week, missing assignments can be turned in until Wednesday. I will send home missing assignment reports Monday, so you will have a day to get those things finished. Remember, there is no school Thursday and Friday of next week, meaning next week should be a fairly easy one. We will be finishing our novel next week, meaning that we will be done with literature circles for a little while. In English, we will be back to classifying sentences... learning about pronouns, conjunctions, and compound/complex sentences. No spelling next week. We will be finishing up chapter 2 in Science next week with a science test on Tuesday, October 14. Review sheet will be done together on Monday to study (but I also posted it on the homepage of the website, just in case you want to get a head start studying). We will also be finishing up chapter 3 in math next week with a test on Wednesday, October 15. There are videos for almost all the chapter lessons under the "Math Helps" tab, so watch those for review. In Bible next week, we will be continuing to build our House of Truth by talking about our relationship of harmony with ourselves, and how God created us to be His image bearers. Have a super weekend!
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Press "play" to watch slideshow.
What a fun birthday party!... minus the series of pictures that depicts our group hug falling to the floor. haha.
Our classmates helping Pastor Day tell the story of Esther.
I got to go see Gracie perform at Lacomedia this week in "He Keeps Me Singing." What a great show! You can see her be a star, too! Show runs through November 1!
PONCHOS!!!
Carillon Park!
Drew and Miss Koch were the only 4th grade representatives at super hero night at the soccer game!
Sometimes, you just need to drink a Diet Coke and take a selfie to get through the day! :)
First day of school selfie (or "ussie" as the kids have been making me call it)!
Taking it easy in Mrs. Holliday's classroom!
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