September 30

Fall is in the air and things are beginning to cool off a bit!

Here is what's going on in class: Reading-We are finishing up our study of the elements of non-fiction. We are using a site called Razz Kids that has leveled books so that each child is reading books that are just right! We use this site on Mondays during "nook time" and should be reading and taking quizzes on at least 2 books a week. You can log into your child's account and sign up for a parent account if you would like to keep track of how your child is doing. Our read aloud is Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher, the kids are enjoying debating what they would do if I was absent and the sub did not show up! On Tuesdays during read aloud, the kids can log in to Reading Rewards and use the blog feature as a sort of "back channel" to discuss the book as I am reading it.  Writing-This week we are publishing our non-fiction "how to" books. We have read a few mentor texts to help us make our non-fiction books more exciting. Ask your child about the book How to Lay an Egg! Spelling  This week the children have different spelling lists according to how they did on the practice test today. Please remind them to do all of their Spelling City activities for homework except the test. We will do that on Friday in class. Math-We are busy collecting and analyzing data. Let your child tell you about the data we collected on the heights of fourth and first graders. They can tell you about the range of heights for both grades, the average height of a fourth and first grader, an estimate of how much taller a fourth grader is than a first grader and how to use a line plot graph to better display our data. Now we are working in small groups to come up with a question to collect more data to compare. Continue to have your child work on multiplication fluency, division is coming soon!  Content-We have started our study of electricity by learning about how to be safe with electricity. Next we learned about magnets and static electricity. By the end of this week we will be learning all about circuits and how electricity travels by trying to light a light bulb, we will also discover what conductors and insulators are and how they effect circuits!

The kids should now be using the app Assignment Nook to write their homework and they should be giving you their calendars to initial each night to show that you have seen their homework. You can always see our class homework blog here if you need to.

 *Check our calendar for important dates. Have a great week!