E-News

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-We have reviewed making connections and inferring. We're studying the elements of non-fiction in conjunction with our unit on Alabama Regions and Animals. For read aloud we are sharing a book called Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher. lots of good issues we are discussing including moral decisions, independence, friendship and tough things that happen. The kids previewed the book fair yesterday and saw a book called I Survived the Attacks of September 11th. Many had heard stories and wanted to talk about it and get the book for our class, so we got it, went back to class, had a good impromptu class discussion and decided to take a break on Flying Solo to read the I Survived book. Please continue the conversation at home if you child wants/needs to talk about it more.

 Writing/Language Arts-We have been working on collecting an initial set of writing pieces including a personal narratives, an informational and an opinion piece. We have also written a letter to our future selves, including what we are excited about, nervous about, and goals we have. We are also working on adding details to our writing pieces and focusing in on a small moment. Sticking to a topic will continue to be a focus. We will begin collecting memories to put into a memory book and to be sparks for writing ideas. We will explore different ways to write about these memories. Please help the kids send in memories as often as possible starting next week. They will be glued into a book so if you do not want to part with original pictures, just print a copy and send that in. No bigger than about a 4x6. In Grammar we studied types of sentences, sentence fragments and we just finished simple and complete subjects and predicates and common and proper nouns. Next up, nouns and verbs  Math-We have began a unit on multiplication. The kids are working hard at home and in school, solidifying their fluency of tables to 12 and starting to explore multiplication with bigger numbers. We made a list of facts we still need to work on, and we were surprised to see that it is not that many! A list of these to practice will be coming home . Content-We have learned about the regions in Alabama and will continue with the major waterways, landforms, biomes, ecosystems, habitats and the animals that live there. Technology-We have been very busy in technology! The kids have learned a lot about Google Drive and how to use Google Classroom. They have been sharing and collaborating on documents and slides, creating and organizing their folders, and responding to suggestions and comments that I make on their files. Soon they will work on peer editing skills. If you have a Google account, you are welcome to get them to share files with you and add your own writing suggestions. Good files to do this with for now, would be their weekend journal pieces. If you have not seen their drives, get them so show you some of the projects and assignments we have been working on.

Some of the Hoover Band, dancers, cheerleaders and football team came to our school Friday to give us a pep rally and a talk about what it means to be a BUC. The kids really enjoyed it, it was the first time that they have ever done this to my knowledge. Of course I talked up the band since I have a senior band student! :) Ask your child about the "6" in this picture.

Mark your calendar:
Tuesday 09/15/2015: Barnes and Noble Book Fair Night 5:30-7:30 at Barnes and Noble

*Check our calendar for other important dates.

**Treasure Box One man's trash....! If you have any small toys at home that 4th graders would like, bag them up, and send them to our classroom!! One of our rewards on Reading Rewards is a trip to the treasure box, so now is the time to clean out those closets!

 Sites of the month for things we are working on in class:

Great sites for multiplication practice:
Knock Down Multiplication
Duckster Multiplication Practice (Get 30 out of 30 correct in 2 minutes)
Practice Multiplication with Arrays
Multiplication Flash Cards
Practice a Multiplication Table Choose Correct Answer
Practice Multiplication Tables
Practice Multiplication Tables not Timed

Grammar: (check above for what we have studied and what we will be studying next.)

http://tconstantine.wikispaces.com/English 

Reading: Razz Kids

Our LabLessons blog also has links to what we do weekly in the computer lab.