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12/12/2016 Bring in a wrapped, new or gently used 4th grade book for our book swap.
Class Spelling Bee-Study Words Here


12/14/2016 Poetry Presentation 9-10, Class party 10-11:30

12/15/2016 Pajama day-bring one small pillow or stuffed animal.

Friday 12/16/2016 dismiss at 11 a.m. Board Game Day. Bring ONE board game that you know how to play!

Class Pictures:

Pre-order your child's 5x7 classroom group picture today! Also available is a fourth grade level group picture!  The pictures are $7.00 each. The deadline for pre-ordering is December 16 if you would like to receive the picture before the Holidays. You can still place orders after the Holidays if you prefer. As a fundraiser for our school, SSC receives 100% of sales!!

Online payment is preferred at www.myschoolfees.com. There is NO FEE for paying online by check. However, there is a 3% convenience fee charged for using a credit card with a minimum fee of $1.00 (VISA is not accepted). Otherwise, you may send ​check or cash ​payment to the school ​(correct cash amount - we cannot make change). Please make checks payable to SSC.

Thank you for supporting our school with this memorable fundraiser. If you have any questions, please call the school office at 439-3000.

*Check our calendar for other important dates.

You're Invited! 

Our class will be memorizing and performing holiday poetry for you on Wednesday, December the 14th from 9-10 then our class party will follow from 10-11:30  This will be a very informal time just to be together and celebrate the season! If you cannot attend the poetry presentation, please make sure someone comes to watch your child. It can be a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or a neighbor. Let me know if you cannot find anyone to attend and I should be able to help. The children will be acting out winter poetry and will need to dress up/bring props to “show” their poem. Poems need to be memorized by December 9th. Parents are invited to stay for our holiday party but if you can’t, we understand.

Our student teacher, Haley Sims, is doing her full week of teaching this week, this will also be her last week with us. The following is from her. :)

This week in Math we will begin learning more about geometry. This week will be filled with polygons, angles, and seeing geometry in the world all around us! We will specifically be looking at triangles when learning about acute, obtuse, and right angles. In Science we are researching alternative forms of energy compared to fossil fuels. Each student signed up for an "expert group" and will be researching forms of alternative energy related to water, the sun, or wind. Later in the week we will get to make waterwheels similar to what we saw at DeSoto Caverns recently! Reading this week is all about poetry. We will be looking at several different styles of poetry and practicing it on our own. While we are focusing on poetry, we will also be learning more about adverbs. 

I have had an incredible experience getting to teach your children the past 5 weeks both part-time and full time during my last week! I couldn't have asked for a better class of students during this experience. South Shades Crest will always hold a special place in my heart because of your children!

-Miss Sims

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Thursday 12/01/2016: Cookies with Santa 5-7pm

12/14/2016 Poetry Presentation 9-10, Class party 10-11:30

Friday 12/16/2016 dismiss at 11 a.m.

Teachers will carol in your neighborhood soon, stay tuned for a schedule! :)

*Check our calendar for other important dates.

You're Invited!

Our class will be memorizing and performing holiday poetry for you on Wednesday, December the 14th from 9-10 then our class party will follow from 10-11:30  This will be a very informal time just to be together and celebrate the season! If you cannot attend the poetry presentation, please make sure someone comes to watch your child. It can be a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or a neighbor. Let me know if you cannot find anyone to attend and I should be able to help. The children will be acting out winter poetry and will need to dress up/bring props to “show” their poem. Poems need to be memorized by December 9th. Parents are invited to stay for our holiday party but if you can’t, we understand.

 Reading-We will learn more about the strategies of inferring, theme, knowing the main idea and synthesizing and practice using them while we read for the next few weeks. :) We are also starting a unit on poetry. December the 14th we will have a poetry presentation for parents from 9-10, then our class holiday party will be from 10-11:30!  Writing-We are finishing persuasive essays, then we will begin writing poetry. Math-We will continue to practice our multiplication and division strategies with bigger numbers as we learn more about geometry.

Continue practicing!!!
Strategies with 2 digit by 2 digit where both numbers are large like 48x76 and you need to split both numbers to solve. 3 digit by 2 digit using the open area model strategy. Here are two strategies that we will be using a lot.
Open Area Model
Rainbow Strategy

Other strategies:
FOIL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ASEnxp4_Kw

We are rolling right along with division of bigger numbers. Most of the kids are using the Multiplying UP strategy right now. And we have just discovered the Partial Quotients or the Big 7 strategy which is an even more efficient strategy. Soon we will figure out what is happening in the traditional algorithm but not quite yet. This concept is still fragile for us!

  Content-We are beginning our study of animals.

Have a great week!!
Mrs. C

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Club Day:
The kids signed up for club days last week, instead of one club for 3 days, they will be choosing 3 different clubs. Club days will be November 18, February 3, and May 5.

Thanksgiving Lunch at SSC:

On November 16 & 17 we will be having our Thanksgiving Lunch. We want to invite all parents and faculty to dine with us. We appreciate your support for your cafeteria. Teachers please motivate parents to come have a good nutritious meal with their child. We chose 2 days in order for parents to make arrangements to attend. Looking forward to see you soon! Thanks In Advance!

*Check our calendar for other important dates.

Welcome Ms. Sims! Ms. Sims is our student teacher under the directions of Dr. Charlotte Brown, (who if you did not know, used to be the principal here!) and myself. She attends UAB and is excited to be learning with our class! She will be with us for 4 more weeks, each week teaching one subject and the last week she will teach Reading, Math and Science. She gave a couple of number talks a try this week and did a wonderful job. Reading-We have been learning about comparing and contrasting in a variety of ways. This week, it was in our Story Works magazine with a story about a Turtle that was "Too Talkative". Ask your child how we compared and contrasted the Prince and Kambu. We also did the play in class on Friday. :)  Writing-Last week we worked on letters to the veterans and learned a little about Veteran's Day. We addressed our envelopes and they will be off in the mail this week to hopefully help a veteran feel appreciated. Math-We have begun to multiply even bigger numbers, where both factors are higher than 12:

Mid to late October
Strategies with 2 digit by 2 digit where both numbers are large like 48x76 and you need to split both numbers to solve. Here are two strategies that we will be using a lot.
Open Area Model
Rainbow Strategy

Other strategies:
FOIL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ASEnxp4_Kw

And we are rolling right along with division of bigger numbers. Most of the kids are using the Multiplying UP strategy right now. And they will soon discover the Partial Quotients or the Big 7 strategy and find that this is even a more efficient strategy. We will figure out what is happening in the traditional algorithm but not quite yet. This concept is still fragile for us!

  Content-We have one more week of waves this week and then we will have finished with energy and electricity! Last Thursday I emailed grades home for quizzes on conductors and insulators, and circuits. I did not send a study guide home on purpose, for 3 reasons. 1. I think you all are busy enough at home. 2. These are things we went over and over in class and believe me, you want your child to learn to pay attention in class now! ;) and 3. I give lots of other science grades that will bring these scores up if they were low. So use this opportunity to commend your child for listening, or to have a conversation about how important it is to listen carefully and think about what you are learning in class.  If the emails did not get to you, let me know.  Technology-The kids love that we have figured out a way to make Mindcraft educational!  I'm sure they have mentioned this to you. In the next few weeks, we will be working on pixel art and coding!

Have a great week!!
Mrs. C  

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You can either get bitter or you can get better. It’s that simple. You either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down. The choice does not belong to fate, it belongs to you. ~Josh Shipp

Red Ribbon Week

Monday 10/24/2016: TNT here during PE

Tuesday 10/25/2016: Fun Run Science Show for winners

Wednesday 10/26/2016:

Thursday 10/27/2016:

Friday 10/28/2016:

*Check our calendar for other important dates.

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-We are enjoying Pax! Last week we did a Today'sMeet with our partner class in Wisconsin to talk about a few happenings in the beginning of the book. This week we will do a Padlet with them to share our thinking. Check our Padlet towards the end of the week to see what we have to say!  Writing-Sticking to a topic will continue to be a focus. Next week we will begin persuasive writing. This is a DOL (Daily Oral Language) week for grammar.  Math-We have started division of bigger numbers. Since we have been practicing and talking about multiplication and division fact families most of the kids are naturally using the multiply up strategy, as our numbers get bigger, the kids will find that the big 7 (or partial quotients) strategy is even more efficient. . Content-Towards the end of the week, we will be making and wiring our houses! We will also have a quiz on circuits at the end of the week.  Technology-Since last week was digital citizenship week, check out parent handouts form Common Sense Media for things you can do at home to promote good online habits.

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*Check our calendar for other important dates.

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading- We finished City of Ember and watched the movie. After the movie, the kids enjoyed collaborating on a class google doc to compare and contrast the movie and the book. We start our Global Read Aloud, Pax by Sara Pennypacker this week! The kids are excited, we "Mystery Skyped" with one of the classes we will be working with. Ask your child to tell you about their class and what state they are from. Remind your child that all of our Mystery Skype information is on Google Classroom if he/she forgot. Writing/Language Arts-Just a reminder that I post skills we have covered or are covering each week on our Lab Lessons page for review and extra practice. Scroll down to IXL Language Arts or IXL Math, remind the kids they need to be signed in to IXL before clicking on a link.  Math-We are finished taking quizzes on basic multiplication tables. The kids should know all of them in 3 seconds or less by now. If this is not the case, then your child should be practicing multiplication facts nightly!! If your child is still using repeated addition for multiplication of bigger numbers, here is a game that we are using in class to practice a more efficient strategy. The array cards will need to be printed out. We have played in class, but the directions are included just in case. Make sure to look at the directions for making the array cards. Content-We are getting ready to create our own flashlight and learn more about Thomas Edison! As you saw in our pictures last week, we also made a light bulb. I was very proud of the kids for sticking with the task, not giving up, and troubleshooting their circuit until they made the nichrome wire (filament) light up! Technology-Sara Carpenter visited us and taught us how to make a hidden picture to play Guess My Number using Google Slides! This week she will be teaching us how to integrate Mindcraft into our curriculum! The kids are excited!!

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Monday 10/10/2016: no school!

Tuesday 10/11/2016:

Wednesday 10/12/2016: report cards go home,

Thursday 10/13/2016:

Friday 10/14/2016: makeup picture day

*Bring your parents or grandparents to lunch this week for National Lunch Week.

*Check our calendar for other important dates.

We have finished planing our field trips, if you would like to sign up, please click here.

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-Our Global Read Aloud, Pax by Sara Pennypacker starts next week. We are finishing up with The City of Ember this week, and will watch the movie at the end of the week and compare and contrast the book with the movie.  We are still practicing our literature circle jobs with our independent books and working on comparing and contrasting with articles in our Story Works magazine as well.  Writing-We are working on our seed ideas.  Math-We have officially started on division!.Content-We are getting ready to test conductors and insulators using our circuit testers then we will build a lightbulb! Technology-We are enjoying Mystery Skype and will have our 2nd one today, I wonder which state they will be in?!

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*Check our calendar for other important dates. 

We have a busy week this week, so just a quick post to let you know what is going on each day.

Monday 10/03/2016: Crazy sock day

Tuesday 10/04/2016: Wear your SSC attire

Wednesday 10/05/2016: Wear your favorite workout clothes (stay in dress code)

Thursday 10/06/2016: Wear your PJs

Friday 10/07/2016: Fun Run, author visit 3rd and 4th grade, flu shots for students, wear your running shoes! Parents feel free to come run and/or cheer your student on! We will be running at 12:45.

The Fun Run is off to a great start! Don't forget to bring your donations in each day this week!

Thanks to everyone who has been able to come to a conference, I have enjoyed talking to you about your child and I hope our talk was helpful! Please do not hesitate to contact me with any other questions. If you have a conference this week and it's after hours. Please enter the building through the after care door on the right side of the school.

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*Check our calendar for some important dates.

If you have signed up for a conference but have not filled out this form. Please do so as soon as possible so that I can be better prepared for our meeting. Looking forward to seeing you!

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-We are in the middle of our read aloud book called The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau that goes with our science unit on Electricity. It's getting exciting! We have started CAFE (focusing on skills that good readers use: comprehension, awareness, fluency and expanding vocabulary) and working on using context clues to figure out the meaning of words in our books. We have also learned about jobs we will be doing when we participate in a literature circle group.  Writing-We have set up our ideas page in Google Docs. The kids can add pictures of memories to their doc. They do not need to bring pictures in, just add them to their ideas page. 6. Math-We are starting to multiply bigger numbers. This concept is still fragile to us, so please hold off on teaching the traditional algorithm for multiplication. If you want to know when strategies are developmentally appropriate in 4th grade, visit our "math casts" page and let me know if you have questions, I'll be glad to help. Content- We learned about Makey Makey last week during our study of electricity and circuits. I sent out some pictures last week but just added the video so you can go back and see it in action if you want. Watch this video on Makey Makey to see a little more of what it's about. Technology- We are preparing for our first Mystery Skype this week! We will be learning what it is along with what to do to prepare, how to win, and then we will learn about each state or country as we play them. We will put pins on this map as we figure out where our partner classes are. Green pin if we win and red if we lose. Right now we only have 4 Skypes scheduled so hopefully more people around the world will sign up.  Mrs. Carpenter came to our class last week and reminded us how to use Typing Club and Digital Passport and then did Makey Makey with us. Stress to your child how important good posture and typing correctly is! Ultimately they will be able to type faster, it's easier to concentrate on work when they know where all of the keys are and it's better for health since there is minimal movement of the hands and neck. Digital passport is a web site that helps us  practice digital citizenship and online safety. Both of these sites can be used from home.

Thanks again to everyone who was able to attend Open House and a big thank you to our room mom Christa Fain and parent volunteer Tanya Brasher, they have already put in lots of hours helping out our class!

If anyone has a strand of white lights about 50 feet that we can borrow, please send them in. The kids like them when we turn off the lights in the room, for example during a video or read aloud.

Have a great week!

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 *Check our class calendar for important dates.

Believe it or not, Fall conferences are just around the corner! Sign up here to schedule a time for us to meet. Looking forward to being able to get to know you a little better!

See some things we have been doing in class here, collecting data, building roller coasters to learn more about energy, ask your child to tell you about them!

 Reading-We are working on the main idea and supporting details in a text. We have gotten two great resources to use for teaching reading skills. One is a site by Scholastic called Core Clicks that we have already used whole group, but the kids can also use it on their level, independently. We also get a magazine called Story Works. We will be using it starting next week. Last year was the first year we ordered it, and the kids loved it. I have also signed the kids up for Razz Kids and shown them how to use it. If you are concerned about your child's reading level, this is a GREAT one for you to use at home with your child, or they can use it independently. They have a whole virtual library of books on their shelf at their level. They should complete one book before moving on to another. They need to listen to the book, then read it, and last after they are SURE that they understood, then take a quiz. Writing-We are learning about characters and character traits and how giving traits makes your character come alive. We have a virtual journal where we write about our weekend at the beginning of each week. And we have also been writing beginning of the year sample narrative, informational and opinion pieces so that we can see how much we grow in writing at the end of the year.  Math-We have just begun our study of multiplication and division. The kids have compiled lists of things in real life that come in arrays and we are talking about how we can easily count those things by using multiplication. If you would like to keep up with the multiplication and division strategies that we are developmentally ready for during the year, click here and let me know if you have any questions. (The subtraction links died, I'm working on making new ones soon.) We have also learned how to find all of the factors of a number by using cubes and making all of the arrays possible with a given number. We are very new at it, but we will continue to practice. Please remind the kids to circle their answers, show their thinking, and for word problems, answer in words. We have talked about this lots and I've told them that I will start taking off points for unclear work.  Content-We started building roller coasters today, ask your child if he/she can explain to you where roller coasters get their energy after the first hill! Technology-We have learned how to use a digital notebook for science, make a chart with data using Google Sheets, and tomorrow our tech coach is coming to guide us in a team "breakout" using our laptops and the theme of digital citizenship. We are also using  Google Sheets to keep up with the "multiplication facts I know and am working on". For our last multiplication 6 and 7 quiz, the kids took it online, took a screen shot, and it should be saved in their google drives, they were supposed to show it to you Tuesday night, so ask them about it if they forgot. Remember red means they got the answer incorrect, yellow, they got it correct but it took TOO long, and green means "a ok" and they can highlight those "a ok" facts green on their "Facts I Know" chart. Please continue to stress the importance of digital citizenship and online safety, seriously, like until they are 23. :) Besides that, we have just been learning about the sites we will use frequently this year. Here is a copy of our usernames and passwords sheet. Please remember, because of various reasons, some of these could change, I always ask your child to write it on their hard copy if a username and/or password changes.


Sites:
Our Class Web Site
Lab Lessons-Where we go to practice skills we are working on. The kids are welcome to use this from home. I also assign projects for early finishers or those that just "want more". These are not required but just for those who get done with everything in class and still eager to learn, they can work on it if they get finished with class work, during free time in class (Friday Fun Time), or at home. Our current project is an internet scavenger hunt about the Olympics. I have shown the kids where it is on Google Classroom (First Post in Content CyberKids).

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The real lessons in life are not found in the victory, but in the struggle.

Wednesday 08/31/2016: 4th grade ACT reports go home

Thursday 09/01/2016: Picture day

If you have not filled out the 4th grade entry survey, please do so as soon as you can. This helps me to know your child better!

Signed papers will be coming home this week! Many times I will give extra credit if errors are corrected in pen AND your child shows me the corrections the next day so please go over these papers with your child, initial EVERY page so that I know you saw each one, and initial the page that will be in the front that has dates for each time that signed papers come home.

The Math Review Sheets that will come home with signed papers are problems that we do in class each morning. We go over all of the problems with a star next to them. I tell the kids that there is no reason they should miss these problems because we go over these each day together. The Math Practice test I give each Friday is exactly the same skills that the kids do for homework each week. So before they get turned in on Thursday, give them a look over and let your child know if they need to re-do anything. And we will talk about them again in class. By now we should know our 3's and 4's in 3 seconds or less and this week we are working on 6's and 7's. We did not make flash cards in class today, but they are welcome to at home if it helps. I did make them an online sheet like this , that they can access in Google Classroom, to keep up with facts they know and facts they are working on. I'll show them tomorrow how to highlight facts they know. Also, above each table is a link that will take them to more practice if they need it. I showed them today how to star flash cards that they need to continue working on in each table. Not sure if their work will save unless you make them their own quizlet account. Some accounts I can make for them, but quizlet is not one of them.

They also had their first reading comprehension test last week. It says "Practice Test 2" at the top. I did not take off that many points this time since it was our first time, but let them know that there were only 7 questions on this quiz, so each one counts a lot! Please go over this story with your child and review with them how to go back into the story and find the answers and that each question can have tricky answers, but there is only 1 right answer, (even though some can seem right). I let them know that they can, and should, use a highlighter to go back and find the answers, I also tell them to number the question that their highlight goes with.

Just a reminder if you missed parent night. We do spelling and DOL (Daily Oral Language) one week, and vocabulary and concentrate on a grammar skill the next (spelling also counts for vocabulary). This week we are on Spelling and DOL. We practice DOL each day and have a quiz on Friday. The kids are welcome to take home DOL folders at any time to study, although, if they are listening in class, they should not need to! We had a big talk about that today. ;) Spelling and Vocab tests are taken on Spelling City. You can ask your child to log in at any time, click on the "my test" link at the top right, and see how they are doing. For now they are also copying most of these on paper as well.

A couple of us still do not have computers. I have asked about them, put in work orders, etc. If your child is one that does not have a computer yet, it may not hurt for you to put in another work order or get in touch with the tech department. For the work order, you will need your child's 196 number, it can be found behind the important papers tab in our TEAM binder.

This week we will start reading AND logging each night Monday - Thursday. I have gone over this step by step with the kids, but if they need a reminder, or if you would like more info, click on this link.

We will be using a digital binder for science. We just got it started today. I don't think any of the kids have used one before and they are pretty excited about it. Get them to show you! They also had a big time making their racers and predicting how much energy they would need to get their racer into the "sweet spot" Let them tell you all about it! :)

Have a great week! Let me know if you have any questions. (Still have absent students so we have not been able to take our class picture yet.)