May the "fourth" be with you! Fun times in Fourth grade!

May the "fourth" be with you! Fun times in Fourth grade!
Mrs. Constantine's Class Rocks!!

Monday, November 28, 2016

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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

Monday, November 7, 2016

E-News






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