Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday with lots of time spent with your families. Make sure your child bring a jacket to school, our classroom is not getting above 63. I put a work order in, just waiting on someone to come by and help us! Just a little bit about what is going on in class:

 Reading-We are continuing to work on analyzing events in a text and author's purpose! We will also focus on vocabulary, close reading, cause and effect and character's motivation for the next few weeks. Continue to make sure your child is "sticking with a book" and reading on his/her just right level AND understanding.

Writing- Sticking to a topic continues to be a focus. We have also just started blogging, so this is a place where you can log in as a guest and make a positive comment about your child's post. It can also be a time to give one or two helpful hints about their writing as a conversation, not on the post, let's keep that positive since others can see it. The kids have also been working on a"Self Evaluation Digital Portfolio" for all curriculum areas. When they are finished, please go over it with them discussing areas where they are doing well as well as areas they need to work on. There are self explanatory areas where you will give (type) feedback to your child. This document will always be available in your child's school google drive, but you may also want to make a copy in your own drive. :)  

Math- We are still working on fractions. There is lots of extra practice on our "favorite links" and a study practice sheet will be coming home for our unit test soon.

Content-We are going to stick with Science this 9 weeks. We have started out by reviewing sound and learning about light. Our quiz on light will be this Friday. The study guide is in our Google Classroom.

Aspire Testing will be April 18-21

Talent Show Information Hard copy coming home Wednesday as well.

Box Tops:

Keep sending the box tops in!! They really make a big difference! 

Reading Club Order Due Date: January 15

Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub
One-Time Class Activation Code: GRZHL

Dear Families,

Good news! This month's Scholastic Reading Club flyers are ready for you to explore with your child. Children read more when they choose their own books, so I encourage you to look at the flyers together. Each flyer is filled with grade-specific, affordable titles.

Place your order online at scholastic.com/readingclub or send the order form and payment to me. Ordering online is the easiest way to ensure I get your order on time. Also, there are more books to choose from as well as teacher recommendations. 

Remember, for every book you order, our class earns FREE Books and supplies...and we have our eye on some new additions. 

Thank you for your support! 



PS: Books make wonderful gifts! Please let me know if your order includes a gift, and I will contact you when it arrives.

 
Ordering online is fast and easy:
- VISIT scholastic.com/readingclub
- ENTER the one-time Class Activation Code (top of this letter)
- SHOP from a carefully curated selection of the best books and value packs
- SUBMIT your order and earn FREE Books for our classroom
- All book orders will be shipped to our classroom so we can celebrate the joy of reading together!

 *Check our calendar for other important dates.

December 1

Dear Parents,

This month we will, as usual, be very busy! We are looking forward to lots of holiday learning and fun!

You're Invited!

Our class will be memorizing and performing holiday poetry for you on Tuesday, December the 15th from 11:10 to about 11:45. This will be a very informal time just to be together and celebrate the season! If you cannot attend 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. Again, very informal! Poems need to be memorized by December 11th.

Our holiday party will be December the 17th at 10:30. Mrs. Ballintine will be getting in touch to let you know how you can help!

Book Swap: We will be having a book swap in our class, please be looking for a new or gently used 4th grade book to send in wrapped, with your child, on or before December 17th. No name on it please.

Group Pictures:

Pre-order your child's 5x7 classroom group picture today! Also available is a fourth grade level group picture!  The pictures are only $7.00 each. The deadline for pre-ordering is December 18th if you want the pictures before the Holidays.

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 payment to the school by check or correct cash (we cannot make change). Please make checks payable to SSC.

As a fundraiser for our school,

SSC receives 100% of sales!!

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

Book Orders: Due Thursday, check your email for online ordering instructions, let me know if you need me to re-send. :)

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-We are learning about different styles of poetry. Writing-We will also be trying our hand at writing different styles of poetry.   Math-We have started fractions! I will be sending a parent letter home with more information.  There are a couple of videos below to explain how we have started off our study. Decimals will be coming up soon!

Math homework this week is our regular computation practice and then some strategy practice. This link has the sheets I sent home with the kids, and on the sheet is a link to a video demo of every strategy they should know in case you would like to see them. They also know how to get to these videos in case they need a refresher or it's a new strategy. :)  

Beginning Fractions

Fraction of a set of numbers

 Content-We are learning all about electricity! Here are some pictures of our first investigation, lighting a bulb. Ask your child about it, they had a great time!!  *Check our calendar for other important dates.

November 5

As usual, the year is sneaking past me! I am not quite sure where October went, we were so busy that it literally flew by. Thanks to everyone who has been able to volunteer for our class in one way or another! The kids enjoyed their special snack last week! We will be doing something similar before Thanksgiving break.

We are looking forward to our field trip next Tuesday! More information will be coming home via email. Just make sure the kids have water in their backpacks and a lunch if they are not ordering one from the lunch room. I asked them today if they will be bringing a lunch or not, so just check with your child today. Hope many of you will be meeting us there! Thanks to Mrs. Ballintine and Mrs. Harris for chaperoning for us!

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-We are almost finished with our read aloud, Tuck Everlasting! One of my all time favorites! We have had lots of good discussion about it and I hope the kids have come home talking to you about the Tucks! During CAFE time the kids have been working on making predictions, using context clues to figure out the meaning of words, and reader's theater to help us with our fluency in reading.   Writing-During October we did a Monster Exchange with some of the other 4th grade classes. We learned a lot about details, and what happens if we don't give enough of them in our writing. Now we are working on an opinion piece where the kids have to choose a side. Is it ok for a class to go the whole day without a teacher or not? This is an extension of our last read aloud, Flying Solo.  Math-We have taken a break from multiplication and division and are now working on geometry and fractions. We will just touch on these concepts and then come back to them again before testing in the Spring. Content-We love studying about animals! We began our study with animal cells, learned about vertebrates and invertebrates, endotherms and ectotherms and we are about to begin learning about structural and behavioral adaptations. Our student teacher from UAB, Paige Hanks, will be teaching us about habitats when she gets back next week. She is a soccer player, so she travels a lot! Ask your child to show you their animal notes that we have been working on to keep up with the highlights of what we learn. We will be having a test on adaptations next Friday, November 13th. Study guides are on Google Classroom.

The kids are excited about doing a student led conference with you. They will do this with you at home and more information will come home soon.

   *Check our calendar for other important dates.

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.

Hope everyone has a GREAT Labor Day Weekend, remember, no school on Monday.

**Math Please remind your child that name, date and # needs to be on everything they turn in. Also, answers on math tests need to be circled, and "Word" problems need to be answered with "words". I will start taking off points for these things this week. Also, the morning math we do each day has problems with stars next to them. We thoroughly go over these together in class. Unless your child is absent, these problems should not be wrong. I also stress to them, that it is not ok to just write in the correct answer if they got it wrong, they need to show a strategy that we went over together. And last but not least, our numbers will quickly get bigger this year, we need to use commas in all numbers over 999. Thanks for your help with these things.

**Content: Content is either Science and/or Social Studies. Report cards will have a grade in either Science OR Social Studies each 9 weeks, not both. Some weeks we will be working in one subject or the other, and some weeks they will be integrated, for example next week we will be integrating our study of Alabama and its regions with animals. We will start getting a weekly newspaper, called Social Studies Weekly that will have lots of information about Alabama. The hard copies will stay at school and be part of our Content Interactive Notebook. But this newspaper is also online for you and/or your child to look at from home at any time. It's a great resource and also includes videos, pictures and even reads the articles aloud to the kids. We have not logged in from school yet, but for your info. the username is the 196 number and password is 123456.

**Famous Sayings: The kids wrote their own famous sayings today during writing, get your child to show them to you from their Google Drives. :)

**Online Quizzes: We take at least 2 or 3 online quizzes a week. For example last week we learned about types of sentences, then the kids watched a Brainpop video to review, and then took a quiz on Brainpop. We took a quiz on 3's, 4's, and 5's multiplication tables today and didn't get a chance to go down and print. These will not always go home unless it is a low grade and then I will let you know. If at any time you would like to know what online quizzes have been taken I will be glad to email you and let you know. The results for many of these can be seen online, for example some of our most used, Spelling City, Pearson Success Net (Math), Social Studies Weekly (Content) and coming soon, Scholastic Story Works (Reading). You can log onto your child's account at any time and see what quizzes they have taken, what they missed, etc.

**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!

Repeating in case you missed it last time:

**Spelling City**--Should be underway! Let me know if you have questions.

**Reading Rewards**  Each night Monday through Thursday students will be expected to read for at least 20 minutes log and comment on the site.  I would love for them to read Friday through Sunday, however I will not expect them to report to me.  I will only check the site.  

**Math Math sheet(s) will be come home each Monday and will be turned in to me on Friday and usually it will have pages from our workbook stapled to it.  Students are definitely encouraged to solve the work on their own and then have a parent or grown up check for accuracy.  We rotate weeks: Language (parts of speech) and Vocabulary one week, and Spelling and DOL the next week.  Never will students be tested in Vocabulary and Spelling or DOL and Language in the same week. Spelling City will be due every Friday, and flash cards and sentences will be due on vocabulary weeks.  Starting Sept. 1st, you can begin initialing each night on the "year" calendar to say that you have seen and checked homework.

**Graded Papers**-will come home every other week in yellow SSC Wednesday Folder.  Please look over and initial EACH graded paper with your child and allow them time to make corrections IN PEN.  There will also be a parent signature form that you can then initial letting me know you both have had time to work together on this.  I would like to have these returned by Thursday, however if you need an extra day then just send a note or email to me letting me know. If you write notes besides in the comment section, make sure it is on the first graded paper because I do not flip back through them.

We are working on a new strategy for solving word problems that will come in VERY handy when we study fractions. You will see 2 examples in this week's signed papers. Right now it seems simple to them and some are skipping underlining important info and drawing the model. Please help me stress that they need to do this. Also, if it's not a matter of being lazy and your child just needs extra practice, here is a great website to do that. They have already used it in class, so they should know how it works. We are just doing addition and subtraction now, but there is also practice for multiplication and division when we get to it.

**Book Orders**
A separate email went out about Scholastic.

Week of August 31

Parents,

It was so nice to meet with those who attended Parent Night.  Thank you for coming!  As I mentioned, we have a very sweet class.  It is my hope that we can always work to the fullest so your children can not only grow academically, but socially and emotionally as well. We are going to have a wonderful year together in 4^th grade and I appreciate all support you are able to offer!!!  I will have a lot of information in this Newsletter.  Please let me know if I have left something out!  Looking forward to a forward to a fantastic year!



**HCS username and password**--Please help your child memorize their username and password by this Friday.  These will remain with your child until their senior year if they remain in the HCS system.  They will use it every time they log in to the computer system, Google, and other sites.  These are in their binders under the Imp section of the binder.

**Spelling City**--Should be underway! Let me know if you have questions.

**Reading Rewards**--Starting this week for homework.  Each night Monday through Thursday students will be expected to read for at least 20 minutes log and comment on the site.  I would love for them to read Friday through Sunday, however I will not expect them to report to me.  I will only check the site.  Math sheet(s) will be come home each Monday and will be turned in to me on Friday and usually it will have pages from our workbook stapled to it.  Students are definitely encouraged to solve the work on their own and then have a parent or grown up check for accuracy.  We rotate weeks: Language (parts of speech) and Vocabulary one week, and Spelling and DOL the next week.  Never will students be tested in Vocabulary and Spelling or DOL and Language in the same week. Spelling City will be due every Friday, and flash cards and sentences will be due on vocabulary weeks.  Starting Sept. 1st, you can begin initialing each night on the "year" calendar to say that you have seen and checked homework.


**Graded Papers**-The first set of graded papers will come home this Wednesday inside the yellow SSC Wednesday Folder.  Please look over and initial EACH graded paper with your child and allow them time to make corrections IN PEN.  There will also be a parent signature form that you can then initial letting me know you both have had time to work together on this.  I would like to have these returned by Thursday, however if you need an extra day then just send a note or email to me letting me know. If you write notes besides in the comment section, make sure it is on the first graded paper because I do not flip back through them.

We are working on a new strategy for solving word problems that will come in VERY handy when we study fractions. You will see 2 examples in this week's signed papers. Right now it seems simple to them and some are skipping underlining important info and drawing the model. Please help me stress that they need to do this. Also, if it's not a matter of being lazy and your child just needs extra practice, here is a great website to do that. They have already used it in class, so they should know how it works. We are just doing addition and subtraction now, but there is also practice for multiplication and division when we get to it.

**Book Orders**
A separate email went out about Scholastic.


**School Closed for Labor Day**-September 7th 


In the classroom we are focusing on the following:

READING:
Establishing Reading Workshop, D.E.A.R. time (Drop Everything And Read), How to effectively select a book that is “Just Right”, and discussing ways that Reading is Thinking.  We are Book Buddies with Ms. Stout's class and look forward to reading with them each Friday afternoon.  We love our Book Buddies! I will take a daily status check of each student’s reading to help instruction and growth.  Our Read Aloud books so far have included  Thank you, Mr. Faulker, The Hundred Dresses, and we are currently reading Flying Solo.  We have shared rich conversations and discussed the need to predict, connect, infer, question, and reread while reading. We have learned hot to do our Daily 5 during reading, and soon to learn about our Reading Cafe.

MATH:
In Math, we began the year with data collection and graphing.  We have collected data in a variety of ways, compared the data, and graphed the data.  We will continue to collect data throughout the year by interviewing each other to collect, compare, and graph data regarding topics we are interested in that incorporate numerical analysis.  I expect students to practice their multiplication facts on a daily basis.  By the beginning of November students are expected to be fluent through 12X12.  The sooner your child has all math facts memorized, the quicker they will be able to apply it to future lessons.  It is very difficult and time consuming when students are spending time computing problems they should have memorized.  Please work with them EVERY DAY on their math facts, by calling out different problems while in the car, while making dinner, while waiting for an appointment, or at any other time you have available.  Multiplication.com is a good website students can use to practice at home as well. We will have a computation quiz each Friday. 2 parent letters were attached to the email to help you help your child with our multiplication unit. Also, I am sending a hard back parent math resource book home. When math homework sheets come home from our work book, there is a corresponding page in the hard back that I am sending home that will answer any questions you have about the homework. It is called the Student Math Handbook,  it is for you to keep at home as a parent resource until the end of the year. It is coming home with yellow folders tomorrow. If you do not want/need it at home, you can just send it back to school.


WRITING:
Establishing Writing Workshop--   Students have been webbing and sketching favorite memories and making lists of future writing topics.  We have discussed The Writing Process and all steps that are a part of publishing any piece of writing.  There are 5 steps in the Writing Process: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Proofreading, and Publishing.  We will begin our DOL (Daily Oral Language) this week. Quizzes are normally given each Friday.  Students are welcome to take home their DOL folders home to study, however, if they are listening in class, they should not have to!! We will be tested at the end of every other week.  When we are not working on DOL we will be working on Language (nouns, verbs, sentences, etc.) Here is some great online practice for Grammar also: http://tconstantine.wikispaces.com/English


SPELLING/VOCABULARY
Spelling and Vocabulary will rotate every other week.  Students will be working on developing sentences, creating flashcards, alphabetical order, etc., as well as spellingcity.com in order to help review before our Friday quiz.

TECHNOLOGY:     Google Docs!!! (Typing; Font size, color, background, bold, underline, style; saving; Printing; Creating a folder, sharing, collaborating!!); Each week we go to the computer lab.  We began the year with reviewing what we already knew about correct placement of our hands on the keys when typing, continued with technology vocabulary.  We will discuss technology and use technology throughout the year.  Even though we have laptops, we can't print at school from them, so we go to the computer lab once a week, here is a link if you want to peek at what we do in there!

I want to thank you ALL for taking the time out of your busy schedules to read/respond to this newsletter as well as future e-news I send out. I know this is a lot of information, and as the year progresses our routines will require less words.  I hope I answered some things I was not able to say at Parent Night and looking forward to this year being a huge success for your child.  Thank you so much to those who have already sent in contributions, and to those who have already volunteered their time. If you are looking for ways to help our class, please visit our volunteer page. Have a great week!!

All my best!

Constantine's Class of 2024 :)