Valentine's List

Thursday 2/02/2017: Picture day

Friday 2/03/2017: Club Day at 1:15

*Check our calendar for other important dates. 

Our class will have a small Valentine's celebration and exchange cards the morning of the 14th. Please make sure your child makes their own Valentine's cards to pass out to the class. ;)

Brenna

Gabriela

Paige

Ania

Madison

Nalla

Payton

Taykiyah

Astryd

Maiya

Marial

Victoria

Kayla

Esmael

Brandon

Adrian

Storm

Evan

Grant

Samuel

Adityapaul

Preston

Uriah

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Monday 1/23/2017: Finish Arbor Day Writing rough draft if not done

Tuesday 1/24/2017: SSC PTO School spirit night at Chick Fil A at the Grove 4:30-8

Wednesday 1/25/2017:

Thursday 1/26/2017: Muffins and Math k-2 at 7:30 in large conference room, AEA in the conference room 9-2

Friday 1/27/2017:

*Check our calendar for other important dates. 

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-Our read aloud is Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. Ask your 4th grader if he/she would drink from the spring and explain to you why or why not! We have been learning through Weekly 4 all year and we are adding CAFE to our reading time this week. We are continuing to use our Story Works to learn and practice our reading skills. Click here to learn more about either of these learning times in our class.  Writing-We are working on our Arbor Day essays, the kids should be finished with their rough drafts and ready to publish tomorrow. Feel free to look them over and give your advice, we are entering our essays into a contest. Rules for the contest are on Google Classroom.  Math-We are still learning about fractions. Help me out by reiterating to the kids to find the unit fraction first. For example, if they are trying to find 4/6 of a whole or a set, find 1/6 first. I'll email an optional study guide for our quiz.  Content-We have learned about the regions of Alabama and will have a quiz on them on Thursday! Spelling counts. Next we will be exploring the major waterways in our state. We will also be learning about animals and focusing on animals in our state.

As always, thanks for your support. We have a great class! ;)

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Phew! Glad everyone stayed safe during our wintery days! And back to spring weather by the end of the week. What a crazy part of the state we live in. Hope everyone is having a Happy New Year!! Thank you again so much for all of my treats and goodies before the holidays! I had a great time using all of my gifts during the break!!

Monday 1/16/2017: No School

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-In between mid year assessments we will be studying persuasive writing. For the next few weeks we will be doing mid year assessments. You will see a few less signed papers coming home. Writing-We are working on a class topic in persuasive writing, "Should we give our Halloween Candy Away?" Next we will each select our own topic to write a 5 paragraph persuasive essay! We are also just about finished with an essay about our New Year's Resolutions, ask your child to show you!   Math-We have just started fractions. Be looking for a "How to Help at Home" flier to come home via email.  Content-We are learning all about Alabama. This will be a long unit lasting until the end of the year! We are starting with map skills the regions of our state, landforms in each region and also about the animals that live in our state. The kids have started a virtual Alabama notebook, we are researching and slides in our notebook each day. We are posting in homework which slides should have been completed each day so please touch base with your child and make sure he/she is keeping up daily.

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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.