MrHowd.com

Spelling: Students completed a spelling and skill test today.

Cursive: Cursive pp. 60-62 are available and due Monday.

Reading: None today due to STAR Friday.

Writing: Students created websites and started to work on the draft of their next writing piece, a Choose Your Own Adventure fiction gamebook. Students will write a fiction adventure story with choices that the reader can make. Each choice can change how the story turns out. The project is due Monday, February 6. Students will publish their adventure as a website at sites.mrhowd.com. Students should be drafting their adventure story at this time. See below for more details.

Choose Your Own Adventure Resources

• See examples of Choose Your Own Adventure fiction websites here and here.
• Look at an Underground Railroad Choose Your Own Adventure website.
• Look through the Underground Railroad Interactive History Adventure book (hint: search for “the end” to see some of the endings of the book).
• Look at some examples of different kinds of endings in a Choose Your Own Adventure Story.
• View the titles of all the Choose Your Own Adventure books to get adventure topic ideas.
• Play Zork, a text-based computer game. Here is a list of commands and directions. Here is a map of the dungeon if you get stuck or lost.
• Find a complete list of resources here.

Math: We reviewed solving problems using equations and drawings. We’ll take a math test next week about addition and subtraction. There is a practice test on p. 110 in the math book that might be helpful.

Science: We continued to learn that you can change the states of matter by adding or removing heat. Today, students blew their warm breath onto a cooler mirror. The water vapor in their breath condensed as tiny droplets of liquid water. The liquid appeared when the mirror removed heat from their breath.

Social Studies: We learned that the government provides public goods and services, paid for by taxes, to help us or keep us safe.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 2
• Orange magnets: 2
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0
• Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 12

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at JupiterGrades to see if your student moved their magnet. Need help with JupiterGrades?

Notes:

• Want to grab your favorite time for the Spring Parent Teacher Conferences in March? Do that here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at JupiterGrades.

Our Mission:
All students in Room 130 will do their best and get ready for 5th grade.

Spelling: We learned that numbers up to 99 are hypenated:

• thirty-four
• sixty-seven
• ninety-nine

We also reviewed for tomorrow’s spelling test. The skill tested will be common spelling patterns for the /s/ sound.

Cursive: Cursive pp. 60-62 are available and due Friday.

Reading: None today due to Career Fair.

Writing: None today due to art.

Students have been introduced to the next writing piece, a Choose Your Own Adventure fiction gamebook. Students will write a fiction adventure story with choices that the reader can make. Each choice can change how the story turns out. The project is due Monday, February 6. Students will publish their adventure as a website at sites.mrhowd.com. Students should be prewriting for characters, settings and plot ideas at this time. See below for more details.

Choose Your Own Adventure Resources

• See examples of Choose Your Own Adventure fiction websites here and here.
• Look at an Underground Railroad Choose Your Own Adventure website.
• Look through the Underground Railroad Interactive History Adventure book (hint: search for “the end” to see some of the endings of the book).
• Look at some examples of different kinds of endings in a Choose Your Own Adventure Story.
• View the titles of all the Choose Your Own Adventure books to get adventure topic ideas.
• Play Zork, a text-based computer game. Here is a list of commands and directions. Here is a map of the dungeon if you get stuck or lost.
• Find a complete list of resources here.

Math: None today due to the Career Fair.

Science: We learned that you can change the states of matter by adding or removing heat. Today, we added heat to melt snow (solid changing to liquid), we added heat to water to make it evaporate (liquid changing to gas), and we removed heat to freeze water into ice (liquid changing to a solid).

Social Studies: We learned more about outsourcing jobs to other countries.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0
• Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 5

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at JupiterGrades to see if your student moved their magnet. Need help with JupiterGrades?

Notes:

• Want to grab your favorite time for the Spring Parent Teacher Conferences in March? Do that here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at JupiterGrades.

Our Mission:
All students in Room 130 will do their best and get ready for 5th grade.

Spelling: None today due to extra time with writing.

Cursive: Cursive pp. 60-62 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a discussion day in Literature Circles.

Writing: Students were introduced to the next writing piece, a Choose Your Own Adventure fiction gamebook. Students will write a fiction adventure story with choices that the reader can make. Each choice can change how the story turns out. The project is due Monday, February 6. Students will publish their adventure as a website at sites.mrhowd.com. Students should be prewriting for characters, settings and plot ideas at this time. See below for more details.

Choose Your Own Adventure Resources

• See examples of Choose Your Own Adventure fiction websites here and here.
• Look at an Underground Railroad Choose Your Own Adventure website.
• Look through the Underground Railroad Interactive History Adventure book (hint: search for “the end” to see some of the endings of the book).
• Look at some examples of different kinds of endings in a Choose Your Own Adventure Story.
• View the titles of all the Choose Your Own Adventure books to get adventure topic ideas.
• Play Zork, a text-based computer game. Here is a list of commands and directions. Here is a map of the dungeon if you get stuck or lost.
• Find a complete list of resources here.

Math: We reviewed subtraction today. We also practiced solving problems by drawing pictures and forming equations. Homework is to finish Journal P4-6.

Science: Today was a physical education and nutrition lesson. We learned that all students should get at least 60 minutes of activity and exercise each day.

Social Studies: None today due to our math and reading skills time.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0
• Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 5

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at JupiterGrades to see if your student moved their magnet. Need help with JupiterGrades?

Notes:

• Want to grab your favorite time for the Spring Parent Teacher Conferences in March? Do that here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at JupiterGrades.

Our Mission:
All students in Room 130 will do their best and get ready for 5th grade.

Spelling: None today.

Cursive: Cursive pp. 60-62 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a reading day in Literature Circles. Some groups worked on determining importance as a reading strategy.

Writing: None today due to our technology time.

Math: Students completed a midyear math skills test today. Our class average improved from 23% to 33% correct on this test about these skills:

• addition
• subtraction
• multiplication
• division
• decimals

Most students are showing that the understand addition and subtraction. However, their scores are being held back by not yet understanding multiplication, division and decimals.

To get your student ready for these skills, try having them spend some time at home working on Khan Academy. We use this at school and your student can practice these skills so they will be ready when we practice them again in class.

Science: None today.

Social Studies: We learned how outsourcing means US factory or office jobs are being moved to China, India and other countries.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 5
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0
• Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 5

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at JupiterGrades to see if your student moved their magnet. Need help with JupiterGrades?

Notes:

• Want to grab your favorite time for the Spring Parent Teacher Conferences in March? Do that here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at JupiterGrades.

Our Mission:
All students in Room 130 will do their best and get ready for 5th grade.

Spelling: Today we learned about rules for adding suffixes onto words.

Cursive: Cursive pp. 57-59 were due today.

Reading: Today was a discussion day in Literature Circles.

Writing: We learned that another kind of lively lead that can start a story is a thinking lead–the story begins with the character thinking about something.

The next piece of writing is a fiction story, due Tuesday, January 17 (new date). Students should be publishing at this time.

Math: None today due to STAR Friday.

Science: We reviewed our last experiment about matter. We learned that solids keep their shape and size, and can be piled up or stacked. Liquids change shape when put in new containers, but their sizes don’t change. Liquids can’t be piled up or stacked. Gases change shape or size depending on the container.

Social Studies: We learned more about about employment and unemployment. Homework is to finish the Employments Analysis Chart started in class.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 2
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0
• Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 8

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at JupiterGrades to see if your student moved their magnet. Need help with JupiterGrades?

Notes:

• Want to grab your favorite time for the Spring Parent Teacher Conferences in March? Do that here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at JupiterGrades.

Our Mission:
All students in Room 130 will do their best and get ready for 5th grade.