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Spelling:  None today due to discussing upcoming field trips.

Cursive: Cursive worksheet pp. 24-26 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a reading day in Literature Circles. Some groups worked on synthesizing and summarizing as a reading strategy.

Writing: We read the book Verdi by Janell Cannon to see how she developed her characters to make them seem real. Just like yesterday, we noticed these details she wrote about her characters:

• She described what the characters looked like (physical description);
• She wrote what the characters did (character action);
• She described how the other characters reacted (character action); and,
• She included dialogue and the thoughts of characters.

Students also worked on their draft. The next piece of writing will be a fiction piece, due Monday, November 30. Students should be nearing the end of their draft by now.

Math: We played Factor Bingo to practice factors and products. Homework is to complete puzzle pages 14 and 19 about prime numbers and factors.

Science: We finished our experiment about evaporation and boiling. The students noticed that some of the water placed in cups had evaporated from the heat of the room. We discussed the difference that evaporation happens only at the surface, but boiling happens throughout a liquid.

Social Studies: We learned about the start of the automotive industry and how Henry Ford pioneered the use of the assembly line.

Behavior Update:

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

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

Notes:

• Need to make, change or check your Fall Parent Teacher Conference time? See here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at SnapGrades.

Our Mission:
Every student in Room 130 leaves improved and prepared for 5th grade.

Spelling:  Today was a preview of upcoming spelling words.

Cursive: Cursive worksheet pp. 24-26 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a discussion day in Literature Circles. Some groups worked on chunking as a decoding reading strategy.

Writing: We read the book Fox by Margaret Wild to see how she developed her characters to make them seem real. We noticed these details she wrote about her characters:

• She described what the characters looked like (physical description);
• She wrote what the characters did (character action); and,
• She included dialogue and the thoughts of characters.

Students also worked on their draft. The next piece of writing will be a fiction piece, due Monday, November 30. Students should be more than half way through their draft by now.

Math: We learned that students won’t need to memorize all 100 facts of the multiplication/division table:

• The one family has an easy trick: the product is the factor other than 1.
• The two family has an easy trick: just double the factor that is not 2
• The ten family has an easy trick: just add a zero onto the factor that is not 10
• Half of the other products don’t need to be memorized, because they are turn-around facts (2*9 = 9*2)

Based on the above, less than half of the facts need to be memorized, and using the fact triangles can help.

We also learned these new vocabulary words:

• factor = a number multiplied by another number to get an answer
• product = the answer to a multiplication problem
• prime number = a number with only two factors, 1 and itself

Finally, we prepared to play Factor Bingo by identifying prime numbers up to 90. Homework is to complete Math Boxes 3.1.

Science: We started an experiment to explore evaporation and boiling. We boiled a pan of water, and the water was gone in about 15 minutes. We boiled another pan of salt water, and only salt was left after about 15 minutes. We finally placed cups of water in various locations, and will measure how much water is left tomorrow.

Social Studies: We learned that the natural resources of Michigan were used in the 1900s in factories. Grains were used in cereal factories, iron in automobile factories, and timber in furniture factories. We also noticed that factories were built as close to the natural resource as possible, but also near people because of the need for workers and customers.

Behavior Update:

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

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

Notes:

• Need to make, change or check your Fall Parent Teacher Conference time? See here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at SnapGrades.

Our Mission:
Every student in Room 130 leaves improved and prepared for 5th grade.

Spelling:  Students completed their Words to Learn lists today by correcting words they missed on the last spelling test.

Cursive: Cursive worksheet pp. 21-23 are available and due Monday.

Reading: Today was a reading day in Literature Circles. Some groups worked on making inferences using clues from the text.

Students completed a STAR Reading test yesterday, which is a computer-adaptive reading test. Our class growth is shown below:

Writing: Students worked on their draft today.

The next piece of writing will be a fiction piece, due Monday, November 30. Students should be drafting by now.

Math: Students sorted their multiplication/division fact triangles into “know” and “don’t know” piles.

Science: None today.

Social Studies: None on Fridays.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0
• Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 1

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

Notes:

• Need to make, change or check your Fall Parent Teacher Conference time? See here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at SnapGrades.

Our Mission:
Every student in Room 130 leaves improved and prepared for 5th grade.

Spelling:  Students completed a spelling and skill test today.

Cursive: Cursive worksheet pp. 21-23 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a discussion day in Literature Circles. Some groups worked on making inferences using clues from the text.

Writing: None today due to technology.

The next piece of writing will be a fiction piece, due Monday, November 30. Students should be drafting by now.

Math: None today due to practice for the Fourth Grade Musical.

Science: Students completed an experiment using graduated cylinders to measure and mix colored water. The result was a spectrum of colored water. The students then measured the amount of colored water in each container.

Social Studies: We finished learning about immigration and migration to Michigan. We found out that immigrants and African Americans came to Michigan for factory jobs and more freedom. Students completed the SQ3R (survey, question, read, recite, review) organizer and it was collected for a grade.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 1
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0
• Magnets moved this week (goal: 10): 1

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

Notes:

• The Fourth Grade Musical is tonight, November 12 at 7:30 pm.
• Need to make, change or check your Fall Parent Teacher Conference time? See here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at SnapGrades.

Our Mission:
Every student in Room 130 leaves improved and prepared for 5th grade.

Spelling:  We reviewed consonant digraphs; this will be the skill assessed on tomorrow’s spelling test.

Cursive: Cursive worksheet pp. 21-23 are available and due Friday.

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

Writing: We talked about describing what characters look like, especially when a new character enters a story, or something changes with a character. Students also made a chart of events in the beginning, middle and end of their story.

The next piece of writing will be a fiction piece, due Monday, November 30. Students should be prewriting at this point and ready to begin their draft.

Math: Students cut out multiplication and division fact triangles from their Journals today. The fact triangles will be used to practice multiplication and division facts.

Science: None today due library.

Social Studies: None today due to an assembly.

Behavior Update:

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

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

Notes:

• The Fourth Grade Musical is Thursday, November 12 at 7:30 pm.
• Need to make, change or check your Fall Parent Teacher Conference time? See here.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• View grades, assignments, and attendance at SnapGrades.

Our Mission:
Every student in Room 130 leaves improved and prepared for 5th grade.