December 16-20 NO Tree House or Gizmotics
December 20 Community Brunch and Hot Chocolate - please bring a reusable mug!
December 23 - January 3 Winter Break
January 6 School Resumes
January 13 Library Visit
Homework Due Thursday, December 12 - More details posted on the Homework Page
1. Read for at least 30 minutes per day.
* No reading response letter this week
2. 3rd Graders complete pages 19, 20 & 21 in Math Practice Book
4th Graders complete pages 18, 19 & 20 in Math Practice Book.
Upcoming Out and Abouts
For the month of December, we will use our Out & About time for Science Labs! We will be exploring states of matter (solids, liquids and gases) through lots of hands-on activities and student-led Science Talks. See Volunteer Opportunities below if you would like to help with our science studies!
Volunteer Opportunities - Sign up on our VolunteerSpot page: http://vols.pt/drMimF
Janelle and I would love some assistance with our science projects this Thursday from 12:30 - 2:30. Science helpers would mainly help set up and manage supplies, support students in reading and following directions, and assist students with writing down their observations. We are also in need of brunch donations for a small class celebration on December 20th.
I have added a wish list page to this website for other supplies and donations that would be appreciated at any time! There are many small items (like craft and office supplies), as well as a link to my Powell's book wish list and some "bigger wishes." Thank you for your support!
Math Notes
In 3rd Grade Math, students continued a geometry unit focused on polygons. Students practiced identifying and describing special types of quadrilaterals (such as trapezoids, parallelograms, rectangles, squares and rhombuses) by playing a "Guess My Quadrilateral" game. Then, they created their own clues and played the game again with a partner. We will continue to focus on quadrilaterals, line segments, angles and perimeter for the next week. Students will also continue to practice addition fact fluency with Rocket Math and multi-digit addition and subtraction using an open number-line model. Please continue practicing addition facts at home.
Last week in fourth grade math, we began memorizing and developing a deeper understanding of place value. Students are working on mastering place value up to the billions place. We will continue working on this concept (as well as introduce double-digit multiplication) this week in order to have these concepts solid in our minds before break.
Weekly Review
We continued our study about states of matter with 2 exciting activities last week: making oobleck and launching Alka Seltzer rockets! First, students learned more about solids, liquids and gases through several short videos, a fun song and nonfiction texts. While reading the nonfiction texts, students searched for interesting words and added them to a large collection of science terms on the whiteboard. To help with our science talk about properties of matter, students created oobleck (a liquid which has properties of a solid when pressure is applied) and observed what happened when Alka Seltzer was added to water in open and closed containers. Students also practiced writing down their observations and predictions during each experiment.
The Plovers participated in an event last week called The Hour of Code. This campaign was a part of Computer Science Education Week and its goal was to introduce 10 million students of all ages to the basics of computer programing. The Plovers tried out several self-paced tutorials which introduced computer science skills such as drag-and-drop programing, creative problem solving, sequencing and patterns, and basic algorithms. Some of the tutorials guided students through making their own interactive holiday cards or games. To learn more about The Hour of Code or try out some of the tutorials at home, please visit the Computer Science Education Week website here: http://csedweek.org/
Communication
Please contact me with any questions or concerns. Parents and students can e-mail me at [email protected]. You can also leave a voice message on the class phone, come into the classroom before or after school, or call me before 8PM at home.