October 15 Book Orders Due
October 16 Picture Day
October 19 No School
October 25 - 26 Conferences (No School)
October 31 Pumpkin Book Project Presentation 3pm
Homework - More details posted on the Homework Page
1. Read for at least 20 minutes per day and fill out your reading log each night. Your parents must sign your reading log this week.
2. Complete your math homework.
3. Complete the writing assignment.
Upcoming Out and Abouts
We will be exploring the Naylor Walker historic district this week. Many of Forest Grove's local historic landmarks can be found in this neighborhood and it is located just northwest of our school.
Scholastic Book Orders
Orders are due Monday, October 15th (I will submit the order Tuesday morning). You can view this month's selections and submit your order online at https://orders.scholastic.com/L79X9. When you place your order online, you'll help earn free books for our class and you also get a $5 coupon to use on your next online order! The books will arrive in about 2 weeks.
Pumpkin Book Project
Level 2 students will be starting an exciting literature project this week in class. Each student will select a high quality picture book or chapter book to study. They will choose a character from their book to write about and represent on a pumpkin! We will be designing and decorating the pumpkins either in the classroom or in Art next week. Parent are invited to see our pumpkin display on Wednesday, October 31 at 3pm. After the presentation, pumpkins will be sent home with students.
Pumpkin donations: If you are able to donate a pumpkin to our classroom project, please drop it off in the classroom or send it with your student by Thursday, October 18. We would appreciate small or medium-sized pumpkins or squashes that the students can carry on their own. Because we are turning the pumpkins into a variety of our favorite characters (Frog and Toad or Captain Underpants, perhaps!), weird-shaped pumpkins and squashes are welcomed.
Weekly Review
We went to the Forest Grove Library last week to check out more books. The students were very respectful inside the library and they did a great job taking care of the books - they should be very proud of themselves! We also had a wonderful "In and About" with David Morelli. He brought an interesting slideshow about the history of Forest Grove and showed us a lot of unusual maps. He also left us with a lot of big questions, like 'should people be allowed to build their homes in a flood plain?' and 'why do the neighborhoods around downtown look different from the neighborhoods toward the outside of town?'
I am reading The Tales of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo to the class. It is a Newbery Award winning fantasy novel about the adventures of a mouse named Despereaux. The book is divided into four sections, each told from a different perspective. Some students have seen the movie and I've given them the great challenge of not spilling any secrets! I am also reading pictures books about family histories to the class, such as How My Parents Learned to Eat and Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born. The students are eagerly reading a variety of just-right books, as well as parodies of popular Fairy Tales.
Math Notes
We are heading into our second unit this week in Third Grade Math. This unit includes a review of subtraction facts and place-value, as well as computation with larger numbers. Subtraction is more difficult than addition for most third graders. Students will be bringing home a short booklet about strategies for solving subtraction facts. Please review the booklet with your Plover and talk about ways to solve subtraction problems. Work through the activities in the book together and keep the book in a safe place so your student can refer to it as we continue to work on subtraction.
Homework: Review the Solving Subtraction Facts booklet together. Complete the Home Connection 5 Worksheet (challenge problem is optional). Students should be able to complete the Home Connection independently, but check in with your student to make sure they are using the subtraction strategies correctly. Contact Laura at [email protected] with questions or concerns.
This week in Fourth Grade Math we will finish our first unit in math and start our second unit. This new unit will focus on place value and multiplication with larger numbers. We will continue our use of the area model for multiplication as well as expand our multiplication strategies. We will also continue our fluency and automaticity with 0-12 multiplication facts.
For homework this week, students need to complete Fact Families for the 10's (Independent Worksheet 3) — which focuses on the rectangular area model of multiplication and fact families. This is an assignment that students should be able to complete independently. However, your student may need support reading and understanding the directions. Please let Becky know if your Plover struggles with this assignment. Contact Becky at [email protected] with questions or concerns.
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.