Magic?

Your child may try a "magic" trick on you this evening involving a penny, sticky tack, a bowl and some water. We know it may not be magic, but we're not positive why it happens. As we are studying light, we had some great discussions about how light may be a factor. See if you and your child can come up with any new theories. Perhaps try sticking a pen in a glass of water to get some ideas!

I did my best to edit the blog update list. If you were one of those who told me last night that you had not gotten a blog update, please send a quick response so I know I edited it properly. Thank you!

Week 2

In the past, I have always done a newsletter to put into the Tuesday Communicators, but in this technological world we are all living in, I feel I can save a tree or two by communicating via the blog.  I will do my best, once a week to let you know a little bit about what we will be working on that week so that you can be prepared and better help your child with his/her homework.

Spelling - We made (yes, made) our first spelling list today.  I do spelling a little differently, so please ask your child more about it and I will fill in any gaps tomorrow night.  They should complete two spelling homeworks sometime this week and their first spelling test will be on Friday.

Reading - Our focus this week is on parts of a story such as characters, setting and plot as well as summarizing.  Our fluency focuses this week are to read with accuracy and making self-corrections as we read.

Language Arts - The students will be writing small biographies about a classmate whom they interviewed last week.

Alabama History - We will be looking more at some basic world geography as well as map reading skills.

Science - We will be looking at light and hopefully beginning our unit on sound.

Math - Our main focus right now is on number sense and place value.  We will be talking about standard, word and expanded form as well as rounding numbers.

I hope to see each of you tomorrow evening starting around 6pm.  There will be three sessions, so if you have other children at Shades Cahaba, you will have time to visit more than one classroom.

Thank you for your help and support at home!

Self Portraits

During this first week of school, the students have time to draw their self-portrait.  It is always amazing to me how much the drawings truly look like the student, no matter the artistic talent of the child.

Multiplication Facts

It is one of those dreaded phrases, I know, but memorizing the multiplication facts (up to 12 x 12) is truly vital.  Your child will be conquering double digit multiplication, equivalent fractions, long division, and even some percentages this year.  Those basic multiplication facts are used in so many aspects of math.  If he/she is not able to quickly recall these facts, every other problem we do will take longer than expected and be more of a struggle.  So, please help your child to practice these facts.

Over the next twelve weeks, we will be conquering a different number in the times table.  We will spend a few minutes each day talking about the number and discussing ways to remember the time tables associated with that number.  We will not necessarily go in order of smallest to largest, but rather in order of difficulty.  Tomorrow, the students will take a twenty question quiz for one minute based on only the 0 and 1 facts.  Next week we will do 2s, then 10s, 5s, and so on.

How can you help at home?  Well, of course there are always the dreaded flashcards, but thanks to modern technology, there are lots of more entertaining ways!

If you have an apple device, try one of these apps:

Match-Up Math - like Mah Jong tiles only with facts on them

Mad Math - includes a bubble-popping fact game, a Bingo fact game and even electronic flashcards

HyperBlast - looks a bit more like a video game but in order to continue through the game you must answer fact questions

NumbrsLeague - a comic book type game with some math concepts interwoven

TimesTable Lab - a race to complete a multiplication table

There are also a wide variety of games online, such as at: http://www.multiplication.com/games/

A game that you could get three members of the family involved in just requires a simple deck of cards.  All face cards are worth 10.  Two people pick up a card and put it on their foreheads facing outwards so that the other two people see what card they have, but they do not.  The third person calls out the product of the two cards.  The two people with cards on their head look at the other person's card to determine what they have on their own head.  For example, if 24 was called out and you saw a 3 on the other person's head, you would know you had an 8.  The first person to identify the card on their own head wins.

And of course, there are always those wonderful Schoolhouse Rock Multiplication videos!  They are all on YouTube and so catchy that they really do make a difference.  I think the one for 3 is my favorite one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU4pyiB-kq0

There are lots of great ways to help your kids learn those facts.  I hope you can all find one that you all enjoy!

Mapping the World

Imagine you were given some paper, a marker and some glue and asked to create a map of the world, labeling the continents and oceans. How would you do without looking at a map or being able to use scissors?

Well, that is the challenge that your 4th graders were faced with this afternoon! Over the next few weeks we will be working on some basic geography and map reading skills. To begin our study of that, I wanted to see just how much the kids knew about the placement of the continents on our globe, but more importantly, I wanted to see how well they could work in a group. I was truly impressed with the maps the kids created and the way that they worked with one another.

First Day of School

There are 22 wonderful kiddos in our 4th grade class this year.  It will be a joy for us all to learn and grow together!  Here are photos from the very first day of school:

Wyatt

Caleb

Ellie

Abby

Fritzi

Lily

Jordan

Danny

Alex

Lindley

Natalie

Paschal

Matthew

Josh

Sunny

Hailey

Ben

Harrison

Lilly

Aidan

Annie

Lissette

Meet the Students

I absolutely love Meet the Teacher Day, or as I call it "Meet the Students."  It is a wonderful time to introduce myself to parents and children beginning to put faces with the names I have heard about.  I love seeing children eager to come into the building (perhaps it is because they are not really coming in for lessons!), excited to see their friends and get to know their classroom.  It is a wonderful, fresh start to a brand new year.

Thank you all for taking the time out of your very busy schedules, and interrupting your last few days of summer, to come in today.  I am looking forward to a wonderful year ahead!