Making Connections with Room 209: March 2012

Dear 4^th Grade Families,

March is a month that is full of activities and events in our classroom. It is also a time when we are really digging deep into content areas and begin prepping for the MSP. This is the time of year to make sure your student is healthy and gets a good nights rest! Read on to learn about what we’ll be up to in the month of March.

Classroom Community: Our daily Meet and Greet in our class has become a time the kids look forward to so they can share the things they care about in their world. It’s been a time where we’ve been learning social skills as well: taking turns, reading social cues from our audience, etc. Ask your 4^th grader about it! This month the students met their goal of earning 100 Class Points and decided as their reward to have a class talent show.

Writing: This month we’re moving from expository writing on to imaginative writing. Our focus will be writing a story with an exciting beginning, middle, and end. We will work on our word choice and descriptive writing skills to build setting and character. Starting after Spring Break, we will work on a prompt per week with Monday being our prewrite day and lead, Tuesday will be our middle of the story day, Wednesday we focus on conventions, Thursday we’ll focus on writing strong endings, and Friday we’ll revise and edit. So you can see attendance will be very important as any missed days will put students behind in the process. Please continue to reinforce the importance of good editing and revising skills at home. Encourage the use of dictionaries and checking all written work carefully after completion. Students can check their written work by reading it aloud to themselves, by doing this they are able to hear mistakes within their writing and really make sure what they have written makes sense.

Reading: This month, we’ll begin our strategy focus on questioning. Our class will learn that readers constantly ask questions as they read. We will learn that some questions have answers that can be found in the text, some questions have answers that can be found outside of the book in other resources, and still other questions remain unanswered because they are the big questions/themes of life. We will look at all sorts of texts through the lens of questioning. The students will be participating in book clubs with a pioneer theme and will complete a book report on the book that they are reading with their book club group. The students will follow a format similar to their typical in-class reading work completing a 2-column chart for each chapter that they read. Then they will meet with their book club group periodically to discuss the book using their 2-column notes as talking points. Check-in with your student and their book club calendar to make sure that they are on track with their reading schedule!

Math: We’re learning about fractions right now. Students will learn about how to find equivalent fractions, simplify fractions, compare fractions, and convert improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice versa. This will also be the time of the year that we take their nametag with their multiplication table off their desks. They are not allowed to have these times tables out during MSP testing and are expected to be able to solve problems such as 45 x 23 without the times table as a resource. You can see just how important knowing their math facts are. Thank you to the math volunteers that have worked so hard with our class this year to achieve our goals! We couldn’t do it without you! Keep in mind that you can always check out www.pearsonsuccessnet.com and log in with your child’s name (that they go by in class) followed by 209 and then type the same thing in for the password. I would log in as karri209 and then my password would be karri209. There should be a label on the inside of the cover of your child’s planner that reviews this. Let me know if you experience problems and we’ll see if we can figure it out. Then you can access the math book if you have questions about how to work with your child on certain fraction concepts. I know that for some of us, it’s been a long time since we had to work with fractions in this way (besides cookingJ). Then we’ll move into working with decimals: naming them, drawing them on tenths grids and hundredths grids.

Social Studies: We are moving into our study of pioneers and westward movement. We have officially started our pioneer simulation and the kids have become a pioneer identity and will write journal entries as if they were that pioneer. I think you’ll be surprised when your child begins using phrases such as “darn tootin.” Students will need to stay current with their assignments to earn points to move their wagon along the trail.

Science: This month we will finish up our Environments science kit. We have had beetles, isopods, goldfish, and snails in our classroom that the kids have been observing. We are learning about factors in the environment as well as environmental roles (producer, consumer, decomposer). Please share anything you know with you student about these topics. They love making connections in learning from home-to-school! J

MSP (Measure of Student Progress): The MSP testing window is April 25^th-May 17th. The first test we will start with is Reading, then Writing, and finally Math. Keep in mind that even on the days that we are not testing, we are preparing for other days of testing and moving forward with our learning. Please do what you can to ensure that your child is well-rested, relaxed, fed a healthy breakfast, and in school (please do not plan family vacations) during those weeks. Students who are not, have to make up the test on the alternate days in a different location in the building and often don’t do as well because they are testing in an environment that is not comfortable to them.

Important Dates:

Fourth Grade Pride and MSP Information Night- March 27^th from 7-8 pm: Come and check out some projects your child has been working on at school. Arrive at 7 pm to see what we’ve been up to and stay with your fourth grade student to learn about MSP testing expectations. This is a fantastic opportunity to work with your child to learn more about what to expect during this important testing. We’ll do some testing examples together and you’ll learn how to support your child in doing their best in the last few weeks before testing begins. You’ll be surprised to see the jump in expectations from third to fourth grade and it is helpful to know what to expect. Knowing how to work with your child now helps prepare them for fifth grade, as well. Hope to see you in room 209 on March 27^th!

Please email us with any comments, questions or concerns. Have a wonderful week and I hope to see you March 27^th!

Warm Regards,

Karri Allen & Lara Magnuson