4^th Grade Newsletter

September 13, 2007

Religion – We are going to be discussing how our faith affects our life and why it is so important to remember our friendship with God. The students will be learning the value of professing our faith.

Spelling – Our twenty spelling words have been taken from math, reading, religion, social studies, and science vocabulary words. We are also using some words that reinforce the phonetic spellings of words. We will have a test every Friday.

Reading – The students will be focusing on the skill of reading for a specific purpose during the Guided Reading Block. They are working toward earning their AR goals for the quarter and selecting books to read for enjoyment during our Self-Selected Reading Block.

Working with Words – During this block, we will be adding new words to our word wall and discussing these words. We will also be working with a big word, finding smaller words within the big word, and looking at patterns of letters and sounds in words.

Writing – Through daily mini-lessons and discussion, the students will be learning grammar. Our current focuses are the parts of a sentence including subjects, predicates, and direct objects. The students will also be learning about the four types of sentences. They will then be putting their knowledge to work as they create their own writings, edit, peer edit, teacher conference, and then publish some of their work. Currently, the students are working on their carnivorous plant creation writing project.

Math – We are working on Unit 2, which focuses on geometry. We will continue to work with their new knowledge of perimeter, length, and area. We will also be working with angles.

Social Studies –The region of the Northeast and its culture is our present focus as we move from our studies in the Atlas Map Study to the social studies book. Chapter 2 deals with the Northeast region and has the map of the states and capitals on pages 100 & 101. The children will need to know these states, locations, abbreviations, and capitals. They have been given a study map which is the same form that will be used for the map test. Please keep watch for the test dates in your child’s assignment notebook. We are also working on current news which comes in the Scholastic News Magazine weekly. This works with reading comprehension, as well as news.

Science –We begin our year by studying and preparing for our day at Earthworks. The first part of our study deals with our own habitats and needs. We will be going to a science day at Earthworks on November 17^th. The children work as scientists doing experiments and exploring five different habitats of Missouri.