Children will interview a relative and write a report to present to the rest of the class.  This report will include information about the family history.  This project is equivalent to a test score.  All of this project will be done at home.  A quality project may be something that the children may want to someday pass down to their children or their grandchildren.  It is due December 4.

I attended an Otter Creek math conference this past week on increasing math fluency and teaching word problems.  I am very excited about the techniques that I learned.  I want to eliminate the counting on fingers and toes to figure out math problems.  We will also be doing story problems daily using these Otter Creek methods of learning how to classify story problems.  I believe these techniques will help the children when they start doing algebra and harder math in the Middle School. 

We will do a gift exchange for our holiday party.  The gift should cost about $4. A boy should buy for a boy and a girl should buy for a girl.

     After school play practice for "Vacation on Mars" will begin on Tuesday, October 27.  This play is a musical about a family who plan to go to Mars on vacation, but keep landing on the wrong planet.  On the trip, the family finds out about all of the other planets.  We will perform the play in front of the school and have one evening performance on December 15 at 6:00 PM.  
   

Math
     Estimating
     Multiplication division
     Double digit multiplication
     Review
Social Studies
     Map Skills
     Immigration
Reading
     biography /autobiography
     Guided Reading Groups
     Increasing Fluency
     Reading Strategy -asking questions
Writing
    Myths / legends
    Five Finger Detail (Character description,
    character action, dialogue, thoughtshots,
     developing setting)
     Lead sentence
Grammar
     Nouns
     Pronouns
     Verbs
     Capitalization
     Sentence structure
Science
     properties of matter
     measurement
     graphing
Word Study
     plurals
     prefixes
     suffixes
     No excuse words

Dates to Remember
Every Monday- Home Reading Log due
Friday- spelling test (words posted under more)

Every Tuesday play practice- Pick your child up at 4:45.

11-26-09 Thanksgiving No school
11-27-09 No school
12-4-09 Relative Interview due
12-15-09 Evening Play Performance 6:00 PM
12-22-09 Last Day before holiday break
1-4-10 School resumes
1-18-10 No school
1-28-10 1/2 day for high school Full day elementary
1-29-10 1/2 day End of 1st semester

  Daily Schedule
Every day -11:50 recess

            12:10 lunch

Monday-11:05-11:50-Art

Tuesday-9:35-10:20-       

       Physical Education

       Remember your gym shoes

Wednesday-9:35-10:20-Art

Thursday-9:40-10:25-Techology

        1:00 library –
        Remember   your library book

Friday-9:35-10:20-Physical Education

             Remember your gym shoes

Below are links to the fourth grade level content expectations provided by the Michigan Government specifically written for parents.  Teachers commonly refer to these grade level content expectations as GLCE's pronounced "glicks."