Mrs. Kindel & Miss Takash's Class

What a Year!!

I can hardly believe that we have only 15 more days of school! We have a lot planned in those 15 days.  On Monday the 5th Mountain View will celebrate our 80th anniversary.  We will have a ceremony outside at 8:30 am.  This week students will take their final SRI, DRA, and S.T.A.R. assessments.  We will also be working on our persuasive essay for the last nine weeks. 

Awards will be handled differently this year.  There will not be a grade level awards ceremony. Each class will hold their own awards presentation which will only include Principal's honor roll (all A's), honor roll (all A's and B's), perfect attendance, and Char Dorel awards.  You will receive an invitation if your child will be receiving any of these awards.  P.E., art, and music will present their own awards on different days.  Our class will vote on individual awards for our class.  Each student will receive one award.

For our end of year party, we are going to have an outside Luau with all 4th grade classes.  Our room moms are busy planning it now!  The party will be on May 22nd from 12:15 - 1:15 in the bus parking lot.

I have truly enjoyed teaching your children this year.  This has been the best year ever.  I love all of your children and am confident that they are very ready for 5th grade.  Thank you all for your support! 

Spring Has Sprung!!!

It is so hard to believe that we are less than 9 weeks away from the end of the year.  We have been working very hard!  In science we are still studying Space and will resume after Spring Break with the Solar System and Planets.  We have covered nouns, verbs, adjectives and have begun adverbs.  After the break we we review subjects and predicates and compound sentences.  We will also begin Western Expansion in social studies.  Please remember that we will begin the CRCT Test on April 23rd.  Please make sure that your child gets to school on time each morning.  We will start promptly at 8:15 am.  There is still time to take the CRCT practice tests on line.

Silent Auction!!!!

We are so excited to see Mountain View's silent auction approaching so quickly!  This year Mrs. Kindel and Miss Takash will be turning our classroom into a nail salon.  Four girls will be treated to a manicure by Mrs. Kindel and Miss Takash.  We will massage the hand and paint you nails the color of your choice,  Enjoy yummy snacks as your nails dry!  Be sure to bid on the manicure!!!

March Madness

Only two more weeks until the end of the third nine weeks grading period - how can that be! The students have been working very hard writing factual reports on the Revolutionary War.  As we start the fourth nine weeks, we will be working on the following:

Language Arts - Parts of speech and Informational Text

Math - Extending Multiplication and Division of Decimals/Geometry of 3D shapes and Coordinate Systems

Science - Space, Moon and Start/Simple Machines

Social Studies - The Constitution and Western Expansion

Writing Workshop - Persuasive Writing

Important Dates for March:

March 8th - Movie on the Mount 5:30 - 9:00

March 14th - End of the third Nine Weeks

March 17th - Auction

March 17th and 18th - 4th grade writing assessment (practice)

March 24 - Field Trip to Youth Museum

REMEMBER:  CRCT TESTS IMPROVE BY TAKING ONLINE PRACTICE SCORES!!!!

February News!

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our chaperones that went with us to the New World Of Coke.  It was a great field trip and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it! 

With the new month, we are moving into new areas of curriculum.  In math we have just completed fractions and have moved on to the relationship of fractions and decimals.  We will then end the month of February with measurement.  We are learning how to write an informational piece that compares the similarities and differences between two things.  We just finished our comparison of a day in the life of a colonial child compared to our life today.  In social studies we are on the road to the Revolution.  The students have been excited about this - we will actually do some simulations to try and re-enact some of the events.  We are also reading several historical fiction books about the revolution.

February is also heart month!! We will have a simple Valentine's Day celebration in our classroom on the afternoon of the 14th.  A note will be sent home later this week.

Please remember to allow your child to practice on line CRCT tests.  It will be here before we know it!

Colonization of America!! Great Web sites!!

I have listed a couple of  web sites to reinforce our unit on Colonization of America.  The first one is interactive!

http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/ushistory/13colonies1.htm (be sure to use all of the links on the right hand side of the page)

http://www.hfmgv.org/education/smartfun/colonial/intro/index.html (be a history detective)

Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone had a restful holiday season!  On Tuesday, we will begin the second half of the school year.  It has gone by so fast and we still have a lot to cover.  You will probably notice a few changes the second half of the year.  Once again, students will be bring home behavior contracts that will need to be signed and returned on Friday.  We will send them home on Thursdays instead of Fridays as before - this way students should remember to return them the next day.  Students that do not return homework, will stay in at recess in study hall and complete the missed assignment.  Reading logs will need to be completed and will be checked on Friday's as before.  Remember, this is a schoolwide requirement, so please be sure to sign it nightly.

For the month of January, we will be studying the following:

• Math - Fractions ( equivalent, improper, mixed numbers, adding and subtracting)
• Grammar - Verbs
• Writing - Informational Writing
• Reading - Independent Student Choice and Literature Circles; Colonial America non fiction
• Social Studies - Colonization of America (13 colonies)
• Science - Space, Moon Phases

Remember that parent teacher conferences will be held Tuesday, January 22nd through Monday, January 28th.  Be sure to return forms ASAP!

                                                             

December News

It's hard to believe that we are almost at the half way point through the year!  How time flies!  November 30th marked the end of our social studies unit on "Explorers of the New World."  The students had a great time working on group projects and really were engaged in learned as they worked together.  The projects turned out great and I think they were all very proud of them.  The students also finished our novel study on the book Sign of the Beaver about how 2 cultures come together.  For their final project, they had to create a book jacket and write a summary, a book review, and recommendations about the book.  These projects are hanging in our hallway.  We also spent the last couple of weeks reading non-fiction books on the early explorers.  In math we have working on Geometry and will finish that up this week.  For the next three weeks, we will revisit multiplication and division.  Please continue to work on this at home.  I hope to send each student a math packet to work on over the Winter Holidays.

With December comes sound and light.  Our High Touch in-school field trip last week covered a lot of what the children need to know about sound, so it was a great introduction.  We will have frequent quizzes throughout these two units instead of one big test at the end.  All of the information is in the science text book.

End of October!!

                     

  End of October News!!   

October has gone by so fast!  We have covered a lot of curriculum this month including, Regions of the U.S., Weather, Multiplication, Division, Nouns, Reading Strategies, Writing assessment and completed a novel study on Gooseberry Park. November brings new and fun areas of study.  We are still working on multiplication and division, and will begin  geometry next week.  II have provided some links to help with different areas of geometry including use of a protractor. We will be studying pronouns and verbs for grammar.  We have started our second novel study that goes along with our Native American Unit called Sign of the Beaver. We started Native Americans this week and will move on to explorers of the new world next week.  Look for a take home project to come home next week.

Our field trip to CNN was great.  The students loved it. Thank you so much to our chaperones.  We will rotate chaperones for every field trip!!

Measuring Angles          Angle Measures            Shape Surveyor       Using a Protector

Goodbye to September - Hello October!

How fast the first nine weeks is going!! As we begin the seventh week of school, we will see changes in the curriculum as well.  The students have settled into the routine and things are going smoothly.  This is what we will be doing next week:

Math -  Area Models for multiplication.   Area models are arrays that are meant to help students understand what it looks like to multiply 2-3 digits numbers by 2-3 digit numbers.  They are basically several arrays in one space.  We will also begin multiplication using partial products.  Once these algorithms, are introduced and students understand, we will go to the traditional model of multiplication that we all understand.  I will try to send home examples to help you understand what we are doing.

Social Studies - We should finish our unit on Regions of the U.S. by Friday and will test next Monday, October 1st.  We will then begin science by studying water weather and climate. 

Reading - Students are reading each day in class as I do individual conferences with them to monitor understanding.  We are learning how to summarize and write letters about what we read in the Reading Response Journals.  Students have to explain how they are using reading strategies to understand what they read and be able to use judgments, interpretations, and evaluations.  What we have done in class over the last few weeks has all led up to this reading project,

Writing - We are working on our first writing assessment which is a personal narrative.

English - Commas, Antonyms, Synonyms

Cursive Handwriting will be practiced weekly.

                                       Graded Papers!                                                             By now you have seen many graded papers coming home.  There are several areas of concern and I'm sure you all may be wondering what the expectations are for students to receive certain grades.

1.  On assignments, students MUST answer in complete sentences.  Before every assignment, students are reminded that they must do this.  Many times, however, when I grade a paper, I get just short answers,  The first few weeks I have given them the opportunity to correct these. This will no longer be the case.  Answers will be counted incorrect, if they do not follow the directions.  After 7 weeks, they all know that there are some assignments that have to be done using complete sentences.

2. Spelling - There is no excuse for misspelling words on an assignment if the word that is misspelled in on that paper.  These words are already being counted as wrong.

Following directions is very important in 4th grade .  Our goal is for students to listen to directions, ask questions if they do not understand, and earn a good grade.  They cannot earn a grade if they do not take the time to LISTEN!  Please encourage your child to be a good listener.

Field Trip - We will be sending home information this week about our field trip to the CNN Center.  This field trip supports our study of weather in  science.  As we begin to take field trips, we will need chaperones. On most of our field trips we will be limited to the number of chaperones that we will be able to take.  We will rotate chaperones throughout the year and try to give everyone an opportunity to go.