Fourth Grade News for October 2008

 

Contact information for Mrs. Stiff:

grade4@stmarynativity.org   or

815-722-8518

“A Positive attitude is like a magnet for positive results.”  - Anonymous

 

Don’t forget to encourage your child to read 15-20 minutes a day at home so he/she can reach the goal of two hours a week.  This reading should be logged on the weekly reading log sheet. Be sure to sign it and have your child return it to school the first day of the week to qualify for a Pizza Hut certificate.

 

In Social Studies we are winding down our study of immigration, citizenship, and government. We will then delve into concentration of the Northeast region.                          

 

For Reading we are now in a section of the Rigby Literature Series CQ called “From Sea to Shining Sea”.  These short stories are on immigration, the Unites States, the building of the transcontinental railroad, and Native Americans.  The skills we will be focusing on are how images are created through our reading and personal experiences.

The students are enjoying the chapter books and short books from this series.

The next four lessons of list words for Spelling are listed below.  We will come back to the review lessons at the end of the year.  Fourth graders will be tested on the challenge words.

 

Unit 8            Unit 9            Unit 10          Unit 11

 

Tomorrow        them                   band                   station

Borrow              went                   cash                    danger

Different           fence                  into                     April

Supper               speak                 river                    wild

Matter                reason                with                    behind

Written              beat                    pond                   whole

Bottle                 money               block                  broke

Ridden              valley                 forgot                 drove

Odd                    honey                 trouble               hide

Bubble               monkey             young                decide

Offer                  credit                  January              vacation

Suffer                 engine               blanket              cable

Slippers             contest               backpack          bacon

Grasshopper    least                    finger                 pint

Worry                 steal                    window             lion

Current              treat                    closet                  smoke     

Lettuce               season                chop                             remote

Paddle               hockey               cousin                stole

Shudder            alley                             couple                invite

Hobby               donkey              tough                 arrive

Mississippi       escaped             package             operation

Recess                celery                 pilgrims            behavior

Impossible       squeaked          ignored              private

Antennas          bleachers          o’clock               Rhode Island

Allowance        jersey                 southern            apologize

For Silent Reading time, your son or daughter has completed reading one book since school began.  He/she will write a summary letter to me about that book.  Guidelines were given for them to follow, and it is due October 8th.  Your fourth grader will be doing this periodically throughout the year.

 

During Read Aloud the class is now listening to The Old Willis Place by Mary Howling Hahn, which is a ghost story and a selection from last year’s Battle of the Books.  I have found that many of them are great listeners!

 

Our focus in Religion this month is the study of the Rosary.  We have been praying a decade a day and will continue to do so throughout the month.  We will learn the mysteries of the Rosary and memorize the recited prayers.

 

The feast of St. Francis is October 4th and the class will learn the Prayer of St. Francis.

 

I hope your son/daughter has shown you that they know how to do sign language for the Lord’s Prayer.  We will lead the lower grades with this on the Mass days the the fourth graders plan!

 

At the end of the month, we will discuss the connection between Halloween, All Saint’s Day, and All Soul’s Day.

 

Multiplication and division are the skills being taught and reviewed in Math for the month.  We are reviewing our multiplication and division facts by game playing and drill practice.  It is vital that you child competently knows the multiplication facts.  Much of the remainder of the year will be based on this knowledge.

A fun website to practice math facts is:

www.mathplayground.com

 

Textbook review and practice and be found at:

www.eduplace.com/map

 

The class finished up the grammar portion of Chapter 1 in English with understanding sentences and subjects and predicates.  They wrote fire essays in the computer lab and Haiku poems.  They will continue to do more writings following the writing process: prewriting, writing, revising and publishing. Nouns: singular, plural and possessive will be covered as well later this month.

 

In Science we are concluding our Unit on resources and how to conserve them.  The class will welcome, Mrs. Wynn Hyzer from the city of Joliet, who will teach them about recycling, reusing and reducing garbage.  Her two presentations are informative, and the children will find her quite enjoyable!

Toward the end of the month we will began a new unit on matter.  We will be doing many activities describing matter and investigating how it is measured.  Then we will move into identifying the states of matter and exploring how matter changes states.  Look for study guides to assist your child in test preparation.