Weekly Update, Sunday, September 25, 2016

I'll start with what your kids really want me to focus on - SPIRIT WEEK!

In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness month, Pinebrook is hosting a hat drive.
Please donate a NEW hat.  All donations will be given to Ellie's Hats Foundation and will be distributed to children who have lost their hair because of cancer treatments.  We will also be raising awareness through spirit week.  

Monday - Pajama day!  Wear your PJs to school.

Tuesday - Twin day!  

Wednesday - Wear a hat to school.

Thursday - Mismatch day!

Friday - Wear gold or yellow 

Sign up for a conference here: Conference Sign Up

Sign up to volunteer to stuff Thursday folders here: Thursday Folder Volunteer

This week in:

Virginia Studies: Students will begin to learn about the native American groups that lived/ live in Virginia and how American Indians used the natural resources of Virginia to live.  Students will review the major waterways of Virginia tomorrow, and have a quick quiz on the waterways on Tuesday.  Students need to know the location of the major waterways we've studied (Potomac River, Rappahanock River, York River, James River, Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean, Dismal Swamp, and Lake Drummond).  Students should use www.solpass.org to review AND their VA Studies notebook.  

Science: Students will continue to learn about the natural resources of Virginia.  We will continue to explore how "we all live downstream."  Students will reinforce their understanding about watersheds through their writing this week.  

Reading: Students will continue to develop their comprehension skills by practicing multiple strategies like making connections, retelling, and actively thinking about their reading.  

Homework: Students should read for 20 minutes nightly and record the pages and minutes read on the calendar side, and the books they are reading on the back of the page.

Writing: Students will work on their own story about the journey of a raindrop this week.  They will work through the writing process to create a story that demonstrates their understanding of how the way we treat the environment affects all of us.  Students will receive new word study words this week.

Homework: Word study.  The list of assignments are glued to the front cover of each student's word study notebooks.  

Upcoming Dates: 

Monday, 9/26: Fall After School Enrichment Programs (ASEP) begins

Monday, 9/26: Ellie's Hat Drive Begins

Tuesday, 9/27: Critical Thinking Night

Wednesday, 9/28: Believe Kids Fundraiser Packets Due

Wednesday, 9/28: Girl Scout Information Meeting @ 6:30

Friday, 9/30: PICTURE DAY!

Friday, 9/30: Community Night at John Champe HS

Saturday, 10/1: Fall Festival at 4:00 pm

Monday, 10/3: Scholastic Book Fair Begins

Tuesday, 10/4: Scholastic Book Fair Family Night 3-6 pm

Wednesday, 10/5: Walk to school Day @ 7:10 am

Monday, 10/10: Columbus Day, NO SCHOOL!

Important School Dates!

• Thursday, September 22nd--BYOT night for PARENTS ONLY in the gym at 6:30pm.
• Friday, September 23rd-- Box Tops Due for September!
• Friday, September 23rd - Recorder money $6 due!
• Monday, September 26th--Last day for Believe Fundraiser
• Monday, September 26th-Friday, September 30th--Ellie's Hat Drive (bring in a hat to donate to children with cancer).
• Friday, September 30th-- PICTURE DAY! Order forms going home in Thursday folders this week!
• Thursday, September 29th--Watch DOGS kickoff program at 6:30 pm in the gym (I LOVE to have Watch DOGS in my room...hope you can sign up!)
• Saturday, October 1st--Fall Festival at 4pm

Weekly Update, Sunday, September 18, 2016

It was LOVELY meeting the majority of you on Thursday at Back to School Night.  For those of you in the first session, thank you for indulging me and dancing around the room, I'm sure your children were impressed you earned some Puma Paws for them!  If you couldn't make it on Thursday I'm sending home the information about my class that was given out home on Thursday, in Thursday folders.

Thank you for turning in the money for recorders so quickly too, there were a handful of students who still need to bring in $6 and the permission slip, this is your friendly reminder to send it in tomorrow :)

This week in...

Reading: We will continue to read Absolutely Almost as a class and I will model how to retell the story and synthesize reading.  Sttudents will use their own books to practice retelling and synthesizing their reading.  Students will also continue to visualize their reading, and we will start to focus on how to interpret characters.  This week students will also begin the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA's).  I will listen to students read aloud and students will demonstrate their comprehension skills as well.
Homework: Read for a minimum of 20 minutes nightly, record reading in reading log.

Writing: Students will receive new word study words this week.  Tomorrow we will go over expectations for this work and students will be given time in class to work on the assignments.  Any unfinished word study work will be expected to be completed for homework.  In Writer's Workshop students will continue to write their realistic fiction stories and develop their characters.
Homework: Word study assignments  (will be glued into notebooks tomorrow)

Virginia Studies: Students will review the first topics we've covered and will have a quiz on Tuesday!  Students will be expected to know the bordering states of Virginia, the five regions of Virginia in the correct order, and the names of all the waterways we've discussed.  I encourage students to use their VA Studies notebooks to review.  I also encourage students to use www.solpass.org to study, if it prompts you for a password, it's "pinebrook"  There will NOT be a VA Studies Weekly this week,
Homework: Study for quiz on Tuesday, go on www.solpass.org to review.

Science:  Your kids will begin learning about the Chesapeake Bay watershed and what a watershed is this week.  We will discuss the journey of a raindrop and how to keep our watershed clean.

NEW: Throughout the year I like to include a photo of a student, or a student's pet on my morning message.  Kids love seeing themselves when they walk into the classroom, and it adds some excitement to the morning, "Who's going to be on the board today!?"  Please email me a photo of your child from over the weekend doing something fun, or a photo of your pet!  If you're going to Cox Farms next weekend, send me a photo of it!  If you went to a sporting event and took a photo - send it to me!  This obviously isn't a requirement, just something fun for the class!  You can pick one from your phone and send it to aakbar@lcps.org  

Please email me any questions, comments, or anything else at aakbar@lcps.org  

TWO Mid-week REMINDERS!

Back to School Night
This Thursday is Back to School Night. I hope you will be able to attend! Here is some important information about Thursday:

• Session 1 will start at 6:30 in my room and last until 7:25
• Session 2 will start at 7:30 and last until about 8:20
• Ignite Kids Club will be at Pinebrook to provide childcare services as you attend a session (no children in the session please). They are charging $10/child or $15 for two or more children. You may bring your children to the gym starting at 6:15 but will not be able to head down to our classroom until 6:30. 

Recorders!
If your child hasn't already told you, recorder order forms will be going home in Thursday folders.  Please return the form with $6 on Friday!  (If your child already has a recorder from an older sibling, or already purchased one, let me know that on the form as well!)  

**I will send out a Sign-up genius for parent-teacher conferences in the next coming weeks!  

Weekly Update, Sunday, September 11, 2016

It's hard to believe it was 15 years ago and that this year's high school class will learn about 9/11 as part of our country's history, not something they actually lived through.

I sent out a sign-up genius link for those of you who can volunteer to stuff Thursday folders, thank you so much in advance!

This week in...
Virginia studies: students will receive their second VA Studies weekly newspaper on waterways, and read and complete the puzzles on the back.  They will be given time to work on this in class, and are expected to use the facts in the newspaper to help them answer the questions, both on the puzzles, and for the open-not quiz that will be on Friday.  (This is pretty much the routine for the rest of the year unless I mention otherwise!)  We will continue to learn about the regions of Virginia and their importance to our state.
Homework: Virginia Studies Weekly Newspaper, read, highlight, puzzles
Quiz: Open note on Friday

Science: students have been learning about the natural resources of our state, we will continue to learn about specific water features and the benefits of the forests that stretch across our great state.  We'll also begin to learn about living in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Reading: students will learn how to "talk back to their books" this week and continue to learn skills do develop their comprehension of fiction texts.  We will also review how to answer comprehension questions by finding evidence within the text.
Homework: Read 20 minutes nightly, record page numbers and minutes read on reading log

Writing: students will review the difference between proper nouns and  common nouns, and what gets a capital letter!  Please emphasize to your students that their names always get a capital letter, both the first and last name!  Many students are NOT capitalizing the first letter of their last name!
Homework: Word study will begin this week, everyone will be getting the same words, they are commonly misspelled words, and they are used by fourth graders quite frequently!  The words are:
Ms. Akbar, people, great, because, awesome, Pinebrook, Virginia, friend, a lot, vowel, success, favorite, very, every, always, Aldie, Williamsburg, interesting
Nightly word study assignments may change from week to week, the assignments for this week are:
Monday - write a sentence for the first nine words.  Each sentence should begin with a capital letter, be at least seven words, and end with punctuation.
Tuesday - write a sentence for the second nine words.  Each sentence should begin with a capital letter, be at least seven words, and end with punctuation.
Wednesday - alphabetize all eighteen words, in other words, put them in ABC order
Thursday - have an adult read each word out to you and spell it like you're practicing for our quiz tomorrow.  Bonus, write a five-sentence paragraph using at least five of your words.
Friday - QUIZ!  

Math: students are currently learning about place value, rounding, and comparing numbers in fourth grade.  If your child's math teacher has not sent home information about Reflex Math as yet, that should be coming home this week.

Upcoming Dates: 
Monday, September 12th: 6:30 pm - PTA Meeting
Thursday, September 15th: 6:30 - 8:30 pm. Back to School Night - See you then!
Tuesday, September 20th: Oddysey of the Mind tryouts
Thursday, September 22nd: 6:30 pm BYOT (Bring your own technology) information night
Wednesday, September 29th: 6:30 pm - Watch DOGS Kickoff night
Saturday, October 1st: Fall Festival
Sunday, October 9th: Ms. Akbar gets married!
Monday, October 10th: Columbus Day - NO SCHOOL!

Reminder:
PLEASE SEND IN YOUR BOX TOPS!!!

My email address is aakbar@lcps.org and my phone number is 703-307-1113.  Please feel free to email me questions, concerns, and anything else you think I need to know!

Weekly Update, Monday, September 6, 2016

Happy Labor Day!  Thank you all so much for making me feel so special on my birthday, I am genuinely humbled by your thoughtfulness!  I hope your children had positive things to say about our first week together, hopefully they don't think I'm too strange or quirky!  This is a long first message, but I find it's easier to provide more information than not, so here we go!  Please read to the end, and as always, feel free to email or text me if you have any questions.

Last week if you asked your child, "What did you do/learn in school today?"  you may not have received a very strong response as we were just learning about one another and going over expectations and routines.
Questions I'd love for you to ask your child are:
1. What is the class pledge?
Answer: As a Pinebrook Puma, I promise to: respect myself, respect others, and respect property.
2. What is a prize puma?
Answer: Ms. Akbar picks a student each morning and keeps an eye on him or her all day to make sure he or she is doing exactly what is expected.  At the end of the day, she shares with the class if he or she earned the title of "Prize Puma" and that student can pick either 7 Puma Paws, or 7 marbles for the class jar, or a combination of each.
3. What does it mean to snake around the room?
Answer: Instead of Ms. Akbar passing out papers to 22 students, she has them get in a snake formation and dance around the room to music and the students pick up one paper each, it's an example of being efficient!
4. What are Ms. Akbar's two favorite words and why are they her favorites?
Answer: "Efficient" and "because"  She likes the word efficient because it's the best way to run the class.  Another example of being efficient is instead of 22 kids asking, "what are we doing in science today?" and Ms. Akbar giving 22 answers, kids can wait until Ms. Akbar tells the class as a whole what we are doing in science today.  She loves the word "because" BECAUSE it always means there is about to be an explanation to support an answer.

This week in...
Virginia studies:  students are learning about the states that border Virginia, and the five regions of Virginia.  Your child should be able to tell you the five states that border Virginia (Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina).  Students will be receiving their first issue of the Virginia Studies Weekly Newspaper!!   I will go over the expectations of how this is assignment is to be completed, and will give students time during class to work on their newspapers.  Students are expected to answer all the questions on the crossword puzzle on the back, and highlight where they found their answers in the newspaper.  Students are also expected to complete the map assignment that is underneath the crossword puzzle.  We will do the first newspaper as a class, and it is due on Friday.   Students will also have an open-newspaper quiz on Friday where they will be expected to answer multiple choice questions.  All the answers are in the newspaper!!!

Science:  students began learning about natural resources and we will continue to learn about the natural resources of our state this week.  I will send home a Natural Resources study guide this week, please review it with your child!

Reading: students and I reviewed reading expectations last week, such as picking a "just right book," expectations during independent reading, and how to treat the classroom library.  We will continue to review some of the lessons they had last year, like the different genres and how to complete their reading log.  I will be sending home the September reading log tomorrow.  Directions are on the reading log, students should read twenty minutes on school nights, and record the amount of total minutes and pages read nightly.  I recognize students have activities after school, if students need to read 40 minutes one night because they have extracurricular activities another night, that's fine - as long as students read at least one hour and 20 minutes a week.  

Writing:  Students will begin reviewing writing concepts this week including fundamentals like capital letters, when to use them, punctuation, and editing marks.  Word study will start in a few weeks, I'll keep you posted.

Math:  Students will have their first math class tomorrow with their assigned math teacher.  As with previous grades, this allows students to be exposed to different teaching styles, different classmates, and receive the academic support they need.  All teacher teach the same material, and all students take the same assessments.  All students in fourth grade are expected to complete two sessions of Reflex Math per week.

REMINDERS:
If you have not already sent in your $13 (cash or check) for the Scholastic News Weekly Reader and Virginia Studies Weekly subscriptions, please do so this week!!! THANK YOU!

We are always collecting Box Tops and Labels for Education, if you have the form to collect either over the summer, please have your child bring them in!

Upcoming Dates:
Wednesday, September 7th: Walk to School Day
Friday, September 9th: Oddysey of the Mind Interest Forms Due
Friday, September 9th: 8:05 am Patriot Day Ceremony
Friday, September 9th: 8:35 am  Volunteer and Room Parent Breakfast
Monday, September 12th: 6:30 pm - PTA Meeting
Thursday, September 15th: 6:30 - 8:30 pm. Back to School Night
Tuesday, September 20th: Oddysey of the Mind tryouts
Thursday, September 22nd: 6:30 pm BYOT (Bring your own technology) information night
Wednesday, September 29th: 6:30 pm - Watch DOGS Kickoff night
Saturday, October 1st: Fall Festival
Sunday, October 9th: Ms. Akbar gets married!
Monday, October 10th: Columbus Day - NO SCHOOL!


My email address is aakbar@lcps.org and my phone number is 703-307-1113.  Please feel free to email me questions, concerns, and anything else you think I need to know!