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!