The Silver Scoop
May 2-6
Our Class Has PRIDE
Upcoming Events
Our spring field trip to the Indiana State Museum and the Statehouse is this Wednesday. Students need to bring a sack lunch with a drink in a disposable container and wear comfortable walking shoes. We have 14 parents signed up to chaperone! That's wonderful! You should have received a letter from Mr. Van Paris, the field trip coordinator, on Friday. We will be going to the Statehouse first for a tour that begins at 9:30, and then we will go to the museum and eat lunch before touring the exhibits there. Parents are asked to drive, or carpool together, as there is not enough room on our buses for everyone. Chaperones should meet in our classroom at 8:30 on Wednesday morning. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Please don't forget to turn the pink data sheet that was sent home recently.
ISTEP Testing is finished! Since our class had perfect attendance on testing days, we don't even have makeups to do this week! I wish I could say that all testing was finished, but the students do have two important tests remaining. This week and next they will take the STAR Reading and Math tests during their computer lab time. Every student has a goal that was set at the beginning of the year, so we are hoping they will surpass those goals on these final tests.
This week's special schedule:
Monday--Music, Tuesday--Art, Wednesday--Gym (skipped due to field trip), Thursday--Computer Lab, Friday--Library
Last Week's Learning
What We Are Studying This Week
DOL/Word Work -- This week the students will do Week #22 of Daily Paragraph Editing. There will be a quiz over one of these paragraphs on Friday. In Word Work, we are on List #31 on the prefixes non-, en-, multi-, post-, and trans-. There will be a test on Friday. This week's words: nonfiction, nonstop, enrage, endanger, multicolored, multipurpose, postdate, postscript, transcontinental, transport. Core Words: increase, address, sincerely, dangerous, chapter.
Math -- This week we will review the 3 tricks to simplify (reduce) fractions that I taught the students last week: 1) Try to divide by the numerator; 2) Try to divide by the difference between the numerator and denominator; and 3) Try to divide by 2. These tricks don't work for every fraction, but they do work for most. We will also do Lesson 11-6 on comparing fractions. The students will learn to change fractions so they have a common denominator before comparing them. There will be a homework assignment on Monday that is not due until Thursday and then a shorter assignment on Thursday.
Science -- We will begin Unit 4 on life science by reading Lesson 1 over heredity and how offspring are similar to and different from their parents. There should not be any science homework this week.
Reading -- We will end our year by reading the novel Among the Hidden. This futuristic novel is the first in the 7-book "Shadow Children" series. I hope that reading this book will inspire some of the students to continue reading the remaining books in the series this summer. This week the students will read and discuss Chapters 1-10 in a small group. There are some multiple choice and vocabulary questions to complete and turn in by Friday. On Thursday, the students will take a break from the novel to read two stories from our basal reading books. "The Stranger" and "Just a Dream" are both by author/illustrator Chris Van Allsburg, and the students will practice sequencing and inferencing skills when reading these fantasy stories. There will be a short quiz over the stories on Friday.
Language -- The students will finish writing their letters to Adelina and will work on a newspaper article about our field trip.
Social Studies -- We are skipping ahead to Unit 4, Lesson 4 in our textbooks to read about the three branches of government before our field trip to the Statehouse on Wednesday. There will be an assignment over this lesson on Tuesday. Then we will read two picture books about pioneer families moving to the "Old Northwest" states of Indiana and Ohio. These stories are the perfect companion to what we've learned in our textbook. There may be an in-class social studies assignment on Friday.
This Week's Cartoon
Mrs. Kara Silver
4th Grade Teacher
Clarks Creek Elementary
Plainfield Community Schools
Email: ksilver@plainfield.k12.in.us
Website: http://www.plainfield.k12.in.us
Location: 401 Elm Drive, Plainfield, IN, 46168
Phone: 317-839-0120