Spring Creek Cardinals
4th Grade Newsletter
JANUARY 2019 EDITION
Welcome Back!
It is hard to believe that our students are five months away from being a 5th grader!!
This semester we are all working on and preparing them for success in finishing 4th grade and making a smooth transition into 5th grade.
Please read all the information in the newsletter to best support your student.
MATH Update
From Mrs. Phillips
Happy New Year! As we move into the new year we will also pick up where we left off in our division unit. Over a 3 week span we will cover and learn several strategies. We will begin with using basic array models to solve division problems up to a 4 digit whole number. From there we will continue with division area models.
Once students have mastered the basics strategies, we will move on to standard algorithm with division that may or may not have remainders. We will wrap up the division unit with a assessment. To finish out the month of January we will introduce fractions.
We are halfway through our 4th grade year and have learned so much in such a short amount of time. I want to remind parents and students to continue making time to practice fluency, especially with multiplication and division problems.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me by email or phone.
READING/WRITING Update
ELA in Mrs. Dungan's room
I am so GLAD YOUR CHILDREN ARE BACK at school! I missed "my kids" over the break. I hope everyone enjoyed a relaxing break and read a few books while curled up on the couch. I read several books over the break. One is called Strays Like Us by Cecelia Galante. It is about a girl who finds unexpected friendship with the dog next door. The other book is Soof by Sarah Weeks. In this book, Aurora doesn’t recognize the love of her mom, but discovers love in many new places as well as at home.
We will continue a unit on READING NONFICTION this month with a focus on summaries, drawing conclusions, and author’s purpose. During class we will be reading a mix of nonfiction and fiction, but I would like to see students continuing to read fiction NOVELS AT HOME. Your children love to tell me about their books and what they love about the books they are reading. Be sure to take time each week to talk to your kids about the book they are reading and the books you are reading.
Essay writing will continue to be our focus in January. We will continue to learn strategies to revise the content of our essays in order to create a clear, concise topic with supporting evidence. We will continue to use mentor sentences as a technique to notice what published authors do when crafting a sentence and then applying this craft in students own writing. In grammar, we will continue studying parts of speech, possessives, compound sentences, conjunctions, and commas. In spelling we will tackle some new patterns like the rabbit rule, spellings of the sound /shun/, and other complex vowel and consonant blends.
I have to say I am so proud of students who have taken on the CONTINUOUS DAYS OF WRITING challenge. By the time you read this newsletter 7 students will have written outside of school for 70 DAYS!!!!! Students earn small rewards such as a Jolly Rancher for every 10 days. As they reach larger numbers of continuous days they also will earn items such as a decorative pencil, a colored pen, and even a new fancy journal! For those that reach 100 continuous days of writing we will have an ice cream sundae party after school. Be sure to ask your child about the writing they are doing and their goal for the year. Even if they are starting over at day 1 because they skipped some days over the holiday break, they could still reach 100 days by the end of the school year. Your children have amazing thoughts and ideas to share and are definitely learning how to use their voice. You should all be super proud.
POETRY will continue once a week this semester and is a highlight of our week. We will be publishing a hardcover poetry book this month. Be watching in Monday folders for an order form to receive a copy of your own. I want to INVITE PARENTS to write a poem of any sort and any topic to submit. I will share those in class on Fridays. So, if you are interested in writing a poem, please send me a message! I think the kids will love finding out one of their parents wrote a poem to share with our class!
YOUR STUDENTS WOULD LOVE COMMENTS ON THEIR WORK! Between Seesaw and our poetry blog there is a lot of amazing work students have published.
THANK YOU again for allowing me the privilege to teach your children. I love every day with them.
SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES Update
In Social Studies:
First we will pick up from where we finished the Fall semester, looking at the impact of Mexico's independence from Spain and how this impacted the events of Texas. Then we will discuss the major events that surrounded the Texas Revolution. Students will also be able to discuss the events that led to the annexation of Texas to the United States.
**WEEKLY QUIZZES** resume!
Encourage your student to participate and ask questions in class.
In Science,
First, we will review the key concepts we learned in the Fall semester then we will look at patterns in nature and weathering, erosion and deposition and the formation of soil and soil types. If your student finds examples of these concepts around your house or while you are out running errands, take a picture of it and email it to me. Have them identify what it is and we can use that in class! The more your student can "see" science outside the classroom, the easier it is for them to understand.
As a reminder, Encourage your child to review the vocabulary on the website.
Upcoming Events
January 11 - Awards Assemblies
January 16 - Third and Fourth Grade Author Visit, Crystal Allen
January 17 - PTO Meeting at noon
January 21 - Holiday
January 24 - Watch DOGS breakfast
January 24 and 25 - SkyDome Planetarium is here!
January 28 - Fourth Grade to Symphony
January 29 - Class and Spring Pictures
January 30 - 100th Day of School!
Spring Creek Elementary
Website: http://sc.csisd.org/
Location: 2450 Brewster, College Station, TX
Phone: 979-694-5838
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CSISDSpringCreek
Twitter: @sc_elementary