Camden Revolutionary War Park

     Today, we wrapped up with our Colonial Life unit of study and will shift our focus to the American Revolution next week.  Last week, we enjoyed a trip to Camden Revolutionary War Park and the great connection it has with the book we are currently reading in English/Language Arts, The Keeping Room.  Students were able to enjoy trying on Colonial clothing, learning more about the Battle of Camden, seeing the former home of Joseph Kershaw and they were also able to write with a quill pen, among other things.  It's always great when students are able to go on field studies that actually bring what we are studying to life.  Below are some pictures from our trip.  

Astronomy Wizards

    We are starting to wrap up with our first science unit of study and we have enjoyed a host engaging activities during this unit.  One of the last activities was measuring our shadow throughout the course of the day to notice how the Sun's position in the sky changes the length of our shadow.  See your little at work below.  

 

StarLab Planetarium

      On Tuesday, our entire fourth grade class had the pleasure of receiving a visit from StarLab.  Students had an opportunity to learn more about Astronomy via this great "being there experience."  We learned about the phases of the moon, the names and their order, their relative locations in the sky and why each phase occurs, in addition to that, we learned about constellations and how to identify them in the night sky.  Below you will see our class, along with students from Ms. Mayer's class, outside of the StarLab.  Be sure to ask your child what he or she enjoyed the most about the StarLab.  We will continue with our study of Astronomy next week learning more about the Sun and its effects on the Earth, shadow's, tides and seasons.   

The 4th Grade Wax Museum

     If you have been at Bookman Road for any number of years, you have likely seen or heard of the Wax Museum that the 4th Grade class presents every year.  If you are new to Bookman Road, then you are in for a treat!  The 4th Grade class will bring many of the historical figures we learn about throughout the school year to life in this breathe taking presentation.  Tomorrow, I will send home paperwork regarding the Wax Museum that is very important.  Please take some time over the weekend to review this paperwork with your child.  The actual event doesn't take place until January, but there is lots of work do before it all comes to fruition.  Help your child to select his/her top three choices of a person from history that they'd like to represent in the Wax Museum and return the form to me no later than next Tuesday, October 13th.  I will then send a letter of notification home on Thursday, October 23rd informing you and your child what choice he/she received.  There are a lot of options to choose from, so finding a person that he/she is interested in shouldn't be a problem.  We will try our best to honor your child's first choice, however, we often have some groups that are very popular (which we have to limit), so we may to have go with your child's second, and in some instances, third choice.  The sooner your child turns in his/her form, the higher priority he/she receives.  Please send me an e-mail if you have any questions about the Wax Museum or this process and please keep the green information sheet and rubric in a safe place!

Continents & Oceans

Happy Hump Day!  Just a reminder that tomorrow is Early Dismissal Day, so dismissal will start at 11:30.  We are having our Continents & Oceans quiz tomorrow, so hopefully, you've seen your child studying the World Map in preparation for the quiz.  Below is a short video clip of our class singing the Seven Continents songs.  

Also, here are a few pictures of them examining the continents and oceans on a map.

Keep learning,

Mrs. Harris

What a week...

     This was a fairly busy week for us and we will have an equally as busy week next week.  On Monday, your child will take his/her first math assessment.  This will be a mid-module quiz on what we have covered, so far, in math.  The quiz will include number in expanded & standard form, rounding & rounding in word problems & comparing numbers.    On Tuesday, we will have our first round of MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) Testing.  This test will be for reading and will simply be a gauge of where your child is starting out this school year.  On the following Tuesday, we will take the math portion of MAP.  I will share both scores with you at our conference, as well as their PASS scores from May.  On Wednesday, your child will take the Native American unit assessment and Interim Reports will go home on Thursday.  
    In social studies, after our Native American Unit, we will start to learn about early European Explorers and their impact on Native Americans.  In math, we will start with multi-digit addition problems and move on to multi-digit subtraction problems.  In reading, we will start to focus on story elements next week and in writing, finish writing the legends that were started this week.  Next Thursday is also our first Sonic Night (5-8 p.m.) of the school year.  If you can, bring your family out to the Sonic on Hardscrabble to enjoy dinner and spend some time with some other Beacon families. 
  Below, you'll find some pictures of our class visiting their book buddies earlier today.

How's it Going?

     I hope that everyone had a great long Labor Day weekend!  I just wanted to update everyone on how things are going, so far.  Our class has been really exercising our LIFESKILL of flexibility as our projector is not working in our classroom.  Consequently, we are going back and forth between our class and the Multi-Media lab for instruction.  We are hoping that it will be repaired really soon.  Again, the kids have truly been wonderful with the moving.  
      Hopefully, many of you have noticed your child becoming more and more comfortable and proficient with Eureaka Math.  I have noticed a significant improvement within the last week and expect to see it improve even more.  Please remember that your child will have math (and likely other) homework nightly and it will need to be completed and returned to school the next day.  Homework is given for reinforcement of skills and concepts taught in class, so its completion is key for academic success.
   Today, we were able to go to the Media Center and all students checked out one fiction book.  Please make sure that your child is reading nightly and I will start sending a reading log home as part of homework next week.   
  Also, remember that Open House is tomorrow from 6:45- 7:45.  I think we will be finished well before 7:45, but please may plans to attend, if it is at all possible.

Students reading independently, after checking out books from our Media Center.

  

Welcome to 4th Grade!

Welcome to 4th grade & Mrs. Harris' Class! 

 I'm really excited about the 2014-2015 school year and being your child's teacher!  We are off to a great start and I look forward to all this school year is going to bring.  Please mark your calendar for Open House on Thursday, September 4th at 6:45 p.m. and for our Parent/Teacher Conference Day on Thursday, September 25th.  September 25th is also our first early dismissal day, so dismissal will start at 11:30 a.m.  I will regularly update this blog with the goings on of our class, rather than sending a newsletter.  If you ever need to contact me, email (asharris@richland2.org) is the best way; I will respond within 24 hours, but in most cases by the end of the school day.  Check back soon for the latest happenings in our class.

I want to extend a BIG thank you to everyone who sent snacks in for SCPASS testing.  We had such a great response that the students will also be able to have snack a few days this week.  Thanks again for your support and generosity!

It's been awhile...

We are Nearing the End

Well, we are officially on the home stretch of the school year.  We wrapped with SCPASS testing last Friday and are finishing our last units of study.  Tomorrow we are going to start an exciting new novel entitled Night of the Twisters, this is my favorite book to read with my fourth graders and I can't wait to get started with it.  We will also be working on short unit on area and perimeter in Math.  We'll continue with the Civil War in social studies and work on 5-paragraph essays in writing.  Below are a few snapshots of some things we've worked on over the past few weeks.

Where has the time gone?!?

         It's been awhile since I've posted, but we are still very busy at work!  Over the past couple weeks, we've focused on division in math and are ready to move on.  As I previously mentioned, from this point forward, your child will mainly see division in the way of review and it won't be heavily emphasized again until 5th grade.  We will however, teach students the traditional way to solve division problems at the end of the school year.  On Monday, our entire fourth grade class, put on a wonderful Wax Museum for our school and for the PTO meeting attendees.  In science, we've moved from Light to Magnetism and next, Electricity.  In reading and writing, we are leaning about different types of poetry, figurative language that poets often use and students will start to dabble in a bit poetry writing themselves.  I'm going to post pictures below of the Wax Museum, Light investigations that we've completed in class and pictures from when we worked with Ms. Sharon Lone to build Snap Circuits.