Interim Reports

Happy Monday Parents!
   As you all know, last Wednesday-Friday, I was away at a technology conference.  Due to my absence, I will send interim reports home tomorrow, Tuesday.  An update of class happenings are forthcoming.  

Have a great week!

Helping Those in Need during the Holiday Season

 Harvest Hope Food Drive

With the holiday season quickly approaching, what a great time to display the LIFESKILL of Caring!  The second grade is collecting canned goods for the Harvest Hope Food Bank.  If your family is able, please send in a few to assist with such a worthy cause.  Your family can decide if you’d like your donated canned good to go toward the Clemson or Carolina side…. 

Meteorologists in Training...

We may just have the next local meteorologist in our class...  

During our Weather unit, we kept track of the weather with various weather tools.  We worked with an anemometer, rain gauge, thermometer, and wind vane to help us predict the weather.  Below you will find a few pictures of our class using the tools to determine the wind speed, wind direction, the amount of precipitation, and the temperature.  

What's Going On?!?

   In reading, we are near the end of a novel that our entire class has been thoroughly enjoying, Night of the Twisters, by Ivy Ruckman.  This book went along with out Weather unit of study and is about the experience twelve year old Dan Hatch and his family has when a series of tornadoes hit his hometown of Grand Island, Nebraska.  In addition to going with our science unit, reading this novel also provided us with the opportunity to apply many of the strategies that we've learned that good readers use.  We will wrap up with this great piece of literature on next Monday.  

   In Writer's Workshop, the students are working with a partner or within a small group to create a Severe Weather Public Service Announcement or a Weather Forecast.  They had the chance to choose between the two and we will start to record them tomorrow.  I hope to either post the final products to this blog or e-mail them out.  

   In math, we are finishing up with unit 4, Decimals and Their Uses.  Students will take the unit test on Thursday.  Our mathematicians did a wonderful job with this unit. The concepts presented in this unit were brand new and everyone worked hard and has become proficient with the basics of decimals.  We will continue to revisit these skills throughout the year and they will expand upon them in fifth grade.  Our next unit will be Big Numbers, Estimation, & Computation; we will be revisiting multiplication and addition (with large numbers) during this unit.  

   We have wrapped up with our Weather unit, but are still putting the finishing touches on our PSAs or Forecast.  We also started with our study of life in Colonial America in Social Studies.  At this point, we've only discussed the countries that started settlements in the New World and their motivations for doing so.  We will go on to learn about the first permanent English settlement, the 13 Colonies, everyday life in the colonies, the economy activities in the colonies, and their government.  Next Tuesday, our students will get a chance to experience a bit of colonial life with our Colonial Day Celebration.  Each fourth grade teacher will lead a different colonial activity and each class will have an chance to rotate to each classroom to better understand life in Colonial America.  
   

My Absence...

Hello all!

  I'm sure you have noticed my absence from our class blog.  I've been experiencing technical issues that have not allowed be to update.  The issue is currently being addressed, so I should be able to post and update the blog again, hopefully, next week. 

It's Cloudy with a Chance Of....

     We are currently working on our first official science unit, Weather.  During this unit our students will take on the role of a scientist to learn about all about weather.  We have already learned about the water cycle and employed our LIFESKILL of creativity to create a large water cycle on our immersion wall.  We will also learn about various types of severe weather, collect data using real weather instruments, and research the different types of clouds, just to name a few.  This unit will be very interactive and provides lots of exciting, hands-on experiences for your children.  We are looking to forward to a visit from meteorologist Von Gaskin, from WIS, on next Tuesday.  Ask your child to share with you the four parts of the water cycle and ask him or her what type(s) of clouds are out next time you all are outside.     

Decimals are in the Air...

   On Monday, we started unit 4, Decimal and Their Uses.  We have jumped right and are making our way.  This unit will present brand new concepts and will likely be more challenging than previous units.  Please make sure that your child is completing his or her homework nightly as that is key for students to get a good grasp on material presented in class.  I will continue to remind students to bring home their SRBs (Student Reference Books), so that they can refer to them as needed, while doing their homework. 
    This week, students do not have a timed multiplication test, but we will resume with them next Wednesday.  Please make sure your child is studying the facts he or she will be tested on for a short time nightly and are completing the packet for additional practice.  Multiplication is the foundation for many of the more difficult skills and concepts we will be learning this year, consequently, mastery of the facts are imperative.  Below is a link to great place value game that will provide your child with additional practice.  I also posted the link on Edmodo, so they can access the game from there as well.