Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Midwest

     We have begun a new Social Studies unit and our work on the regions of the United States.  First up, is the Midwest Region (also called the Middle West).  Iowa is in this region!  Many of the things we learned in our Iowa History unit will apply to the Midwest.  We will study the landforms, climate, natural resources, and economy of the region.  Students will also learn the name and location of each state. 
     Please make sure you child studies for tests!!  The Iowa History unit was three weeks long.  Everyday we discussed important things about our state.  The night before the test I told the students things to study for their test and sent home the materials.  Having said this, we had a low number of students with proficient scores.  The map portion of the test is worth several points.  You can help your child by quizzing them about the states in the region and where they are located.


Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Field trips and procedures...

We have two big field trips coming up!  The first will be attending a one-room school house re-enactment on Friday, October 5th.  The following is the letter that was sent home explaining this event.  Please read carefully!

Thursday, September 6, 2012
Dear Parent(s),
In October, our classes will be attending the Taylor #4 Country School located at 19 N. 2nd Avenue in Marshalltown.  Students will pretend that it is 1913 and do the same things that the country pupils did almost a hundred years ago.  All 4th graders in the Marshalltown School District will be taking this field trip at some point this fall.  It is related to our Social Studies unit on Iowa History.
We need your help.  We would like students to dress as authentically as possible, in clothing that would have been worn at this time in history.  Boys can wear bib overalls or dark trousers with suspenders, a plain cotton long-sleeved shirt (no printing or logos), dark leather shoes and dark stockings, and a straw hat.  Girls can wear a long skirt, simple blouse, dark leather shoes with black or white tights, and hair should be pulled back (braids with big white bows were popular!).  We do not expect you to go out and purchase clothing for this field trip.  You might, however, visit the Goodwill Store next to Wal-Mart to find something inexpensive to add to your child's experience.  The Historical Society will provide us with some clothing to be utilized.  However, complete attire will not be provided.  There is NO heat in the school, so please dress for the weather.
Students will carry their lunch in a pail provided by the schoolhouse.  To support this experience, we ask you to consider the foods children would have eaten at that time.  These would include sandwiches with cheese, jelly, egg, honey or meat fillings, hard boiled eggs, seasonal fresh fruit or vegetables, corn bread, biscuits, and homemade cookies. Water will be provided.  We also ask that each item be wrapped in waxed paper or a clean cloth (no plastic or aluminum foil!).  If you have a school lunch ordered, this will be taken care of before we go.
The Taylor #4 School was built in 1912, north of Marshalltown.  It had grades 1 through 8 for forty three years.  In 1955, the Historical Society of Marshall County bought the closed school and moved it into town.  A $60,000 renovation restored it to its original appearance in August of 2007.  We are fortunate to be able to learn in this way!
We hope that this reenactment will provide your child with lasting memories and a keener appreciation of our local heritage.  Thank you for your help as we begin our adventure back to 1913 and the days of the country school; the backbone of American Education.

Lang Taylor #4 kids 1913




The following field trip will be on Thursday, October 11th.  The whole 4th grade will be going on the same day.  Please read the following letter that was sent home in Thursday folders:

September 6, 2012

Dear Parents:

On Thursday, October 11, we are planning a field trip to Living History Farms in Urbandale.  Our visit will be in correlation with our Iowa History unit in Social Studies.

The purpose of Living History Farms is to make the public aware of the significance of agriculture in the development of America. Living History Farms will present the changes that have occurred in farming methods, concepts and technology, and interpret the significance of those changes both in historical and modern life. By showing authentic models of historical and modern farming, Living History Farms enables visitors to observe and participate in these processes and relate them to their lives.     http://www.lhf.org
A school sack lunch will be provided and charged to your child’s lunch account unless we are made aware of arrangements otherwise.  Those arrangements need to made by Friday, September 14, 2012 so that we can notify food service of our plans.  If we do not hear from you by this date your child’s lunch account will be charged for a sack lunch.

Mrs. Auld, Mrs. Duff, and Mrs. Freiberg






Homework Schedule:
     The following is what homework you should expect to see your child bringing home.  On a normal 5-day week, I will assign spelling homework on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.  For now, students need to put their 25 words in alphabetical order on Mondays.  I will check to see the following morning that they have brought this back.  Tuesdays will be sorting the words into the correct spelling patterns.  I provide the sheet for this. It needs to be brought back to school.  On Thursday evenings, I assign them to take a practice spelling test at home.  I will check the following mornign for either the test itself or a signature saying it was completed.  This does not mean that students cannot be doing more practice in addition to what I have assigned.  An exception to the spelling routine would be in a school week that has less than 5 days.  In this case, I will assign the practice spelling test on Wednesday nights if there is no school on Friday.
           Most days, students will have math homework.  It needs to be brought back to school completed.  If a student does not understand a problem on the homework, they need to have an adult sign their name by it so I know it wasn't just a lack of effort.  An exception to having math homework would be at the end of a unit when we will spend a couple days re-teaching, etc.  I might not assign math homework and would assign the kids to do 15-20 minutes of reading instead.  They would need to get a signature in their planner for the reading portion.
          On Fridays, in addition to a possible math assignment, I will assign students to do 20-30 minutes of reading.  They need to bring their planner back signed for me to know that the homework was completed.  The planner is also a good place to communicate between myself and parents.  You may always write notes to me in your child's planner. 

Student Planner


Thanks for allowing me to teach your children!!!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Cursive and Vocabulary!

We have begun our cursive review!  Since students were taught cursive in 3rd grade, this is a review year.  Most of the work will be done independently.  The program is called "Handwriting Without Tears."  An example of our book and correct cursive formations is shown below.






These are our vocabulary words right now.  Please be review them at home/ asking your child about them.

Anthology- Story: The Adventures of Ali Baba Bernstein
curious
temporary
policy
several
ranged
frequently

Math- Topic: Adding and Subtracting Whole Numbers
Breaking Apart Strategy
Commutative Property of Addition
Associative Property of Addition
Identity Property of Addition
Compensation
Counting on
Inverse Operations

Social Studies- Unit: Iowa History
states
border
agriculture
livestock
economy
crops
natural resources
settlers
explorer
Native American
You could ask your child to define/ give examples of: geography, climate, natural resources, and economy.

As always, thanks for being involved in your child's education!!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Onto the Academics!...

Math:
We finished Topic 1 on Numeration.  There are quite a few that seem to be struggling still with the concept of place value.  Please review place value often with your child!  Our entire number system is based on it!

 Note: We also learned the tenths (example: .2) place and hundredths (example: .23) place.

We are now onto Topic 2 on Adding and Subtracting Whole Numbers.  We will work on strategies to solve mentally, with paper and pencil, and through estimating.  It is so important that your child does their math homework!

Don't forget that each child now has a username and password to log onto pearsonsuccessnet.com.  They can access the student textbook as well as daily lessons.


Anthology:
Wow!  What a start!  We have discussed so many things already!  The kids are going to be lean, mean, reading machines!....or maybe I should just say reading machines. :)  You can help your child by asking them questions about what they're reading and making sure that what they are reading is not too easy, but not too hard.  They should be slightly challenged, but still be able to read most of the words and understand.
This week we read the story My Diary from Here to There.  We focused on comprehension skills of inferencing and story structure.  Vocabulary words were opportunities, border, union, strikes, boycott, and citizen.  We've discussed and practiced intonation and expression.


Spelling has begun... don't forget to study!  The tests are on Fridays.  This week's words all contained short vowels.  We've also discussed multi-syllabic words.

In Writing, we've discussed correct simple sentence formation, using punctuation, and using focus and ideas in what we write.

In Social Studies, we started our Iowa History unit.  We have three field trips associated with this.  The first one is our half day trip to the Marshall County fairgrounds for our Farm to Table field trip.  This is always a lot of fun for the kids and filled with learning experiences including farm safety, equipment, and livestock.  A free lunch will also be served.
The next field trip will be a one day visit to the Taylor School House in Marshalltown.  There was a letter that went home in Thursday folders today about this trip.  In order to make this an authentic experience, students are asked to dress in a certain way and bring certain foods for lunch (if they don't order a school lunch).  Please read this letter carefully!
The last field trip will be to Living History Farms in Des Moines. 
I will need the bottom part of both of these letters returned informing me of your child's plans for lunch on both of those days.


Thank you to Wal-Mart for donating $50 worth of tennis balls to our classroom to put on the legs of our desks.  It definitely helps keep the noise down.  I already had them on most of the chairs, but the desks were in need of them, too!

The iPods are in!  The kids are so excited!  Please let me know if you come across any great (free) aps that could be utilized in the classroom. 

As always, I welcome your questions, concerns, or general comments.  I can be emailed at: afreiberg@marshalltown.k12.ia.us or reached by phone at 641-754-1030.

Also, you can leave comments on each of my blog entries.  I enjoy reading them! 

Lastly, thanks to all the kids for a great start to a new year!  My expectations are high (as I'm sure they've told you!!), but they will be better for it. :)