We recently took a test over long division.  There are several students still struggling with this!!  There are some great resources on the web and other places to get some more practice with this.  It would be helpful to continuet to give your child practice with this by assigning them a few problems to complete every so often.



We are now in a geometry unit and will finish before break.


We are just finishing the Theme 2 Benchmark Reading Test.  The 4th grade skills being tested are:
-Main Idea and Details
-Context Clues
-Sequencing
-Author's Purpose
-Literary Devices
-Cause and Effect
-Idioms
-Word Parts
-Homophones
-Prefixes and Suffixes
-Stanza, Line Break, Meter, and Rhyme
-Charts
-Surveys
-Parts of a Book
-Complex Sentences
-Singular and Plural Nouns
-Irregular Plural Nouns
-Possessive Nouns
-Compound Sentences
-Common and Proper Nouns

In Science, we finished units on Earth Materials and The Earth, Sun, and the Moon.





In Social Studies, we will be finishing our unit on the Northeast tomorrow, and starting a unit on the Southeast after break.

Science- Earth, Sun, and Moon (We are not studying the planets!)  Key items:

MISIC Benchmarks:
	· S.04.02.01a     Benchmark: Identifies the characteristics of the sun. Description: Students will define what the sun is and how it effects things on Earth.

 · S.04.02.01b   
Benchmark: Identifies the characteristics of the moon. Description: Students will explain the characteristics of the moon and identify how the moon relates to both the sun and Earth.  · S.04.02.01c   
Benchmark: Identifies the characteristics of the Earth. Description: Students will identify the layers, the rotation and how the Earth changes over time.       

Essential Questions

· Why is the sun important to us? Why is the moon important to us? Why does the moon appear to change shape? What is the difference between rotation and revolution?

Vocabulary
· rotate - to spin around. axis - a real or imaginary line that a spionning object turns around. gravity - the force of attraction betweeen any two objects due to their mass. orbit - the path an object follows as it revolves revolve - to move in a circular or nearly circular path around something else star - a hot sphere of gases that gives off energy. crescent moon - the shape the moon makes when it is less than half full (lit up). waning moon - the time after full moon and before new moon when the moon seems to be getting smaller. new moon - when the moon is in full shade and not visible or apearing only as a very thin cresent. waxing moon - the phase between new moon and full moon when the moon seems to be getting bigger.

MATH-

Long Division!!  This is hard and takes lots of practice!  Extra practice at home would be very beneficial!







READING-

Theme: Making a Difference;  Stories we have/ are reading:

 

 

Current Content

Math: We are starting the age-old multiplication algorithm!!  We first learn how to do each part of the problem separately (expanded algorithm) before putting it all together.  Many adults did not learn the expanded algorithm and went straight to learning the standard algorithm.  If you have any questions on this, please let me know.  The next unit will be on the division algorithm.



Anthology for this week: 
Vocabulary- legendary, muttered, flinched, gaped, insult, and snickering
Comprehension skills- monitor comprehension, author's purpose, compare/ contrast, poetry
Grammar- singular and plural nouns
Fluency- Using good intonation and expression
Spelling/ Phonics- Digraphs
Writing- use good word choice to show actions

Science- We are plugging away in our Earth Materials unit!  Your child has learned the difference between rocks and minerals, how scientists can tell them apart/ how to identify them.  They have learned about the layers of the earth and plates in the Earth's crust.  They are having a lot of fun!

Current Units

We have begun a new Science unit on Earth Materials!  There are a lot of vocabulary words!  Students have created Memory cards and are using them to study and learn the new words.  See below:

fossil	any evidence of an organism that lived in the past
Igneous rock	fire-made rock formed from melted rock materials
Metamorphic rock	rock whose form has been changed by heat and pressure
Sedimentary rock	rock formed from bits or layers of rocks cemented together
mineral	a solid, naturally occurring substance that is not a plant or an animal
hardness	how well a mineral resists scratching
luster	the way a mineral reflects light
property	any characteristic of matter that you can observe
streak	the color of the powder left when a mineral is rubbed against a hard , rough surface
core	the center of the Earth
Inner core	the very center of the Earth made of iron and nickel
crust	solid rock that makes up Earth’s outermost layers
fault	the place where two plates of the Earth meet is called
magma	hot, molten rock below Earth’s surface
mantle	the layer of rock below the crust
mass	an amount of material
erosion	the carrying away of soil and rock particles by water, wind, or glaciers

Welcome if this is your first time!

At conferences, I passed out a half sheet of paper telling parents about this blog.  If you are visiting for the first time, welcome!  I try to update this once or twice a week.

Please remember that Fall conference times will stay the same in the Spring.  There is very little room for adjustments unless you'd liket to come on the Friday of that week instead.

This Friday is the end of the 1st quarter.  Can you believe it?!  Where has time gone??!!  As far as grades go, I used the cutoff as anywhere from October 12-19th so that I could begin working on them.  The information I presented at conferences should be similar to what you see on the report card, possibly just worded differently.  If you get the report card and have any questions, please let me know.

In math, we are beginning to work on the standard algorithm for multiplication.  For many parents, this is the way you learned it when you were in grade school.  I would like to stress again that it is VERY important for kids to know their basic facts.  I am already starting to see some kids struggling with solving 2 digit x 1 digit multiplication because they don't know their basic facts.

After completing the Social Studies units on Iowa History and the Midwest Region, we are taking a break to switch to Science.  We will be taking a test this week on the Scientific Process and then beginning units on Earth Materials and the Earth, Sun, and Moon.

This week is our first big reading test!!  We have spent two weeks reviewing for this assessment.  Again, the best way for your child to improve at reading is to.... READ!!  We are also practice lots of different writing skills, including paragraph, details, grammar, etc.

I have really enjoyed this group of kids this year.  They are learning quickly and we are getting used to my routines.  If you have questions or concerns at anytime, please remember that you can always contact me at:

afreiberg@marshalltown.k12.ia.us (email)
641-754-1030 (school phone)

Assessments and Conferences

Conferences are next week!
Please try to arrive on time for your scheduled conference.  If you are unable to attend, please let me know as soon as possible so that we can try to re-schedule.  Each conference this year will be up to 30 minutes.  Also, it is good to bring your child with you to the conference so they can hear and be a part of the discussion.

At conferences, you can expect to hear about the following items:
**Behavior at school: good and not so good
**Math, reading, and other assessment scores
**Interventions that your child may be in
**Other question/ concerns

Specific tests that your child has taken recently or will be taking soon:
-First Quarter timed tests
-Topics 1-4 Math tests
-Topics 1-4 Math Cumulative test
-Dibels (Reading) test
-Social Studies tests (Iowa History and Midwest)
-Anthology Unit 1 Theme test
-Spelling test averages
-Homework completion averages

Objectives in the Classroom

     Everyday, students have objectives posted in the room for Math, Science/ SS, and Anthology.  Objectives are reviewed in the whole group to make sure students understand exactly what they are to be learning throughout the day.  The objectives can then be occassionally referenced and they help keep me on track with what our learning goals are. You can ask you child each day what they learned in Math, Science/ SS, and Anthology and their answer should be based around the objectives.  Below are some objectives for today.

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.

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.

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. 




Thanks for allowing me to teach your children!!!

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!!

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. :)

Our year so far...

      We started our year off by getting to know our new building and classroom!  I am so grateful to all the individuals that helped make a "new" school a reality!



    At Fisher school, all classrooms will be using the clip chart system this year for behavior.  A letter will be coming home in the Thursday folder.  Please ask if you have any questions!

     The students have made Fisher CATS expectation posters to demonstrate their understanding of what their job is at school.  The hall by our classroom looks great!

    
In Mrs. Freiberg's class, "We All Fit Together!" We have a class puzzle with a piece representing each person.  Cool, huh?!


     Math began right away.  We will be testing over the first unit in this second week of school already!  All students received an online username and passcode that they can use to access the student textbook and unit lessons at home.  Please let me know if you have trouble logging in and/or navigating the site.  We will have math homework most nights.  If your child does not understand something, please initial/ sign so that I know it was not just a lack of trying.  I will be pre-testing for every unit as well as doing some re-teaching and re-testing after each unit.  I try to send home letters at the beginning of each unit telling you what the units are about. 

      

     We also have started "Rocket Math" to learn our basic facts.  Many students have done Rocket Math in the past.  All students started in multiplication.  We will be doing this every day so you should see their half sheets with 40 tested problems coming home daily.  Students will study the current level they are on each day before taking the test.  All 40 problems must be passed before moving on.  The goal is to build automaticity in facts so that they know them as well as they know their own name.  This picture shows how we will keep track of the levels kids have passed.


     We start our morning off by hearing about current events in our nation and world through the website CNN Student News.  It has been one of my favorite parts of the school day since learning about this resource.  Feel free to check it out at http://www.cnn.com/studentnews

     Something new this year to both the students and myself is our new reading curriculum.  The program through the McGraw-Hill company is called Treasures.  It is comprehensive and covers both reading and writing skills.  I am looking forward to all this will offer us! 

     Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday we will get the opportunity to try a fruit or vegetable snack.  All students are encouraged to try it but not required.  This was started last year, and it has been interesting to see how many kids learn about a fruit/ vegetable they never knew existed and/ or discover that something they thought was gross actually doesn't taste too bad!

     In Social Studies this year, we will start a unit on Iowa History and then continue into the regions of the United States: Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Mountain States, and West.  We will look at the landforms, climate, natural resources, and economy of each region. 


(The West region also includes Hawaii, Alaska, and the Mountain States.)

     Science units will be interspersed with the Social Studies units. We will start with a short unit on the Scientific Process.  We will learn about Earth Materials and the Earth, Sun, and Moon.  We will study Nutrition as well as Sound and Light. 

             

     The following is our Specials Schedule.  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately on PE days.

Day 1- PE

Day 2-Art

Day 3- Music

Day 4- No Special

Day 5- PE

Day 6- Media

Day 7- Music

Day 8- Art

Day 9- PE

Day 10- Guidance

Day 11- Music

Day 12- Book Check Out

     HOMEWORK!!  With exception to a couple days, students will have homework every day.  They all received a planner on the first day of school to write their homework in.  Please sign their planner at night to verify that their work was completed.  This is also a place where you can write me notes.  I realize that not all parents are home with their children in the evenings so if another adult or sibling needs to sign, that is perfectly fine.  I know that families are very busy, so I try to limit homework to no more than half an hour each night.

     One of the biggest things I am excited for this year is some technology we will be receiving soon!  Last Spring, I applied for four iPod Touches through the website donorschoose.org.  This summer, the project was fully funded!  Over $1,000 was given and we will now this technology in our classroom!  I am looking forward to all the ways we can use these for student achievement!

     You can find important dates and events on the right side of my blog.  You may contact me anytime at Fisher at 641-754-1030.  I will respond to emails faster than phone messsages.  My email address is afreiberg@marshalltown.k12.ia.us.