SOME THINGS ABOUT SEPTEMBER

It is hard to believe that we are half way through the first quarter of this school year. Progress reports, intended to give you a snapshot of how your child is progressing in fourth grade, will be going home on Thursday. Please keep in mind that these are preliminary grades and there is time for improvement before the first report card. 

SCHOOL PICTURES will be taken on Tuesday. All students will be photographed for the yearbook regardless of whether or not you order prints.

FALL BREAK is just around the corner! Enjoy time with your family September 15 - 19.

TAKE A PEEK AT NEXT WEEK:

MATH:  Addition and subtraction of large whole numbers will continue this week with special attention being given to regrouping. We are showing every step to avoid careless mistakes. We are applying our skills to solve word problems, being sure to label each number as we set up the problems on paper.                                                   In class, we enjoy our daily Number Talks. A Number Talk is a short, daily routine that provides students meaningful ongoing practice with computation. A Number Talk is a powerful tool for helping students develop computational fluency because the expectation is that they will use number relationships and the structures of numbers to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Parents, I encourage you to engage your children in number talks, too. For example, on shopping trips, have your child compare prices. If one pair of shoes costs $49 and another costs $35, ask him or her to use mental math to figure out how much would be saved by purchasing the less expensive pair of shoes. Then ask for an explanation of how the answer was found . . . there are multiples ways of thinking!

LANGUAGE ARTS:  During the month of September, we will be tackling the grammar concepts of subject/predicate, proper use of capitalization and punctuation, and skilled sentence and paragraph construction. We will be writing narrative and informational pieces, applying the grammar concepts we learn. We will work on organizing and developing our writing while adding descriptive details to support our main ideas and adding flavor to our work.

SCIENCE:  Mark Twain once said, “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.” Weather is the atmosphere at a given time and place.  Climate is the average weather of a particular region over a long period of time.  Meteorologists refer to climatic changes because of the current weather patterns. In order to make an educated forecast, meteorologists must understand the uses and operations of various weather instruments. Meteorologists not only predict the weather, but also help keep you informed.

Weather maps show information about fronts, temperatures, and precipitation in a certain area. Fronts are the moving boundaries between two air masses.  Air masses contain the same temperature and humidity throughout a specific section of the atmosphere.  These air masses create either cold or warm fronts.  Cold fronts push cold air out and under warm air creating a thunderstorm.  Warm fronts push warm air out and over cold air masses which create rain.  Weather maps indicate a number of atmospheric conditions ranging from types of precipitation to temperature to fronts.  

We have studied the water cycle and had lots of fun learning about types of clouds and how they are formed. Thanks go to Mrs. Hernandez, Mrs. Brown, and Mrs. Sivley for helping us in the Science Lab with our shaving cream clouds! Our Volunteers learned that learning can be very messy!

We are ready to investigate weather and learn how forecasts are made. By the time we finish our unit on weather,

STUDENTS WILL KNOW:
·                 thermometers measure temperature
·                 rain gauges measure the amount of precipitation
·                 barometers measure atmospheric pressure
·                 wind vanes measure wind direction
·                 anemometers measure the speed and force of the wind

STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO:
·                identify and use weather instruments
·                read a weather map
·                use data to predict weather patterns
·                differentiate between climate and weather

     
You and your child can access our textbook online to review or preview any of our units of study. Go to https://www-k6.thinkcentral.com/content/hsp/science/hspscience/ga/gr4/se_9780153734168_/flashNavhigh.html?page=toc

   SOCIAL STUDIES:  You and your child have access to our textbook online. This site provides many opportunities to practice vocabulary and work with interactive maps. Login to http://eduplace.com/eservices. Students’ username is… cobbstudent4 and the password is… password. 

READING:

Parent involvement in education is like the frosting on a cupcake, it makes it complete and oh so sweet!    
~ ~ Anonymous