Good morning, families. Week 3 is behind us, like all of our rainy weather apparently. I bet there will be lots of swimming and indoor activities planned for today and tomorrow. It's been a busy week for me. In addition to Curriculum Night on Wednesday, I've had my company here all week. As of yesterday, all of my husband's siblings are in town trying to finish the house. It's coming along, but despite Dave's strong desire that we wrap it up this weekend, I bet they'll have to wait until next weekend for moving day. Nevertheless, the end is in sight and the house looks amazing! Tonight I'll be feeding 18 at my house; thank goodness my two married children are camping. (We were supposed to be camping, but the house just didn't get done.) Yesterday was my grandson's first birthday, and they went up north to celebrate in the wild...very fitting for him. Oh! I'm finally allowed to announce that my second grandchild is on the way! The baby is due the end of February and while my daughter is hoping for a brother for her son, a little girl would be so cute! I had success last weekend finding a dress for the wedding. I don't LOVE it, so there's a chance I'll look again in few weeks. At least I have one! I also bought one for the rehearsal dinner, which I'll be hosting here. I've got almost all my grading done and will help with the touch up and cleaning next door before coming back to start dinner prep this afternoon. It's gonna be another busy weekend!

Let's take a look at what we have in store for these kiddos this week.

Language Arts

     Poetry - Wow! I never had so many amazing bards in one class before! They did an excellent job with their recitations this week! We will begin the next one Monday: "The Moon" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Again, they'll have two weeks for this poem.

     Grammar - We have reviewed nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs already. This week, we'll cover prepositions and we'll have a quick quiz on Thursday on these parts of speech. 

     Composition - We will have our first graded summary and dictation this week. It's perfect because we'll be reading a passage about chemistry!

     Literature - We'll get through chapter 17 in our story this week. This is where the book is very different from the film version, in case your children are familiar with the movie. 

     Latin and Greek Roots - I have had several parents ask if the weekly derivatives could be posted on the blog. I got some help and have learned how to embed a link and so now I will attach it each week under our Materials widget on the right-hand side.

Math - We started with multiples on Friday and the kids learned some cool rules to help them identify when a number is a multiple of 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, or 10. We'll continue with multiples and factors the rest of the week. We recognize that quite a few students do not know their math facts to automaticity this year. We do not spend a lot of time reviewing math facts during 4th grade math class; please make sure your child is working 5 minutes each day on their math fact cards (they should be making ones for the facts that they are struggling with). Some are fluent with their facts and do not have cards to review; they will be able to tell you if they have math fact cards or not.

History - We will begin our mountains unit this week. It's a quick unit and there will be a test in a couple weeks. Students should know the major mountain ranges of the world as well as the highests peaks in each continent when we are finished.

Chemistry - We have begun learning about matter, atoms, and elements already. This week, we'll discuss molecules and compounds, states of matter, and properties of matter. 

That's it for the week. It's been fun getting to know the kids a little better. The students are starting to settle into the groove a bit more and they are rising to the expectations we have for them. Thank you for entrusting them to our care. Have a good week!