Q3W3 From Mr. Smith
Hello!
I hope every scholar had a blast on the field trip! I found it to be extremely informative and interactive. Ask your scholar how they did with the rabbit hunting!
We are cruising into third quarter, which means an increased focus on procedure and dedication. We are more activity encouraging cursive to prepare them for fifth grade in which they cannot turn in any assignment written in print. We are clamping down on time wasting behaviors, as our large poetry unit means we have to make every minute count in the day. We are ensuring that the scholars have mastered healthy practices, such as putting their names on their paper. This may sound tedious, but practice make perfect.
News:
There is no school on Monday, January 16th. As a nation we celebrate Civil Rights Day to honor the tremendous achievements of the Civil Rights Movement.
Again, January is our month of reading! Each Kingdom is tasked with reading at least for 10,000 minutes. That includes the staff. At the recommendation of 4C, I will be reading first book of The Keeper of the Lost Cities in order to participate. Go Camelot!
One thing that will help with the Kingdom task is to, again, remind your scholars to be filling out their reading logs. They should be adding a new entry after reading 150 pages of a book. If they are not reading enough for entries to be made, please encourage them to do so. The goal for students is 15 pages per day. This allows them to reach the overarching 30 “books” in a year and be rewarded with a small prize. However some scholars have catching up to do.
ELA:
In grammar, we will be reviewing prepositions, creating a familiarity that will allow students to recognize such words at a glance. This is crucial as we enter their new WOL book, where they use prepositions to analyze and understand the phrases they make when combined with objects.
Literature is still our poetry unit, not to be confused with our poems for recital. Students have their copies of Harp and Laurel Wreath. We then will learn and write specific models of poems, including diamantes, cinquains, acrostic poems and limericks. This should make them well versed in figurative language devices.
For our poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the third stanza should be mastered by Friday, January 20th.
Latin and Greek roots pick up next week with the following roots: lithos-, and petros-. Students will be expected to spell the following words: lithograph, lithosphere, monolith, lithology, lithic, petrified, petroleum, petroglyph, petrous, and petrography.
In our philosophy unit, we will be discussing what makes something you say true.
Math
In math, we review for the Unit 6 Test on mixed numbers. The test will be on Thursday, January 19th. We will study will different workbook assignments, fun activities, and introspective reviews. We will also do a fun cumulative review of all the math concepts that we have discussed.
History
In history, we will be continuing the story told by our Field Trip. We will discussed different ancient Arizona tribes, including the one whose remains we visited: the Hohokam. We will compare and contrast them to other peoples such as the Mogollon and Ancient Puebloans.
Science
In science, we dive further into Geology, learning about the contributions of Alfred Wegener and the implications of his Pangea Theory. This includes discussion about plate tectonics, how movement within the earth occurs, and the results of such movements.
National Geographic Continental Drift
How Do We Know Plate Techtonics is Real?
Remember, the blog is updated weekly. Be sure to come back frequently to see any upcoming events or changes in fourth grade.