Thursday, August 25, 2011

News From Mrs. Cavoto's Room August. 29-Sept. 2

Dates to Remember:
Friday, September 2
Intramural sheets due to Mrs. Cushing
Monday,
September 5 No School/Labor Day
Tuesday September 6 Fourth and Fifth Grade Curriculum Night - Parents Only - 7:00 p.m. in the multi- purpose room
Wednesday, September 7 Beginning Band Parent Meeting - 7:00 p.m. - Multi-Purpose Room
Welcome to Fourth Grade!
Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions you may have.

*All 4th and 5th grade students have the opportunity to sign up for Intramural Games. This is a "free" after school program that allows your child to stay active. Permission slips will be sent out next week. Please return these to Mrs. Cushing by Friday, September 2rd.

Last week we spent much of our time organizing our things and getting to know each other. The children spent the first day learning about the PBIS program and the three behaviors that we will be working on all year. You may want to ask them to tell you about the three "B's" they learned about.(Be safe. Be responsible. Be respectful.)

Math - We will begin the year with understanding place value. The students will model, read, write, and identify the place value of whole numbers through millions. They will understand that the position of the digit determines its value. They will also compare numbers through millions. They will know how to write the expanded form, standard form, and written form of a number into the millions.

If you need to know how a skill has been taught in class, you can refer to their math binder. Please keep all papers in their math binder. We will clean them out at the end of a the chapter together. They should only take out the papers that are in the take home side of the binder.

Spelling Each student will be given a pretest on Monday. A list will go home in their spelling binder each Monday with the new word pattern. Every day they will be given a homework assignment to complete at home. Tests will be given on Friday. If it is a short week then the test will be on Thursday. No tests will be given on a three day week. Please see the sheet that will come home on Monday of this week explaining the spelling program.

English - This week the students will review what a sentence is and the different kinds of sentences. (statements, questions, exclamations, and commands) They will practice writing sentences correctly during Daily Oral Language (DOL).

Reading This week in reading the students will review and practice their reading strategies as they read the story The Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold. The reading strategies that we will focus on are : preview/infer, phonics/decoding, question, monitor/clarify, summarize, and evaluate.

Science- In science this we the students will participated in a textbook scavenger hunt. This will help them become familiar with the different parts of their book. They will learn the tools of inquiry which they will be using throughout the year and safety rules they will need to follow when participating in science class.
The children will also be working on the study skill of locating answers. They will learn how to find clue words that they can use to help them skim for answers in the titles, subtitles, captions, and highlighted words, as well as the paragraphs.

Social Studies We will begin a U.S. government unit this week. The students will understand what the Constitution is and why it is important. They will identify the three levels of government.