Vacation Reading Challenge!

     Unfortunately I was out sick the two days before vacation, so I wasn't able to wish your child a happy holiday and vacation! 

     I was also going to introduce them to the Vacation Reading Challenge.  Since our vacation is nearly two weeks this year, it will be important for your child to continue to read over that time so that they don't start to "lose" the reading momentum that they have built up over the past 3 months! 

     The reading challenge is simple, your child just needs to log down the amount of time that they read during vacation and you need to initial that they read.  I have attached the form that I was going to hand out.  If you can't print the form, your child can write down the book and time read with parent initials on a piece of paper.  Even 15-20 minutes a day is better than no reading at all. This will help to ensure that we can jump right back in to where we left off in December in 2014!

     I hope that you and your child have a wonderful holiday and a relaxing vacation.

 

Vacation

Reading Challenges

We have almost two weeks of vacation time coming our way.  During this time away from school, I hope that many of you will take advantage of this time to do some reading.   I know I will!  To motivate some of you who may not open a book, I have come up with two different challenges.

 

Challenge #1:  group challenge – the girls against the boys.  For this challenge, you’ll need to record how much time you spend reading each day.  The team that averages more time reading each day will win!

12/21 Time: PS:	12/22 Time: PS:	12/23 Time: PS:	12/24 Time: PS:	12/25 Time: PS:	12/26 Time: PS:	12/27 Time: PS:
12/28 Time: PS:	12/29 Time: PS:	12/30 Time: PS:	12/31 Time: PS:	1/1 Time: PS:

 ** PS Stands for Parent Signature

Challenge #2:  This will be an individual challenge – who can read the most books?  This challenge is simple!  Read a chapter book and record it below.  Please record the title and author.

___________________________________              ___________________________________

___________________________________              ___________________________________

___________________________________              ___________________________________

___________________________________              ___________________________________

___________________________________              ___________________________________

 

Prizes will be rewarded for the readers who read!  In order for your books to count, you must have this sheet when we come back to school next year, Thursday, January 2, 2014.  Good luck, happy reading, and see you in 2014!

 

“Books are like chips…You can never eat (read) just one!”

A Note Sent Home Today....

Snow Day!

     As you may know, this week the class got to choose their paw print reward by practicing what they have been learning about essay writing.  The students were given a choice for a reward and had to convince the reader with an opinion, reasons, and an example just like they have been learning in class.

     The class “vote” was for a “Snow Day.” We will have this on Friday, December 20^th.  In order to participate in this outside reward time, your child needs to have appropriate snow clothing.  Please make sure they come to school on FRIDAY with boots, snow pants, mittens, hat, and extra clothing in a bag.  We will go outside for a little while in the morning. 

     They were very convincing in their essay responses.  I think they are really looking forward to some snowy fun!

 

 

Busy Week

     We had a busy week working on our essays, open response answers, and math nutrition project.  We have been trying to keep busy even though holiday excitement is in the air!
     In writing, we have been talking about the expectations of essay writing.  We have been talking a lot about really focusing during instruction time so that they can take what they are learning and APPLY it to their own writing.  This goes for every subject, of course, but we have talked a lot about this in reading and writing these past few weeks.  Overall the students have a good understanding of essay writing so they are really taking what they learned in third grade and adding to it with fourth grade expectations. 
     To reinforce what your child has been learning in school, you could give your child an opinion statement.  For example, you could have them agree or disagree with a statement such as "winter is the best season" or "kids should get an allowance."  When they agree or disagree they then need to give 3 reasons to support their opinion.  Thinking of reasons that support our thinking or thesis will help the kids get into the habit of supporting their ideas with thoughtful reasons.
     In reading we worked on answering open response questions.  These types of questions are open ended and require the kids to infer about a character, find evidence in the story to back up their thinking, and explain their thinking.  It was great to see the kids trying to apply what they have been learning when they worked on the assessment earlier in the week. 
    In math, we have been busy working on a math nutrition project.  The kids are practicing multiplication skills using real world scenarios.  The enthusiasm around this project has been fun to watch!
     I hope everyone enjoys the snow this weekend!
~Mrs. Lewis