Monday, October 1, 2012

GRACE AND ANNIE’S BLOGPOST! 

Hello 4s! Grace and Annie here. We hope your pictures turned out good because Monday was picture day. The weather this week has been nice and a little windy. The leaves are changing colors because it is fall out. The weather is getting colder.  We like having recess outside, how about you? We just finished Captain Nobody on Tuesday. We thought it was an awesome and funny book.  We might read the book Shadows next. It’s a Bluestem.  This week we also finished up the Jr. Atlas in Social Studies. We also finished up soccer this week in gym and now we are doing football. We also had a microscope quiz and we even got to look through them.  We are also learning about cells in Science. We made cells in science too. In social studies we made landforms with dough.  The landforms look great. I hope everyone liked their landforms. We are also switching classes for reading and it is fun. Each class is reading a different novel book. In math we are switching too. Right now we are in Chapter 3.  But Mr. Jewell is not doing it because he does his own math with his class. That’s Grace and Annie’s blog post, hope you enjoyed it! J




Thursday, September 20, 2012

Updates for this week and next

Hi 4S,
We are on our way Nebraska right now.  For parents, as an update, my husband's grandmother passed away unexpectedly Wednesday morning.  We are on our way to be with family and to attend church services and her funeral on Monday.

With that being said, we will have the same substitute tomorrow (Friday) Monday and Tuesday.  I will be back Wednesday and looking forward to it.  All subjects and tests are scheduled as planned.

Tomorrow, we still have the Amelia and Eleanor Go For A Ride reading test, the spelling test over list three and the chapter 2 math test.

Next week, the children will be taking the Focus Word Spelling test on Thursday as it's a short week due to the Institute Day on Friday.  A reminder note should go home tomorrow and, of course, the list is on Spellingcity.com. 

Also, we will have a "cold read" over, The Emperor and the Kite on Tuesday before we start our novel unit on Wednesday with the entire 4th grade. The children can read this story during "Read to Self," "Read to Someone" times and they can also listen to the story while reading along at our Listening Center.  And with any story, they can bring their text book home to read at home.  Just be sure to bring the book back because they can use it for the test!

We will start Chapter 3 in math on Monday and will be switching again with Mrs. Fraser's class. Chapter 3 focuses on Estimation vs Exact answers, rounding, and adding and subtracting greater numbers.

We are starting our Landforms Unit in social studies next week and we will start our "Dough Islands" on Thursday when we paint our boxes.  Keep an eye out for a "Dough Recipe" letter coming home soon.  You will make the dough at home and bring it in to use in creating the dough islands in class. (Don't worry, the recipe is easy with just water, salt and flour!) This unit also incorporates many different map skills such as latitude/longitude, elevation, using a map key, compass rose, and cardinal and intermediate directions.

In science, we will finish up cells next week and before moving on to classifying living things, we will create a cell using beans and hair gel...yes, beans and hair gel! :)

We are all looking forward to Annie and Grace's Blog next week.  Thank you girls for being patient and posting next week instead of Friday.  Don't forget, you can take pictures, post a survey question, or anything else creative that you'd like!

That's it for now.  Thank you for your support and kind words.  I am looking forward to being back home already.

Enjoy your weekend with family and friends,
Mrs. Schroeder

Monday, September 17, 2012

Stella's new "mad face"

She does this silly face all the time... we call it her "mad face."

Friday, September 14, 2012

Sophia and Grace's Blog Entry!

Hi, this is Sophia and Grace here.
This week we had a microscope quiz on Thursday.
We also started running club last week, and we heard that Mr. Cortesi said that to get a foot you have to have 15 sticks because the laps are shorter.
This week we also learned how to check out our own books! We also get reading buddies every other Friday.
This week is art to remember in art. Our class is making suns. We were going to do a beach theme then we switched it to flip flops, then we switched it to suns and we thought it was a good idea.
Our class and Mrs. Fraser’s class switch for math and we are talking about comparing numbers, ordering numbers and making change.  Next week we will learn more about rounding to the millions place and reading bar graphs.  The test is scheduled for next Friday. So far it’s fun.
 In social studies we are working on a Junior Geographer Atlas book and we have to do work sheets with it, we have a test next week.
We also started, “read to someone” this week. How we do it is we raise our hand, make eye contact, then Mrs. Schroeder will say stand up and say, find your partner, and start reading.
In our class we have a star of the week. That person will bring in a poster of family, friends, pets, something that represents you. This week star of the week is Joe.
This week we also had the onion lab in Science. It’s were you look through a microscope at cells of onion.
Don’t forget your smile on Monday because it’s Picture Day!
That’s Grace and Sophia with our classroom news.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Jerry and Joe's Blog Post!!!

Hello 4S! It’s the first BLOG post of the year!!!! Joe and Jerry here.
Tuesday was a normal day.
On Wednesday we were going to have running club but it rained. Boo.  It was also the first day of Battle of the Books! 
On Thursday, we had a lab experiment and a math test covering chapter one.  How did you like switching classes for math?  We all learned about place value and we can read numbers up to the one hundred thousands place! On Friday we had library.
Next week we are starting chapter 2 in math and it's back to switching classes.  Chapter two is about counting and ordering money, making change and rounding numbers!  Woah, that's a lot!!! it
It is Kaleb’s birthday on Friday! Happy birthday Kaleb!
In Daily 5 we just started doing read to self for the first time, yay!
We had a science experiment on Thursday. For the science experiment we learned about fire and lab safety  and the fourth grade teachers blew corn starch into a blowtorch and made a big fireball.  It was AWESOME!
 In social studies we learned about maps, globes, and rivers using our Daily Geographer books.  We also learned where to look for information when using our non-fiction books in school.
 In math we took a big test that had 50 questions for Local Assessments. 
Mrs. Schroeder read a really cool book called Captain Nobody. This has been our first newsletter of the year!
Goodbye everyone!


Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Spelling City and Xtra Math

Here are the directions to get onto Spellingcity.com to practice your spelling words on-line!

-go to www.spellingcity.com
-click on the "students" tab at the top
-click on "find a list" tab (in blue)
-Under the section, Enter Search Term, type my first and last name:  Catherine Schroeder ***be careful, there is another Catherine Schroeder listed, so make sure you click on me.***
-Select the spelling list for that week and choose the activities from the colored circles above and practice away!

-Regular list, challenge lists and Focus Words are all on spellingcity.com to help you study in another, fun way.


To Study your basic math facts, you can log on to www.xtramath.org using the handout that was sent home last week in your child's mail.  At the top of the directions page, they wrote their PIN number down.  Use this PIN number to access the website at home.  This is the website we use at school, along with our "mad minutes," to pracice basic facts.  As I'm sure you are all aware, the quicker your child memorizes the basic facts, the easier math will be in 4th grade.  When we get to long division this year for example, your child will need to know addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts through 12 for just ONE problem.  Not knowing these facts quickly will greatly slow their progress. We will focus on addition and subtraction for the first quarter only, then move to multiplication and division.  I thank you in advance for your time and support with this important skill at home!

Please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me with any questions you might have.

Mrs. Schroeder
catherine.schroeder@cusd200.org

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

4S Updates and Star of the Week Schedule

Here are some upcoming events for 4S:

Spelling Test:  Friday
Math Test: covering place value on Friday

Monday is no school due to Labor Day!

Here is the Star of the Week Schedule:  Please refer to the newsletter that was sent home last week (green paper) about what to send in.

Star Of The Week!

Your child has an opportunity to be the STAR OF THE WEEK in our classroom.  Below is a schedule with your child’s assigned week as the STAR.  Please help your child choose some photographs and mount them on either poster board or construction paper, so they can be displayed in our classroom.    Your child may bring his/her poster the first day of their week!  I look forward to making this a special week for your child, as well as a learning experience for the whole class!!  Thank you for your support!

              
September 14           Joe Loparco
September 21           Jocelyn Garcia
October 5                   Aidan Waszak
October 12                 Sophia Torne
October 19                 Jerry Tavolino
October 26                 Xin Tain
November 2              Chloe Slater
November 9              Noah Roberts
November 16            Lais Najjar
November 30            Cole McCue
December 7               Annie McBride
December 14            Allyson Maher
January 11                 Caroline Kratz
January 25                 Caiden Heuser
February 1                 Tara Geraminejad
February 8                  Irie Gedritis
February 22               Mason Fraser
March 8                       Grace Cochran
March 15                    Grace DeMars
March 22                    Kaleb Clousing
April 5                          Amber Bornheimer
April 12’                      Nia Bassett


Please mark your child’s week on a calendar!  Please have your child bring in their poster on the first day of their week!  Thank you!