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

Stella's new "mad face"

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

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.

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!

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