Happy Friday!  We had a great half day.  The kids took their week end assessments and spelling test.  They also worked on their earthquake booklets and coat of arms from earlier this week.

I will be out of town next week, in Florida.  Mrs. Jauquet will be subbing.  She is our former 5th grade teacher, and a wonderful teacher.  The children will be in good hands!

Tomorrow is a historic day for ACS- our first Accreditation Visiting Team arrives!  Every school in the diocese goes through the accreditation process every six years.  The teams consist of one chair, from out of state, and 7-8 members consisting of teachers and administrators from around the diocese.  I have personally served on at least 6 teams and I find the process extremely rewarding and powerful!  Over the past two year, we have been working on a document that has already been shared with the team.  This document (actually a binder full of reports and write-ups) contains information about ACS and what we offer students and families.  The team is here to validate all the wonderful things we do and offer some constructive suggestions on areas to work on moving forward.  The team will be around campus Wednesday-Friday.  They will be at all events and visiting all classes, as well as meeting with specific groups of parents and students. The staff looks forward to hearing the final report from the team on Friday after dismissal!

Today in the 4th grade, the kids wrote a journal entry in the view point of the father in our story.  We also reviewed possessive nouns.  A language arts packet went home today and is due on Friday.  

We continued our work on equivalent fractions in math today.  The kids said the homework went well last night, and they seemed to do well during our independent practice today :) IXL was homework tonight.  30 minutes total!  

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  The kids must have been tired today, because our morning was very quiet! hahah

We started a new language arts lesson today and the kids wrote their new spelling words in their planners.  There will be a test on Friday.  We read about the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 this morning and put the events of the story in sequential order.  We are continuing on with natural disasters.  As a vocabulary activity, the kids had to write a paragraph about earthquakes using their vocabulary words.  

We wrapped up our lessons on potential energy and kinetic energy and collisions today. We finished with a video last week, and reviewed and took the assessment today.  We will move onto waves tomorrow.  I'm hoping to begin our unit to create an avalanche protection system by the end of the week!  Fingers crossed we stay on schedule :) 

The kids read their social studies lesson with a partner and then answered their memory master questions.  These questions have been a great forum for the kids to practice complete sentences and using text evidence. 

We started with fractions today.  The kids new the names of the parts of a fraction and pretty much what fractions are, but finding equivalent fractions was a bit tricky!  Tonight's homework will reinforce equivalent fractions.  

Please note: Friday is early release.   Wednesday is community prayer. 

The kids finally were able to trade their crossword puzzles with a friend today and solve.  They worked really hard on these, so it was nice to see them have the chance to share their puzzles.  

We also took a virtual field trip and spoke with some people employed in the motorsports industry.  We spoke with two people- one who drives the pace car and one who works on the cars.  They discussed the technology that is used in the vehicles today and how you need to use your senses and engineering mind to succeed in these fields.  

We finished up our weekly assessments for lesson 11 in Journeys today.  They went really well!  Then the kids did an independent activity to practice using the text to answer questions.  This doesn't mean that the answer to a question will be a direct sentence from the book, but rather they will have to decide on the importance of a feature or compare two things from the book.  

We also finished chapter 5 in social studies.  We read two stories about children kidnapped by Native Americans and then reviewed the chapter before taking the test. 

This afternoon we practiced multiplication and division and watched a video on the transfer of energy. 

Tomorrow is a half day and the Thanksgiving feast, as well as STREAM day.  Thank you to those of you who have told me that your child will be absent.  We will be dismissed at 12:00 tomorrow.  The feast for us is at 10:55.  The feast will contain turkey, mashed potatoes, pie, green beans, and a roll. If you prefer your child not eat this food, or they just don't want to, please send in a separate lunch.  Also, we will still have snack tomorrow! 

I cannot believe it's Thanksgiving week already!  We kept ourselves quite busy today with language arts and social studies!  We re-read Hurricanes and discussed the graphic and text features before taking the comprehension test.  The kids were able to use their book on the test. The kids also finished up their vocabulary crossword puzzles.

We spent some time working on the mechanics of our memory masters for social studies today.  We are going to perfect our headings and complete sentences!  After we did this, we read about the Mexican Cession and the Gadsden Purchase.

Instead of our traditional morning work I had the kids work on a "Clark Creative" where in the world? activity.  They had to practice multiplication and division and use clues to identify a mystery place!

Remember, Wednesday is early release.  We will still have Spanish.  We will also have our STREAM day on Wednesday from 9-10.  Please let me know if your child will not be in attendance so that groups can be adjusted accordingly.  Thank you to those of you who have let me know already!

We had a day of science today!  We had fallen behind on our science lessons and in order to catch up, we spent most of our day on science!  We are still learning about energy- but today we worked with potential and kinetic energy by rolling balls down ramps.  We also talked about collisions when our metal balls collided with corks.  The kids worked great and we got a lot of learning in! 

We still managed to take our decoding and spelling tests in the morning :) 

Remember next week is a very short week!  Wednesday is our annual Fall STREAM Day.  Our coordinator is working on putting the kids into groups this weekend, so if you know FOR SURE That your child won't be in school on Wednesday, November 21st, please let me know!

Our Friday flew by!  We started our morning with a beautiful Veteran's Ceremony put on by Boy Scouts and American Heritage Girls.  

We spent quite a bit of time talking about the tent tabernacle today.  This was the place where the Ark of the Covenant was kept (the Ark held the 10 Commandments) while the Israelites traveled the desert.  The dimensions and items to be placed in the tent tabernacle are found in Exodus in the Bible. 

Our afternoon was full of math!  After working together on a few word problems using common factors, the students had to work on word problems on their own!  We didn't even go over them together.  We have been doing so many problems together and I want to see what they can do on their own! They were quite whiney! hahah  In reality, we will go over the work on Monday, but I really wanted their best work on a Friday afternoon :) There is one math challenge that I assigned to the kids for the weekend.  It is written in their planner:

6 and 28 are perfect numbers, what is the next perfect number?  A perfect number is a number whose factors add up to the number (1,2,3,6....1+2+3=6 and 1+2+4+7+14=28). 

The kids finished their unit 2 assessment today and we started reading a supplemental reader entitled, Mars.  We will read this book in class and complete some corresponding activities. 

The kids finished their electromagnets today.  They were all successful after wrapping the wire tightly around the rivet at least 40 times.  They were very impressed that we created a temporary magnet without a magnet!  Tonight's science homework is to read pages 27-57 in the Energy reader.  

We continued our work with factors today in math.  Tonight's homework is IXL D.29, E.5, and F.6.  Thirty minutes total or until mastered, which ever comes first!

There will be a flag ceremony after mass tomorrow in celebration of Veteran's Day! 

Today's report card day!!! woohoo!!!!  I did show the children their grades before they left today.  I also reminded them that as their teacher I'm not looking for perfection, but growth.   We talked about the difference between a grade due to lack of quality work and a grade due to not understanding or struggling with something.  I'm very pleased with how this year has started and can't wait to see where 2nd trimester takes us!

No homework tonight.  We worked on unit 2 language arts test today, math practice, and making an electromagnet.

Parents of girls- I had a talk with our girls about how we treat our friends, especially the things we say to them.  We had a really great chat and the girls were really receptive, so feel free to follow up with them about it tonight if you wish!

Field Trip- I thought I posted some pictures yesterday, but they don't seem to have made it!  We had an amazing time on the trip. It's a long day, but a great one.  Thank you to everyone who volunteered and made sure their children were in the right clothes with a sack lunch!  I have received pictures from some of the chaperones, so I'll try to get a bunch out via email soon!

Tomorrow is our field trip!  I sent an email this morning providing some reminders about the trip!

Even though trimester 1 has ended, the grades on renweb, as of the moment I'm typing, are not updated yet :)

Third grade is having a gently used blanket drive to benefit Foothills Animal Rescue.

Math homework tonight is practice 5.1- both sides!

Some quick info for Friday:
*Early Release
*Grandparent's Day- Please have grandparents meet their 4th graders in the church.  Students may sit with their grandparents, however, must meet up with the class to return to the room after the church activities are over.  Children may only sit with their own grandparent/parent, not a friend's.
*The book fair will be open all day tomorrow!
*If grandparent's would like to take your child out early, please remind them to sign the students out in the office!