Today is the last day of January, and I cannot believe how fast time has gone since we've returned from Christmas break!

We started our morning with a flag ceremony run by the scouts and Heritage Girls.  I have to say, this was the smoothest ceremony to date, and our 4th grade participants were professional and wonderful leaders!

Tomorrow is the CSW Talent Show at 1:30 in the church.  I cannot wait to watch the performances by our 4th graders :)

Today was our final day to work on the STREAM recycling projects.  The kids were creating an item with a simple machine to model their favorite Bible story or parable.  They look amazing!  The kids did a fantastic job working together.  They will be on display in the upper hall tomorrow late morning.

We were able to squeeze in our final activity for Orphan of Ellis Island.  This novel was a huge hit, with the kids suggesting a series be made from the story :)

We also worked on some problem solving with bar models and fractions in math.  A review page went home for homework and we'll take our chapter test tomorrow.

We have been reading a book called, Space Case, aloud.  I wasn't sure how the kids would like this story, but they are loving it!  It's a mystery story that takes place in the year 2026 on a moon colony.  We are all dying to see how it ends and who the villain ends up being.  Yesterday we found out some important information to the mystery, and the kids all thought they may know who the culprit is, so they all recorded their guesses and we're saving them to read until the end of the story.  I'm hoping to get two chapters per day read and then we can be finished by next week!

This week has been going fast, and today was no different!  We started our day with religion, reading the rest of the story about Jesus' baptism and spending time thinking about our STREAM project for next week.  The recyclables you're sending in will be used next week for the kids to create a simple machine based on a Bible story or verse.  They listed their favorite stories or verses and I passed around a list of parables for some inspiration.  I will put the in groups tomorrow and they can come up with their plan.  Building will start Monday, with painting/decorating taking place on Thursday, and they will be on display on Friday! I cannot wait to see what they come up with!

We read some of our novel today, and they are reading a few chapters for homework tonight.

This afternoon we finished the math test.  This process started yesterday, with some children mastering their skills yesterday.   The kids have really worked hard this chapter on fractions.  What started "so easy", turned into quite a challenge for some of the kids.  We'll continue to work with fractions for the next few weeks.  It was funny today as the kids reflected on their math from the beginning of the year.  They noticed that the work they thought was really challenging at the start of 4th grade, is soooo easy now :)

We ended the day with social studies.  The kids read about the different transportation methods of the old west!

Don't forget we have a pep rally to kick off Catholic Schools Week at 2:15.  It's going to be fun! This weekend is an open house after mass.  There will be lots of fun activities, so be sure to stop by.

Please keep those recyclables this weekend- you can continue to send them in on Monday (and even throughout the week if kids need them)!

Welcome back! I hope you all had a great long weekend.  Our day went by quickly today, and we got a lot accomplished :)

New spelling words came home today.  There are only 18 words, as they are vocabulary from our novel.  Speaking of the novel- we read through chapter 10 today.  Language arts homework is to complete the questions in the booklet through chapter 10.

Almost everyone finished their narrative story about finding a map in a bottle.  This was a writing prompt and we spent all last week working on the story.

We continued working on adding mixed numbers using the properties of addition.  The kids are really working hard and doing well on this.  They also worked in pairs on word problems today.  I'm thinking we'll be ready for the chapter test on Thursday.  We'll spend tomorrow reviewing, and if I need to push it back we can!  Homework tonight is IXL Q.11, Q.12, and Q.14.

Please send in recyclables (clean) this week.  These items will be used next week for a STREAM project to celebrate Catholic Schools Week!

We had a really busy Friday!  We started with a wonderful mass led by Father John and continued onto math.  After some review with fractions, we worked our way into adding three mixed numbers using the associative and commutative property (the order of the addends doesn't matter).  I created an optional math practice page for the weekend of converting to and from mixed numbers.  The kids were able to chose if they wanted to complete the practice over the weekend.

The kids planned out their barrier systems yesterday in their science groups, and today they built and tested them.  This was really fun and they loved seeing who was successful in guiding the boulders into the catch.  Next week the groups will create an entire system- catch and barriers on a budget!

After lunch we spent our afternoon on language arts.  The kids took their spelling test and then we read from our novel.  We read through chapter 7.  Our main character has just fallen asleep in New York but awoken from a nap in Italy!  We spent the rest of our time editing and typing stories about a treasure map.  We will finish the final copies on Tuesday!

Remember there's no school on Monday! Enjoy your long weekend!

Tonight's homework is the even problems on math practice 7.8.  I told the kids to do their best and that we'd go over them tomorrow.  If completing this assignment is WAY too much and there are tears or fights, please stop and I'll go over with them in the morning!

The kids received their novels, The Orphan of Ellis Island this afternoon.  We will complete almost all the reading for this at school, along with discussions about the readings and completion of some questions and quizzes.  Spelling words this week and next are from this book.

The kids were able to work on and complete a webquest about Ellis Island this morning.  They had videos, pictures, and text to read on an interactive tour.

We ended our day by leading the school rosary this afternoon!  The kids did AMAZING!  The composure and reverence they showed was outstanding- even our non-readers are to be commended for their support and reverence!

We took our unit 3 language arts assessment today- part 1.  We will finish tomorrow.  Spelling words are from the novel we will be starting this week.  There are only 16 words.

We also watched a short video about Ellis Island today.  Tomorrow the kids will complete a web-quest tomorrow about Ellis Island.  The novel we are going to start is called The Orphan of Ellis Island.

We added and subtracted mixed numbers today in math.  It went really well and the kids worked quite hard!

No homework tonight!

Happy Friday!

We had a jam packed day!  We had lots of fun creating catches for our avalanche protection system! I tried to send pics to the blog, but they've not come through yet :(

We finished up our language arts unit this week, and will start a novel next week!

We continued to work on improper fractions and mixed numbers in math.  Mrs. DiPasquale and Mrs. Wallace came in to work on the class auction project this afternoon and the project looks AMAZING!

Scholastic orders due Tuesday, January 15th!

We had quite a busy day today!  We finished up our centers in language arts and practiced identifying main idea and un-supporting details in sample paragraphs.  Tonight's homework is to re-read Ecology for Kids.

Math was really fun today- we started learning about improper fractions and mixed numbers.  Homework tonight is different each child, as some of us are more familiar with converting between the two than others.  We really focused on the what and why of the skill today. The kids worked really hard and did a wonderful job! They were instructed to take home our work page from today (it must come back tomorrow) as a reference for hw.

Tonight and tomorrow are play try-outs.  Students must attend both days, but everyone will be given a part!

Tomorrow is library day- most kids returned their books before break, but if your child was absent, please check and make sure their books have been returned :)

Welcome Back! I hope everyone had a wonderful break! We had a wonderfully productive first day back.

We read Ecology for Kids and completed a main idea graphic organizer together in language arts.  There will be a spelling test on Friday!

The kids had some time to work in their groups to create a "catch" for our avalanche protection unit.

We reviewed fractions by playing BINGO!  The kids did a really great job!

Tonight's homework is a little different:

We have a new email host and the kid's accounts need to be verified.
Please visit gmail.com and have your child log into their email- all info is the same as when using microsoft365.  For example, email addresses still end in @acsphx.org.  Please follow the prompts and complete the verification process.  Once in, the kids will reset their pw----it will be the same as it was originally, except for the "T" will be lowercase now.  If everyone is able to do this, we should be able to access our classwork tomorrow and start learning how to create documents!!! Thank you for your help!