Oct. 1-5

Coming up in October:

Mon 10/8 - No school (Columbus Day)

Fri 10/5-Northeast region celebration 1:30

Tues 10/23 - Parent/teacher conferences 3:00-8:00pm

Wed 10/24 - Parent/teacher conferences 3:00-6:00pm

Fri 10/26 - No school (Parent/teacher conference)

Mon 10/29 - No school (Teacher Institute)

Wed 10/31 - Halloween classroom parties 1:00-2:00pm

Wed 10/31 - Halloween parade - parents invited 1:55pm

Spelling -  Unit 6 - "Suffixes "-ed" and "-ing"

This week's spelling/vocabulary list will include words with the suffixes -ed and -ing.  We will study how adding these suffixes to base words changes their spelling. The final TEST is scheduled for Friday, 10/5.

Reading - Unit 1 - "Courage" 

Students will close read the fiction piece titled, Happy Birthday Dr. King. They will work in small groups to answer text-dependent questions and to use context clues to find meanings of unknown words. They will also be creating a digital notebook of vocabulary words for the story. 

The Happy Birthday Dr. King vocabulary QUIZ is scheduled for Friday, 10/5. Students should review the word work that they completed in Google Classroom to prepare for the quiz.

English - What is a Sentence?

The chapter 1 TEST is scheduled for Tues., 10/2. Students should prepare for the test by reviewing the textbook, practice pages, and workbook pages for the chapter. There is also a chapter review section in the textbook (p. 56-62) that covers all of the topics we have studied. They will be getting the study guide above tomorrow. This will be a great review.

Writing Fiction-Character Development

In  writing, we have been discussing character development.  We have talked about internal and external character traits for characters we create in a story. We practiced this as we drafted a story about a super dog named Rover.

Social Studies  - The People of the Northeast

The students will continue to learn about the Narragansett People of the NE.  We will have a quiz later this week to wrap-up our lesson and a "Northeast Feast" to conclude our study on the NE region of the U.S.

The students and I thought it would be fun to do a food celebration of the NE.  We will discuss more on Tuesday.  (I will be at a workshop Monday, 10/1).  Please discuss if your child would like to make or buy something for our "Northeast Feast."  The food item would need to be representative of the NE like a cranberry item (dried cranberries, cranberry bread/muffins, etc, grape item (grapes, grape juice, etc), seafood item (crab dip, lobster rolls, etc), potato item (potato chips, potato pancakes, potato buns, etc) or something with maple syrup, etc.  See the resource page in their social studies book for help.  

If an item is sent in, it would need to be ready-to-serve.

Sending in something for our NE Feast is totally optional.

The celebration will be on Fri., 10/5 at 1:30.

Please e-mail with ideas or questions and if your child has any food allergies.

tspakausky@ccsd66.org

Mrs. Spakausky's Math Class: 

In math this week we will begin Module 4 in Unit One. This module provides hands-on experience with measurement as students explore linear measurement, mass, weight, and liquid volume. They will review the definitions and units of measure for each category.

Sept. 24-28

Today we made our Kindess Rocks and placed them around the front and back of the PV property.

Picture Retakes - Tuesday Oct 2nd

Picture packets were sent home with students this week. Lifetouch will be at Prairieview on Tuesday, October 2nd for retakes and for students who were absent on picture day 8/29. If you would like your child's picture retaken, please return the original picture package with your child on or before Oct 2nd. Lifetouch will rephotograph free of charge and provide new pictures in a few weeks. Students who were absent on the original picture day have received an order form to have their picture taken Tues, Oct. 2nd.

Questions? Please call the office at 630-783-5151  

Spelling -  Unit 5 - "Greek Roots"
This week's spelling/vocabulary list will include words with the Greek roots "graph", "auto", "photo", "tele", and "rupt".  We will study the meanings of these roots and how to use them correctly. The final TEST is scheduled for Friday, 9/28.


Reading - Unit 1 - "Courage"

We kicked off the Courage unit by reflecting on the question, "How Can One Person Make a Difference"? Students participated in a "silent conversation" using Google Forms where they shared their thoughts and commented on the ideas of others. Then we created the graffiti wall below to display their ideas. 


Close reading is the thoughtful, critical analysis of a text that focuses on significant details or patterns in order to develop a deep, precise understanding of the text's form, craft, meanings, etc. It is a skill that we will work on and develop throughout the year...we call it "digging into the text".

Next week's task in reading will be to close read the fiction piece titled, Happy Birthday Dr. King. Students will work in small groups to answer text-dependent questions and to use context clues to find meanings of unknown words. They will also be creating a digital notebook of vocabulary words for the story. 

English - What is a Sentence?
The chapter 1 TEST is scheduled for Tues., 10/2. Students should prepare for the test by reviewing the textbook, practice pages, and workbook pages for the chapter. There is also a chapter review section in the textbook (p. 56-62) that covers all of the topics we have studied. Below are some activities that we used to practice our sentence skills.


Social Studies  - The Beautiful Northeast
We finished our study of the Northeast this week. The Chapter 4 TEST is scheduled for Mon. 9/24.  Please study the guide I sent home and the papers in the social studies pocket.



Mrs. Spakausky's Math Class: This week, we will begin Unit 1, Module 3 on multiplication comparisons and equations. 


 The Home Connection and Student book can now be found in your child's  Math Google Classroom.  This can be used if your child  forgets to bring home their workbook.The pages may be printed out from this file. 

Module 1-Models for Multiplication and Division-T

Module 2-Primes and Composites

Module 3-Multiplicative Comparisons and Equations


Module 4-Measurement Experiences (linear measurement, mass/weight, volume and capacity)

Sept. 17-21

Luna wanted to say "HI-Woof," this week!  Have a good weekend!

We were fortunate to see the "Big Top" go up, (in the back of PV School) this morning, for the Kelly Miller Circus this weekend.  

We have "reading buddies" this year!  About once a month, our 4th grade class will read to the preschool class...What FUN!

Important Dates:
Wed., Sept 26- Early Dismissal

Reading:  This week we will begin the fourth grade Courage unit. The unit revolves around the essential questions of "What does it mean to show courage?", "Can courage be shown in more than one way?" and "How can one person make a difference?" We will also focus on how to determine the theme of a story. 


ELA/Reading-The Courage unit begins by exploring how one person can make a difference. In order to gain some background knowledge of Dr. Martin Luther King,  students will work in small groups to close read a biographical article about his life. They will also independently watch a video about him and answer text-dependent questions related to the video.


English: In English, we will continue  Unit one. The Sentence. We will focus on finding the subject and  predicate along with run-on sentences.


Writing: In writing we were imagining stories that we wished existed in the world and we added to our ideas list.  Some students even started to work on a sloppy copy of a realistic fiction story. Next week we will learn how to put thoughts about your characters down on paper to help you develop your story.


Spelling: Unit 4 - "Frequently Confused Words"
This week's spelling/vocabulary list will include homophones such as to, too and two & their, there and they're. We will study the meanings of these words and how to use them correctly. The final test is scheduled for Friday, 9/21.


Social Studies:   This week we will continue chapter 4, The Northeast.  In Lesson 3  we will read and learn how Chesapeake Bay and other bays in the Northeast provide seafood for millions.  The chapter 4 test is tentatively scheduled for Mon., September 25th.


Mrs. Spakausky's Math Class: The students review factors and factor pairs and prime  and composite numbers.  The students will also review the strategies they used to solve basic multiplication facts.  Then we will begin Unit 1, Module 3 on multiplication comparisons and equations.  

 The Home Connection and Student book can be found in your child's  Math Google Classroom   This can be used if your child  forgets to bring home their workbook.The pages may be printed out from this file.