October 29-November 2

Coming up:

10/26- No School - Conferences

It was a pleasure to meet with so many of you during conferences. Please do not ever hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns that you may have about your child's progress.

10/29 - No School - Teachers' Institute

10/31-Halloween Parties and Parade

The Halloween celebration will be on Wednesday, 10/31. Students will change into their costumes at 12:45, and the parties will begin at 1:00. The traditional PV parade will begin at 1:55. Students must be able to put on their Halloween costume in 5-10 minutes by themselves. Fourth grade will have designated classrooms for girls to change in and for boys. They will NOT be allowed to change in the bathroom. No props that resemble a weapon should be brought to school. THANK YOU to all the parents who are helping to make this a special afternoon for our classroom!

Spelling -  Unit 10 - Suffixes -ment, -tion and -ly

This week's list contains words with the suffixes -ment, -tion and -ly.  Students will study the definitions of the suffixes and how they change the root words that they are attached to. We will also look at antonyms of the spelling and vocabulary words. The final TEST is scheduled for Friday, 11/2.

Reading - Unit 1 - "Courage"

We will compare and contrast two other faces in history that showed courage.  We will learn about Jackie Robinson and Malala Yousafzai.  How did these two people show courage in their own way?

Writing-What is a Story Arc?

This week we will learn what a story arc is.  A story arc is a way to organize the story in writing before actually writing the story.  It helps the author get ideas down and think things through so they will make sense  You can think of it as a plan on paper for the story

Social Studies - The Southeast

Our study of the Southeast begins with students creating a map of the region. Look for a QUIZ on the map to be scheduled the week of 11/5.

Science - Energy Conversions
Building a simple electrical system and examining its parts will be the focus of Science this week.  In these pictures, students read about SYSTEMS in more depth.  

The Chapter Question is:  What happened to the electrical system the night of the Errgstown blackout?

WE will investigate what a system is and how electrical energy in a system is used.

The KEY CONCEPTS:

*A system is a collection of interacting parts that work together.  Each part in the system plays a role to perform an overall system function.

*Light, motion, sound and thermal energy are all forms of energy.  You can observe evidence of these different forms as outputs of electrical devices.

(There is no textbook for science.  Only student workbooks).

Mrs. Spakausky's  Math Class:.  In math this week we will continue Unit Two, Module Three, Multiplication Stories and Strategies. Students investigate the effect of doubling and halving factors in multiplication combinations. The students should also be practicing their multiplication facts nightly. Next, we are working on division with remainders.  The students will learn how to divide a 2-digit number by a one digit number with remainders.

October 22-26

Coming up:

10/26- No School - Conferences
10/29 - No School - Teachers' Institute

10/31-Halloween Parties and Parade

The Halloween celebration will be on Wednesday, 10/31. 

Students will change into their costumes at 12:45, and the parties will begin at 1:00. The traditional PV parade will begin at 1:55. Students must be able to put on their Halloween costume in 5-10 minutes by themselves. Fourth grade will have designated classrooms for girls to change in and for boys. They will NOT be allowed to change in the bathroom. No props that resemble a weapon should be brought to school. THANK YOU to all the parents who are helping to make this a special afternoon for our classroom!

Students working with partners---We are responding to questions about Martin Luther King Jr.ś  ''I have a Dream Speech¨

Our new student, Emma!  Welcome to Prairieview!!!

What is Cause and Effect?  

Students defined and came up with key words for finding a cause and effect relationship.

Spelling List for Unit 9

Spelling -  Unit 9 - Prefixes pre-, re- and mis-
Words on this week's list will include the prefixes pre-, re- and mis-. We will study the definitions of these prefixes and how they change the meaning of the root word that they are attached to. The final TEST is scheduled for THURSDAY,  10/25.

Reading - Unit 1 - "Courage"
We will be having a quiz comparing the story Happy Birthday, Dr. King and the song PRIDE.

Social Studies - No Social Studies for a few weeks, so we can dig into our new science unit.

Science-Energy

We will start our new unit on Energy.  During the first chapter, the students will have a Question that will guide them throughout.  The Chapter Question is:  What happened to the electrical system the night of the Errgstown blackout?

WE will investigate what a system is and how electrical energy in a system is used.

The KEY CONCEPTS:

*A system is a collection of interacting parts that work together.  Each part in the system plays a role to perform an overall system function.

*Light, motion, sound and thermal energy are all forms of energy.  You can observe evidence of these different forms as outputs of electrical devices.

(There is no textbook for science.  Only student workbooks).

Mrs. Spakauskyś Math Class--Unit 2

In math this week we will continue Unit Two, Module Three, Multiplication Stories and Strategies. Students investigate the effect of doubling and halving factors in multiplication combinations. The students should also be practicing their multiplication facts nightly.  Next, we are working on division with remainders.  The students will learn how to divide a 2-digit number by a one digit number with remainders.

Oct. 15-19

Students were greeted by a beautiful rainbow of Positive Thoughts at PV this month!!!

Pictures of our NE Feast!!!

The students had a great feast with foods from all over the region.  The contributions were overwhelming-The students say, THANKS!!!

Spelling -  Unit 8 - Grade Appropriate & Domain-Specific Vocabulary

This week's spelling/vocabulary list will include a variety of words that are appropriate for 4th-grade students. Instead of studying a spelling rule, we will focus on the definition of these words and how they might be used in reading and writing. Part of this week's lesson will also highlight how to use reference materials such as a dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, and encyclopedia. The final TEST is scheduled for Friday, 10/19.

Reading - Unit 1 - "Courage"-At the beginning of the week, we will write our first reading response as a group. Then, we will spend time looking at the text structure of cause and effect. Text structured as cause and effect explains the reasons why something happened or the effects of something. An effect is what happens. To determine the effect, students should ask “What happened?”. A cause is why something happens. To determine the cause, students should ask “Why did it happen?”    Once we have reviewed this concept students will revisit the story of "Happy Birthday Dr. King" to discover how cause and effect are used throughout the text.

English - Capitalization & Punctuation
Capitalization of places and things, abbreviations, and commas in a series are our topics for next week.


Social Studies -  The Northeast / The Narragansett
The rough draft of the Northeast descriptive writing project was due Friday. 

Mrs. Spakausky and Mrs. Krasnodebski's Math Class: In math this week we will begin Unit Two, Module One, Building Multiplication Arrays. Students should be practicing their multiplication facts nightly to help prepare for this chapter.  Students will determine the area of base ten pieces in square centimeters and discuss the idea that the area of each piece represents its place value.

Oct. 8-12

Coming up in October:

Wed 10/10-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

We had our first 4th grade PRIDE! Awards last Friday.  My class had the letter "E" for Empathy.  I awarded Christopher the PRIDE! Award for the month of September.  Congratulations, Christopher!  Thank you, Mrs. Beseth, for presenting the award on Friday, while I was out.

Our "Camp-out" that was earned for our Good Behavior Marble Party.  Congrats, 4th graders!

Spelling -  Unit 7 - "Suffixes "-ness", "-less",  and "-en"
This week's spelling/vocabulary list will include words with the suffixes -ness, -less, and-en.  We will study the definitions of these suffixes and how to determine the meaning of unknown words by breaking the words into base words and suffixes and by using context clues. The final TEST is scheduled for Friday, 10/12.

Reading - Unit 1 - "Courage"
Students will independently complete two baseline common assessments in reading this week. The assessment is designed to give teachers data to guide instruction - it's not for a grade. We will also look at the topic of theme.

Students will do their second read of 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 finish creating a digital notebook of vocabulary words for the story. 

The Happy Birthday Dr. King vocabulary QUIZ is scheduled this week. Students should review the word work that they completed in Google Classroom to prepare for the quiz.

Writing Fiction-Character Development

In  writing, we will continue to work on our super dog story.

Social Studies  - The Northeast
We will begin a descriptive writing project in which students will describe an imaginary trip to the Northeast region. As they describe their journey they will write about the geography, resources and fishing industry of the region. The rough draft of the Northeast Trip descriptive paragraph is due on Monday, 10/17.

Our NE Feast will also be on Wed., Oct. 10th!


Mrs. Spakausky's Math Class: In math this week we will begin Unit Two, Module One, Building Multiplication Arrays. Students should be practicing their multiplication facts nightly to help prepare for this chapter.  Students will determine the area of base ten pieces in square centimeters and discuss the idea that the area of each piece represents its place value.