Ms. Tovey's Blog

Science

We will be finishing the first unit on graphing Wednesday. The test is scheduled for Thursday. A review sheet will be going home on Tuesday. Each child should study the one page of notes in their science notebook and be able to make a bar graph and line graph. The test is worth 30 points.

Friday we will begin the Unit on the Human Body. The unit begins with cells and ends with the various organ systems. Please encourage your child to bring their notebook home every night to look over the vocabulary and notes for the chapter.

English

On Wednesday there will be a short quiz on Section 2 of chapter one. The quiz will cover the 4 types of sentences. (declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory) Each child should go over the notes they have on these sentences and look over pages 4 - 7 in their English book.

Writing

Today we began to use our new writing series. It is a very intense series that focuses on gathering information, organizing information, drafting a story, editing a story and finally publishing a story. Each step will be done in class so that I can better guide each student. Please know that there are only 30 copies of the writing hard book so they must stay at school. However, each child has a consumable workbook that I keep in the classroom (one less book to be carrying from class to class). You may ask your child to bring their workbook home at any time but please make sure they return them to me so I can continue to monitor their work..

English
The children are currently working on complete and simple subjects as well as complete and simple predicates. We will be finishing up this section of the chapter on Thursday and moving on to compound subjects and compound predicates. I am planning a quiz for section three of the chapter sometime next week.

Writing
The children just completed their first writing assignment: a personal narrative on a special day in their life. On Wednesday they will be going into the computer lab to type their personal narratives and add graphics.

Science
We started Chapter 1 on Monday. The Chapter is called From Cells to Systems. It will be an intense overview of the human body and all the parts that comprise it. We are currently discussing cells and 4 of their parts. (nucleus, nuclear membrane, cytoplasm and cell membrane)

English
The students are finishing up section three of chapter one. There will be a quiz on Wednesday. It will cover simple subjects and predicates, complete subjects and predicates and compound subjects and predicates. I will be reviewing with the children on Tuesday. A review sheet will be completed and brought home (hopefully). Please know the quiz will be the same format as the review sheet.
The test on Chapter one will be early next week.

Writing
The children have begun a first person creative writing assignment. We have been working on it in class for the past couple of days. The rough draft will be due on Friday. Each child has received a paper explaining the correct format for setting up their rough draft. In case you have not seen that paper I have attached it below.

Superhero Paper

Follow the steps below to set up your superhero paper correctly.

First paragraph - introduction paragraph, 2 sentences, you should have copied it from the board

Super Suit Paragraph - 5 sentences describing your super suit

Super Powers Paragraph - 5 sentences describing your super powers

Job Paragraph - 5 sentences describing your every day job as a normal person. (where do you work, what do you do, who's your boss, do you have any friends that you count on at work)

Mission Paragraph - 5 sentences describing who it is that you save as a superhero

Arch Enemy or Sidekick Paragraph - 5 sentences describing either your arch enemy or your sidekick.

Closing Paragraph - 2 - 3 sentences that end your story

You may write your story in any order you like. Remember that the introduction should be first and the closing paragraph last. Otherwise have fun and be as creative as possible.

Science - We continue to study the human body. The notes are starting to add up so please remind your child to bring his/her notebook home each night to look over the notes.

English
The test on Chapter one will be on Tuesday, October 3rd. The test is open notebook which means the children may use their notebook to help them with the test. The test will be a culmination of the three quizzes that were already taken. The pages from the book to look over are pages 2 through 15.
We will also spend some time this week working on alliteration. (example: Tommy tipped the taco, tomatoes tumbled to the tarmac.)
Chapter Two will be an in depth coverage of nouns. We will begin Chapter two on Thursday.

Writing
The children have finished their second writing assignment. We will use the computer lab on Wednesday to type the Superhero stories. They did a wonderful job on these stories. Please be sure to ask your child to read his or hers.
The next writing assignment will be written as a sports announcer interviewing an athlete after the big game. We will continue to use first person writing for this story. The children will begin this assignment on Thursday, October 5th.

Science
We are beginning section two of Chapter one. This section covers five of the systems in the human body. They are as follows: Circulatory System, Respiratory System, Digestive System, Muscular System and Skeletal System. The Circulatory System, Respiratory System, and Digestive System are not in the fourth grade science book. The information will come from handouts. Each child has been asked to keep the handouts in their science folders for you to look at.
On Wednesday we began to study Herman. (I am sure you have already heard his name) Herman is a human body, neither boy nor girl, that has removable body parts. The information given on Herman is separate from Chapter one and will not be included on the test. As a class we will spend quite a bit of time studying Herman and learning what each body part does. Please ask your kids the parts they learned each day and quiz them on what the part does.