Ms. Tovey's Blog

English
Similes and metaphors were introduced on Thursday. The children seemed to understand the difference between the two very well. We will continue to work with similes and metaphors on Monday and Tuesday. The children will be writing their own similes and metaphors this week so be sure to ask them to share their ideas with you.

The test on nouns will be on Monday. The best way to study for this test is to look over both quizzes that were taken on the chapter. On Tuesday we will be beginning the next chapter in the English book. This chapter will cover verbs. (action verbs, helping verbs, irregular verbs and spelling verbs correctly.) It is chapter 5 in the book and begins on page 150.

Writing
The children will be finishing up their biographies early this week. The rough draft is due by Wednesday. Mrs. Maxwell will be using the next two Fridays of computer time to help the children type their biographies.

On Thursday we will begin working on how to write a good introductory paragraph. We do use the funnel method at St. John Fisher which means the first sentence should be very general, the second a little more specific and the third sentence is the topic sentence.

Science
We have finished the chapter on the Human Body. The test is on Tuesday. I do believe the children are well prepared for this test. When studying please just have your child look over the notes in their notebook. There will be no surprises. The test comes from the notes.
Next Monday the children will be making their human body t-shirts. A note will be coming home on Tuesday to better explain this.
The test on Herman will be next Friday (11/17). We will spend a little time each day going over the body parts and reviewing one job for each part. The children do have the jobs written in their notebooks if you would like to review them.

The next chapter in Science will be space. I hope to begin the chapter this week.

English
This week we will continue the chapter on verbs. I hope to give a quiz on the first half of the chapter on Tuesday, November 21st. (very tentative) I am stressing with the children the difficulty of the English language in that so many words can be both nouns and verbs. I am trying to get the point across that it is very important to read a sentence carefully and truly understand what has been read before trying to pick out the verb or the noun.

Writing
Wow, I cannot believe how well the fourth graders are progressing in writing. We have wrapped up the section on biography writing and will now spend a little time on friendly letter writing. (a dying art, I'm afraid)
On Friday the children wrote a rough draft of a friendly letter to a soldier in Iraq. The over all theme of the letter was to thank the soldier for doing what they do to keep our country safe and to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving.
Also, we have been working on writing good introductory paragraphs. I have been teaching the children the funnel method. This method is very straight forward and easy to comprehend. I had the kids draw a funnel and we discussed what makes the funnel unique. ( it is big at the top and gets narrower as it goes down) This is applied to writing in that an introductory paragraph should start out very general in the first sentence and then get a little more specific in the second sentence and finally the topic sentence should be written. The children really seemed to understand this concept. I will continue to work on introductory paragraphs throughout the year.
I keep telling the kids that the most important thing that they can learn in school is how to be a good writer. I want them to understand that it is the one of the most important ways they have of expressing themselves and who they are. Please continue to support and encourage your child's writing by asking them to read anything that they have written.

Science
We will be making the body T-Shirts on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday we will visit the second and third grade classrooms to share our abundant knowledge of our body and how it works.
Friday, November 17th is the test on Herman. It is a two part test. Part 1 - I will hold up the body part and the children will have to identify it. (there will be a word bank to look at)
Part 2 - the children will use the word bank to match the organ to its correct job.

Plan for the week.

Monday we will spend forty - five minutes in the computer lab to finish typing the biographies. Please encourage your child to give it to the person that they wrote about. Also, on Monday we will begin the Unit on Space. We will start with the vocabulary, which the children will copy into their notebook. The Unit on Space will come from the third grade Science book. (It is kind of ironic that Space is supposed to be covered in Fourth grade but it is not in the fourth garde science book) This will prohibit the children from bringing the Science books home, so it is imperative that they take all the notes.

Tuesday - We will begin the Space Unit with the Sun. Notes on the sun will be given today. Also, each child will be making a Solar System booklet that they will bring home upon completion of the Unit. Can you please review the notes with your child as they start to build.
Thank you for your support and cooperation.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

English
We will continue our study of verbs this week. I plan to cover pages 156 - 159. The topic is verb tenses (past, present and future). This can be a little confusing for some fourth graders. If you get a free moment please review the pages with your child. On Tuesday, December 5th there will be a quiz on part one of the chapter. The quiz will cover pages 152 - 159. A review will be given Monday in class and should be brought home that night to help prepare for the quiz.

Writing
On Monday the children will be going to the computer lab to begin their next writing assignment. The assignment will be a collaborative effort between Mrs. Sullivan and me. The writing part of the project will be a five paragraph paper on the State that your child was assigned. An outline/questionnaire will be handed out on Monday and the children will be given approximately sixty minutes of computer time to research the state and find the answers to the questions. On Tuesday, we will begin writing the rough draft of the report.
This will be the first time that the children will be expected to write their own introductory paragraph. Please ask your child to read their report as it progresses. The rough draft will be due to me on Monday, December 4th. Final drafts are due on Friday, December 8th. The final draft will be hand - written on a newspaper template.
Science
We will continue our exploration of the Solar System. We will begin our journey with the sun and work our way out covering each planet and the asteroid belt. Again the information piles up quickly so please review the notes with your child as time allows.