Ms. Tovey's Blog

English
Last week we covered the sections on run - on sentences and using context clues to help determine the meaning of a word. We will spend all of this week working on using the comma correctly.

Writing
The children will continue to work on their group writing project this week. Projects will need to be finished by Friday, May 11th. Next week each group will present their project to the class.

Science
Monday and Tuesday will be spent reviewing graphing. Monday we will work on bar graphs and Tuesday, line graphs. On Wednesday the children will be going into the computer lab to use Microsoft Excel, a program that generates bar and line graphs. I hope to begin the chapter in the animal Kingdom on Thursday. This will be a brief look at the two major groups of animals (invertebrates and vertebrates) as well as the five groups of vertebrates and their characteristics.
The Rocket Launch permission slip will be going home today. The children will begin making their rockets the week of May 21st.

English/Writing
We will not be starting anything new in English this week. The children will be using our English time to present their projects to the class. Projects will be graded accordingly: 50 points for a completed poster that has followed all the directions and 50 points for a seven paragraph paper that has also followed all the directions. The children will not be handing their written paper in. I will grade it as they present to the class.
Next week the children will begin their final writing assignment for the year. The assignment will have two parts. First, they will create/invent a new product and second they will have to create the advertising campaign to market their new product. A completed project will have a drawing of their new product, a one minute or less commercial advertsing thier product and a catchy slogan to help sell their new product.

Science
I had hoped to start the Chapter on the Animal Kingdom last week but again all did not go as planned. My goal is to begin it this week, but again it is a very hectic week.

Monday - Falcon Idol
Tuesday - Brookfield Zoo
Wednesday - Calm, but I will be in the gym for the Drama Club's first performance of "Mary Poppins."
Thursday - Fourth grade will see Mary Poppins
Friday - No School

On Wednesday and Thursday afternoon I will be with the Drama Club. Miss Blough will be covering my classes from 10:45 until the end of each day.

Happy last few weeks of school. Please know that the next couple of weeks are very hectic with end of the year events. My goal is to cover evrything that is mentioned in my blog, but with all the activities that are going on this may not happen.

This week is Spirit Week and there is an event planned for each afternoon.

English/Writing
The children will finish presenting their projects this week and hopefully start their advertsing project (mentioned in last weeks blog) this week.
Also, I would like to finish up the punctuation and mechanics sections of the book and hopefully give a short test next week.

Science
Monday we will spend some time talking about the cicadas. The rest of the week will be spent on decorating and making the rockets. Rocket launch is next Wednesday. The rain date has been set for Tuesday, June 5th.