Week of January 7th
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Break. The fourth grade will be welcoming a student teacher today. Her name is Mrs. Girdauskas and she comes to us from St. Xavier College. She will be spending five weeks in each of the fourth grade teacher's classrooms. She will begin with me.
English
We will continue this week with the chapter on linking verbs. I was unable to cover any English the week before break so I will make it up this week. To date we have covered pages 224 - 225 in the book. This week I hope to cover pages 226 - 229 in the book.
The four types of verbs that have been learned to this point will be on the next test. They are action, helping, irregular and linking verb. The most confusion occurs when the child has to decide if the verb is linking or helping. Any extra review you can give your child will be greatly appreciated.
Writing
We will continue with descriptive writing this week. The assignment for the week will have the children drawing and coloring a monster that they have imagined. They will then write one or two short paragraphs describing their monster using as a much detail as possible. The children will then switch their written assignment with a classmate and the classmate will draw the monster from the written assignment. (Sound confusing? It's really not. ) The point of the assignment is to show the kids that using great detail can create a picture in the reader's head or in some cases maybe not enough detail will be used and then the lesson will be to make the paragraph better so that the reader can get the picture in their head.
On Thursday, the children will go to the computer lab to fill out a short questionnaire on Martin Luther King Jr.. They will then use this information to write a short biography of his life.
Science
Mrs. Girduaskas will spend the next few weeks with kids teaching a unit on Water. This unit will come from the Science book. Please don't hesitate to ask if you would like to see a copy of the book.