Ms. Tovey's Blog

English
At the end of last week we began the chapter on nouns. We covered pages 76 and 77 in the book. This week I hope to cover pages 78 and 79 in the book. There is a large emphasis in this chapter on spelling. There are quite a few rules the children will have to remember come test time. Any extra review you can give your child will be greatly appreciated.
Writing
Due to a few afternoon assemblies last week I was unable to get as far in writing as I would have liked. The children did complete the rough drafts for their Sprouse Brothers’ biography and a few even wrote the good copy. For any child that has not yet written the good copy, it will be due on Thursday, October 9th. Last week the children did go into the computer lab and write down eight important facts about the presidential or vice-presidential candidate of their choice. We will not begin this biography paper until Tuesday, October 14th. If possible can you look over your child’s facts and make sure that they make sense and that your child understands them. This week we will focus again on writing a good introduction and also the children will be introduced to idioms.
Science
We will continue our study of The Animal Kingdom. To date your child should have notes in his/her notebook on invertebrates, the five groups of vertebrates, body temperature and the characteristics of fish.

English
To date we have covered pages 76 – 79 of the chapter on nouns. This week I hope to cover pages 80 – 83. These pages, like last weeks pages, are also on the correct spellings for some plural nouns. If you get a chance, can you please review the spelling rules with your child?

Writing
This week the children will begin writing a short biography on the presidential or vice presidential candidate that they researched two weeks ago. As a class we will write the introduction and conclusion paragraph. The children will write the two body paragraphs by themselves.
With access to the internet being so readily available and the temptation to copy another writer’s words becoming more and more of a problem in schools across our country, I have begun teaching the concept of plagiarism in fourth grade. Please know that I have discussed with the children how important it is to reword any information that comes from an outside source. I have also stressed how important it is to ask for help if they are unable to reword anything. It would be very helpful if you too can discuss the importance of this concept with your child.

Science
This week we will continue our study of The Animal Kingdom. I hope to cover reptiles and birds this week. To date your child should have notes in his/her notebook on invertebrates, vertebrates, body temperature, fish, and amphibians. Please review these notes when you get a chance with your child.

English
To date we have covered pages 76 – 79 of the chapter on nouns. This week I hope to cover pages 80 – 83. These pages, like last weeks pages, are also on the correct spellings for some plural nouns. If you get a chance, can you please review the spelling rules with your child?

Writing
This week the children will begin writing a short biography on the presidential or vice presidential candidate that they researched two weeks ago. As a class we will write the introduction and conclusion paragraph. The children will write the two body paragraphs by themselves.
With access to the internet being so readily available and the temptation to copy another writer’s words becoming more and more of a problem in schools across our country, I have begun teaching the concept of plagiarism in fourth grade. Please know that I have discussed with the children how important it is to reword any information that comes from an outside source. I have also stressed how important it is to ask for help if they are unable to reword anything. It would be very helpful if you too can discuss the importance of this concept with your child.

Science
This week we will continue our study of The Animal Kingdom. I hope to cover reptiles and birds this week. To date your child should have notes in his/her notebook on invertebrates, vertebrates, body temperature, fish, and amphibians. Please review these notes when you get a chance with your child.

English
To date we have covered pages 76 – 79 of the chapter on nouns. This week I hope to cover pages 80 – 83. These pages, like last weeks pages, are also on the correct spellings for some plural nouns. If you get a chance, can you please review the spelling rules with your child?

Writing
This week the children will begin writing a short biography on the presidential or vice presidential candidate that they researched two weeks ago. As a class we will write the introduction and conclusion paragraph. The children will write the two body paragraphs by themselves.
With access to the internet being so readily available and the temptation to copy another writer’s words becoming more and more of a problem in schools across our country, I have begun teaching the concept of plagiarism in fourth grade. Please know that I have discussed with the children how important it is to reword any information that comes from an outside source. I have also stressed how important it is to ask for help if they are unable to reword anything. It would be very helpful if you too can discuss the importance of this concept with your child.

Science
This week we will continue our study of The Animal Kingdom. I hope to cover reptiles and birds this week. To date your child should have notes in his/her notebook on invertebrates, vertebrates, body temperature, fish, and amphibians. Please review these notes when you get a chance with your child.

English
This week I will be covering pages 84 – 87 in the English book. The two sections cover common and proper nouns and singular possessive nouns.

Writing
The children will continue working on their rough draft for their candidate biography paper. On Thursday, they will type their good copies in the computer lab.

Science
We will be finishing up The Animal Kingdom this week and the test is scheduled for Tuesday, October 28th. Please review all notes in your child’s notebook with him/her.

English
I hope to finish up the chapter on nouns this week. The test is scheduled for next week sometime.

Writing
The children will be working on an Endangered Species project this week. On Tuesday the children will partner up and research an animal that has been placed on the Endangered Species list. The rest of the week they will use to complete the two part project: Part one is a short report on the animal. Part two is a slogan. The children will be given a coloring page of their animal which they will color and then create a slogan that encourages people to save their animal.

Science
The science test on the Animal Kingdom is scheduled for Tuesday, October 28th. I will also begin the next unit in Science this week. Unit three is on The Human Body.

English
We will definitely be finishing up the chapter on nouns this week. The test is scheduled for Tuesday, November 11th. On Monday we will continue with plural possessive nouns which I am finding does confuse some of the kids. If you can, please review this section of the chapter with your child. The rest of the week we will cover abbreviations and compound words.

Writing
The children will write their good copies for the Endangered Species report on Monday and also create their slogans to hang around school. These slogans will encourage people to help save their animal.
On Tuesday we will begin researching the History of Verterans’ Day together. Each child will be given a research sheet and a blank timeline. As a class we will fill in the timeline with the important events and dates throughout history that led up to Veterans’ Day being recognized as a legal and federal holiday.
The rest of the week will be spent writing the paper on The History of Veterans’ Day. We will write this paper together as a class and then next week the children will type their good copies and present them to a Veteran that they know.

Science
We will be beginning the unit on the Human Body this week. This is a very long unit with a tremendous amount of notes. I do encourage the children to bring their notebooks home a couple of time a week to look them over. The unit begins with cells and then works it way through six of the body’s systems.
The children will also be studying “Herman” who is an anatomically correct person. They will be learning the organs of the body, their placement in the body, and one job that each organ performs. These notes will be found in their notebook under the heading “Herman.”
To help make this unit easier I will give a few quizzes before the test. I suggest saving the quizzes to use along with the notes as study guides.