Homework for Tuesday, November 29

Grade 4 students have been working on designing a new animal in class for about a week. They have been given time yesterday to begin creating the final copy of their project. Students are asked to finish this and pass it in on Thursday.

Grade 5 students have a math worksheet on naming and sorting polygons by their sides.

As a reminder, school spirit wear orders are due this Friday.

Math Test Monday

The students will be having their end of unit quiz on their 2-D shapes unit of math on Monday, December 5.

Grade 4 students will have to be able to show the following:

-identify benchmark angles (right angle, half a right angle, straight angle) and compare other angles to these benchmarks (greater than a right angle, less than a right angle but greater than half a right angle, or less than half a right angle)

-relate benchmark angles to their measurement in degrees (right angle is 90 degrees, straight angle is 180 degrees, half a right angle is 45 degrees)

-identify and draw the lines of symmetry in 2-D shapes

-identify and compare different quadrilaterals (trapezoid, parallelogram, rhombus, rectangle, square) and sort and classify them by their geometric properties (side lengths, parallel sides, equal sides, angle descriptions.

Grade 5 students will have to be able to show the following:

-identify acute, obtuse, right, and straight angles

-measure and construct angles up to 90 degrees using a protractor

-distinguish between polygons, regular polygons, and other 2-D shapes

-identify triangles by their angles (acute, right, obtuse) and by their sides (equilateral, isosceles, scalene)

-construct triangles (using a protractor and ruler) given the angle and side measurements

Please have students review these ideas and practice these skills this week in preparation. Students can come and see me for extra help or practice at different times during the day.

Spelling List #3

The following is the spelling list for this week. The common part of the words is the short u sound (as in cup):

Under

Thunder

Trust

Runner

Custom

Crust

Crumble

Busted

Shudder

Summer

Plumber

Umbrella

Tumble

Cutting

Stutter

Shutting

New Song Posted!

"Respiration" is now uploaded to YouTube! Follow the link on the right side of the blog and learn all about the respiratory system!

Crazy New Animals

Check out some of the new animals we are inventing in grade 4:

Homework for Friday, November 25

There will be a spelling quiz on list #2 on Monday.

Grade four students are to complete #1, 2, 4, 7 on page 90-92 of their textbook.

Grade five students are to complete #1, 2, 4, 5 on page 86-87 of their textbook.

Students should be bringing this work home to show parents even if they are finished, for review.

Please remember that if there is some reason the work is not completed by Monday, I accept notes from parents or guardians explaining what happened. Thank you.

Grade 4 Adaptations

The grade 4 students have been discussing the adaptations animals may have to help them deal with heat or cold, protect itself, get food or eat, or move around in its habitat. Students have been creating their own new animals and explaining their adaptations with these things in mind.

Grade 5 Respiratory System and Circulatory System

The grade 5 students have spent the last few weeks learning about the respiratory system and the circulatory system. They have taken notes on both systems and have added labled diagrams to their notebooks. Students should be able to label the major organs and parts of the systems, and describe how they work. They are also encouraged to begin thinking about how these systems are interconnected.

Alliteration homework

The students have been learning how to use alliteration in writing. As practice, students are asked to write 4 or more sentences using alliteration. Students should be choosing a letter or sound that should be used throughout their sentences. An example would be "Lucky Liam loves licking lollipops and swallowing luscious lobster at lunchtime." Students should use a dictionary and a thesaurus to help them find the best words to use (both can be found online).

Grade 4 Adaptations Project

The grade 4 students have been asked to create a new animal for a chosen habitat.

Grade 5 Science Projects

The grade 5s are working on life size models of the body systems.

Spelling List #2

We had our first spelling quiz today. Students will have them returned tomorrow. Here is the list for this week (which stays with our -le pattern from last week's list):

"Digestive Song" on Youtube!

I finally finished re-recording and creating a video for the "Digestive Song". It takes a great deal of time to put all of this together. So without further ado... click the link on the right hand side of my blog and you will be brought directly to the video on YouTube. I hope you enjoy watching this video over and over and over! :)

Spelling

The students received a spelling list on Monday to practice. On this coming Monday, I will give them a short quiz where I will read out each word and have students spell the words. The lists will have words with common parts, for example this week's list had words which all ended in -le. My hope is that this will help students spell other words which sound the same at the end in their writing. Here is this week's list:

Writing descriptively

We have been working on using descriptive words to make our writing more interesting. We have been discussing adjectives to describe nouns and proper word choice to help communicate their meaning. We have discussed using more descriptive words such as "dreadful", "horrible", terrible" or "appalling" instead of just using "bad". Students have also been working on creating longer sentences using commas to separate parts of the sentences, or listing, or using conjunctions such as "because", "but", and "and" to join two smaller sentences together. I encouraged students to practice this at home as well, writing single sentences, journal entries, or short stories to help them work on these expectations.

Angle names

The following are the angle types we have been learning about in class this week:

Geometry: Angles

We have begun our next Math Unit of Geometry. We started talking about different types of angles and how to use benchmark angles to compare and describe other angles. The following are the learning goals we have started with:

Patterning Unit Quiz Monday

The Patterning Unit Quiz has been moved to Monday.

Grade 4 students will be assessed on the following expectations:

-describe patterns as growing, shrinking, or repeating

-identify the pattern rule from a list of numbers or in a hundreds chart

-extend a pattern in numbers, on a hundreds chart, or a geometric pattern

-connect each term in a growing or shrinking pattern with its term number (placing the numbers in a table or identifying the term as the first term, second term, third term, etc...)

-create a number pattern involving addition, subtraction, or multiplication, when given the pattern rule

-predict the upcoming terms in a numeric pattern (what will the tenth term be?)

Grade 5 students will be assessed on the following 

-identify the pattern rule from a list of numbers

-extend a pattern in a numeric or a geometric pattern

-make a table of values for a pattern that is generated by adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing a number

-make predictions about upcoming terms in a numeric or geometric pattern (what will the twentieth term be?)