March 15-18

LA: Spelling Words - since it is a short week, spelling tic tac toe will be due Thursday. We will also take our Spelling Test Thursday.
1. additional
2. beautifully
3. blissfully
4. boastfully
5. carefully
6. cheerfully
7. colorfully
8. educational
9. effortlessly
10. endlessly
11. guiltlessly
12. joyfully
13. meaningfully
14. playfully
15. restfully
16. respectfully
17. childishly
18. truthfully
19. usefully
20. powerfully
*occasionally
*blamelessness
*sentimentally
*gleefulness
*motionless

Reading:

The AR deadline is Tuesday, March 16th. In Reading this week we will finish our Historical Fiction book: Hope's Revolutionary War Diary

LA:

We will review dictionary skills and work on fairy tale presentations. The students will be performing these Friday for their Kindergarten Book Buddies.
Science:
We are currently working on a project here at school that involves simple machines. It is hands on, student driven, and technology based. Our class is excited about the opportunity to use digital video cameras and interview others working in the building as they use simple machines in the real world. Each child has been given a rubric of expectations and how they will be graded. The rubric and the standards have been reviewed with each child here, and we have discussed behavior in the halls, care of the technology, and manners during the interviews they will be conducting. Please take a moment to discuss this with your child as well. If doing the project causes the disruption of others who are learning, the student causing the disruption will not be allowed to continue and will be given an alternate assignment. Also, please review the standards below so that you are aware of the goals your child is striving to reach.

S4P3 Students will demonstrate the relationship between the application of a force and the resulting change in position and motion on an object.a. Identify simple machines and explain their uses (lever, pulley, wedge, inclined plane, screw, wheel and axle).b. Using different size objects, observe how force affects speed and motion.c. Explain what happens to the speed or direction of an object when a greater force than the initial one is applied.d. Demonstrate the effect of gravitational force on the motion of an object.Teacher note: The use of mathematical formulas is not recommended in S4P3. Fourth grade students should carry out investigations to provide a foundation of concrete experience for the abstract understandings of physical science in upper grades.

S4CS8 Students will understand important features of the process of scientific inquiry. Students will apply the following to inquiry learning practices:a. Scientific investigations may take many different forms, including observing what things are like or what is happening somewhere, collecting specimens for analysis, and doing experiments.b. Clear and active communication is an essential part of doing science. It enables scientists to inform others about their work, expose their ideas to criticism by other scientists, and stay informed about scientific discoveries around the world.c. Scientists use technology to increase their power to observe things and to measure and compare things accurately.d. Science involves many different kinds of work and engages men and women of all ages and backgrounds

Math: In Math we will begin a unit on graphing. We will talk about Coordinate Planes. Also, Monday is the Math Benchmark so make sure your child gets a good nights rest and eats a good breakfast!

This Weeks Happenings - March 8-12

We have many exciting/important events this week:

We will take the LA Benchmark tomorrow, March 11th. Please make sure that your child is well rested and eats a good breakfast!

This Thursday from 6:00 PM-8:00 PM we will have a Moving On Up Night. If you attend you will recieve free hands-on activities for your children to use over the summer to help prepare them for 5th grade. You will go to 5th grade hall for this event. Also, free childcare and refreshments will be provided. Hope to see you there.

Friday, March 12th is Blaze O Rama. This is for students earning 16 or more scouts during the quarter.

This Weeks Happenings- December 7-11

Good Afternoon:

Please remember that we are doing spelling a little differently now. Since students are no longer doing the 50 point spelling contracts and are now doing Spelling Tic Tac Toe, please look for the tic-tac toe boards and your child's list of Spelling words on Monday's.

These next two weeks will before the Winter Break will be very busy!

In Reading we will be working on Poetry and Biographies.

In Language Arts we will be reviewing for the Benchmark, which is December 14th and 15th.

In Math, we will be reviewing all material that we have learned up until this point to prepare for the Benchmarks.

In Social Studies, we will begin our Colonial Unit. Students will be switching classrooms and learning about different Colonial Jobs. This is all in preparation for our Colonial Village.

In Science, we will finish up our unit on weather.

What is going on this week? 11/30/09-12/4/09

I hope everyone had an enjoyable week off! We have three more weeks left this quarter: Make sure your child is working on his/her AR goals. There is a new AR and directions are on this page to get to it so you can keep up with your child's progress.

Spelling from now on will be a little different. We will not be continuing spelling contracts, but we will have spelling tic-tac-toe. On Monday's students will receive a Spelling tic-tac toe worksheet (they will be different activities each week) and they will have to complete three activities with their spelling words in a row.

Language Arts: We will be working on reference skills this week as well as finishing up our expository non-fiction writing about explorer's.

Reading: We will work on biographies this week- I am looking forward to hearing what students have to say about the biographies they read over the break.

Science: We will be finishing up our Weather Unit.

Math: We will be continuing work with fractions.

This Weeks Happenings- November 16-20

Spelling Words
Prefixes: re-, un-, non-
1. reuse
2. restart
3. retell
4. resend
5. replace
6. uncork
7. nonexistent
8. unannounced
9. unpleasant
10. unchain
11. unfit
12. nonprofit
13. nonmetal
14. recall
15. nontoxic
16. unwelcome
17. reprogram
18. retrace
19. uninvited
20. reapply
** unchanging
** unyielding
** refinish

This Weeks Happenings- November 9-13

Spelling this week:
1. begin
2. vanish
3. bonus
4. legal
5. event
6. moment
7. motive
8. native
9. suburb
10. mimic
11. paper
12. pilot
13. raven
14. rival
15. relish
16. silent
17. solar
18. spider
19. super
20. virus
Challenge:
enemy
balance
chemical
fiber

Subject Area Happenings:

Reading: We will be working on mysteries this week and next

Language Arts: We will be integrating LA and SS. Students will write an expository paper on a explorer

Science: We will kick off our weather unit

SS: Explorers and we will have a Native American test on Wednesday

NEW!!! Online Version of AR

We have switched to a new on-line version of Accelerated Reader. Although the new version is on-line, the program will only allow students to take quizzes when they are logged into a computer on the school network. Because the new version is on-line, parents can check on their child’s quiz results and see his/her progress toward quarterly goals. The home login web address is https://hosted99.renlearn.com/50633/HomeConnect/Login.aspx. Once at this site, you simply enter the child’s user name and password. (If they don’t know it, email mfitzgeral@rockdale.k12.ga.us.)
From the homeconnect site for AR . . .
· You’ll be able to see your child’s accuracy for the quarter. We are aiming for the accuracy to be 80% and above.
· You can see your child’s progress towards his/her goal. This will show the number of points they’ve earned from all the books they have quizzed on for the quarter. Most upper grade classes don’t count points from books read aloud or by the class as a group, so check with your child’s language arts teacher for clarification on which points count towards independent reading/AR goals.
· You’ll also see the average book level students are reading. On the right side of the screen you’ll see the cover of the book they have most recently quizzed on and the results.
· “My Bookshelf” is a link located below the most recent quiz information. If you click on that, it will show a bookshelf showing the cover of all the titles your child has taken quizzes on since they began using the AR program.
· “AR Bookfinder” is a link at the bottom right on the homeconnect site. This link will allow you to search for a specific title, to see if there is a quiz available for that title, and to see what the reading level and point value are for that particular book. (NOTE: Hightower Trail does NOT have every book for which a quiz is available! However, if you obtain the book from another source, your child will be able to take that quiz.)
We used to have 10,000 quizzes. Now, with the new on-line version, we have 100,000 quizzes! Please visit the Hightower Trail Elementary Media Center website at http://www.rockdale.k12.ga.us/personal/mfitzgeral/media/default.aspx