Redwoods here we come!

On August 31st I found out that we received our grant from the Save the Redwoods League. This generous grant allows us to take all of our fourth graders and a lot of their parents to Big Basin State Park and Natural Bridges State Beach. For many it is their first encounter with California's tallest living thing. While at the beach we also get to experience one of nature's magnificent migrations....the Monarch Butterflies that overwinter in the eucalyptus trees there.

Thursday August 18, 2011

Today is class we watched a video about how sea otters live. We are listening to the "The Island of the Blue Dolphins." We listed to the CD of the story Akiak. We learned about words with multiple meanings and how to use a dictionary entry. We also learned how to compare using base words and the ending -er -est. For lunch today we cheese turkey pretzel sandwiches or p and j.


Homework:
PW3 even
Spelling: Words 11-20 sentences
Read: 30 minutes
Homework log is turned in tomorrow

Wednesday August 17, 2011

Today we watched a video about California. It was taken from airplanes and helicopters. While watching the video we recorded the biotic and abiotic things that we saw. There were a lot of scenes that included the ocean. We saw what is biotic and abiotic in California. We corrected math papers; we are working on place value to millions. It was spaghetti for lunch.

Homework:

Math PW2 odd and SR1
Spelling Words 1-10 write a complete sentence underline the spelling word
Read 30 minutes - with Parent Signature
Write a paragraph summarizing - Over California

Fourth Graders Are Amazing

Today all of the fourth grade went to the garden and tackled the weeds. They made a lot of headway clearing the weeds and getting the garden ready for its update. Making raised beds and getting in some seasonal vegetables and herbs.

Today we began the story "Akiak" about a sled dog who runs the Iditarod. We worked on the spelling for the story and went over the Focus of the story. Students were amazed to see what these amazing dogs can do.

I was treated to a concert when I picked up the class from music. The students sang "Do Re Mi" with hand signals. Excellent Job!

Tonight's homework:

Read 30 minutes, write down what book you are reading and get a parent's signature

Spelling words 1-10 five times each

Welcome to Mrs. Retford's Fourth Grade

The 2011-2012 school year is off to a good start. Students were in their seats and ready to learn last Tuesday August 9th. So far our class is fairly small, as fourth grade goes, but this will probably change as the class numbers are balanced across the district.

This week students were introduced to interactive math. Our math lessons this week centered on Place Value, which is a Number Sense standard. Students used the interactive tools of our Promethean board to review and learn place value. We even used the transponders so that everyone was participating in the lesson.

Students started their 4th grade science journals. Our first entry was a field study of biotic (living) and abiotic(nonliving) things in our field lab, also known as, our 4th grade garden.

In language arts we reviewed all the reading strategies that are used in our Houghton Mifflin language arts book. Students made a foldable to help them remember and put the strategies into kid language.

Physical Education this week was a walk in the grass. Students ran/walked their first mile as fourth graders. Afterwards students worked on their frisbee skills, catching and tossing, using the traditional underhand throw.