Rest of Year
We are reading and responding to a novel Ranger in Time and will then read stories from our reading books to end the year.
May 3-4
Kids will be taking the End of the Year Reading test. This is a 50 point test with reading passages and questions including vocab and other things we learned this year in reading. This will be on report cards.
April 25-May 2
This week we will read and summarize "People of the Rain Forest" together. Kids will be assessed writing a summary using "Jane Goodall". We will also read "Gorillas in the Wild" and "The Forest has Eyes". We will practice creating images and fact/opinion with these stories.
Kids have taken the end of the year test. Scores will be on PowerSchool in about a week.
You will also be getting a note in the next couple of weeks with scores for SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory), SRI (Scholastic Math Inventory), and FAST (fluency). This will show how much your child has grown as well as where they are compared to the 4th grade range.
We will finish up the year with Theme 13.
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We will also learn about prepositions, which are words that describe the position of something in relation to another.
Theme 12 test will be on Monday, May 2nd.
April 18-22
Theme 12 is called Affecting the Rain Forest. We will be working on Creating Images and Inferring: Fact and Opinion. We will read "Rickie and Henri," "A Letter to Treetop Products, Inc.," "The People of the Rain Forest," "Gorillas in the Wild," and "The Forest Has Eyes."
In grammar we will learn about adverbs.
The test will be on May 2nd.
March 29-April 12
Theme 11 is called Life in a Rain Forest. We will be working on Inferring: Fact and Opinion. We will read "The Great Kapok Tree", "Tiger Talk", "Walking on the Treetops", "Sounds of the Rain Forest", and "Meet Janalee P Caldwell:Frog Detective".
In grammar we will learn about pronouns and idioms.
The Theme test will be on Tuesday, April 12th.
March 21-23
We are finishing up Theme 10. We are practicing Determining Importance as we read, both in large and small groups. We are learning about abbreviations and contractions.
The test will be on Wednesday, March 23. We are taking this test together, to practice good test taking skills for upcoming Iowa Assessments. Don't tell the kids - we haven't told them it won't be graded yet:)
February 29 - March 8
We will learn about Symbolism and read "Morning Light" and review asking questions and read "It's Only Natural" this week.
We will continue to learn about prefixes as well as verbs and pronouns.
Theme 9 test will be Tuesday, March 8th.
In small groups, kids are doing Literature Circles and are reading a book that takes place during the Great Depression. They are doing something called "Say Something" where they have to respond to what they are reading. We then discuss this in small groups. The project for Literature Circles will be a Brown Bag - more details to come soon.
February 22-26
This week we will begin Theme 9. We will read "Eagle Boy", "Sequoyah", and "How the Crow Got its Color". We will practice Making Connections as we read.
This week we will learn about prefixes. The spelling list follows this skill.
We continue to work on Asking Questions in small reading groups.
February 17-19
Kids will take a mid-year test. They will read 3 passages and answer questions that follow. This will help us to determine skills that need retaught.
Kids will also be assessed on a summary of a passage this week.
February 1 - 11
We continue learning how to ask good questions and are learning the 4 kinds of questions: Right There, Think and Search, Author and Me, In My Head. We are practicing this in large group and small groups.
We will read "The Case of the Vanishing Soil", "What Does Weather do to Soil?" and "Black Blizzard".
We will learn about prefixes as well as irregular verbs.
The theme test will be on Wednesday, February 10th.
Read and Feed on Thursday, February 11th.
January 25-29
We will begin Theme 8: What Makes Soil Different? We will learn how to ask good questions as we read. We will "The Living Earth" and "A Very Dirty Subject" this week and we will practice asking questions.
We will also learn about adjectives. They describe a noun by telling how many, what kind, or which one.
January 11-22
We are learning about how to determine the main idea of a paragraph. We will work on this from text and also some interactive websites.
The theme test will be on Wednesday, January 20th.
In small groups, we will be reading about the Southeast region. I will also be testing kids on fluency. Please have kids work on fluency at home by rereading the same paragraph, using expression, and paying attention to punctuation.
January 4-8
Theme 7 is called "Why Does Water Move?" We will work on Monitoring our Understanding as we read as well as summarizing. We will read "My Very Last First Time", "Making Waves", and "Typhoon!" this week.
We will learn about helping verbs and how to use them in writing.
Kids will be keeping track of pages they read each day as well as an Independent Reading Log to keep track of books they complete. Let's see how many books we can read by the end of the year!
We will also be doing some benchmark reading assessments so I am able to better groups kids into small reading groups.
December - Christmas Break
Theme 6 we will work on Synthesizing information from text as well as continue to summarize. We will read "Arctic Lights/Arctic Nights", "Smoky Night", "My Amazing Summer Vacation", "Gigantic Redwoods", "Key West Fl", and "Mountain Homestead."
We will also learn about homonyms (examples: sent, cent, and scent) as well as verbs. We will work with using apostrophes in possessives.
Theme test will be on Tuesday, Dec. 22.
We will also have a Read and Feed after the test this day!
LITERATURE CIRCLES: Each 4th grader will be reading a chapter book between Thanksgiving and Christmas and will be in a small group discussing the book. They will be assigned pages to read and a job to do every other day. Some students will finish the pages and work in class and others will sometimes need to bring it home as homework. Please make sure that they have their pages and job done so they can be part of their group's discussion.
*Students that earn 90 percent or above for their work and discussion in Literature Circles will receive coupon for a FREE buffet or small pizza at the Pizza Ranch!
November 16-25
We began Theme 5. We will work on Fix Up strategies as well as summarizing during this theme. We will learn about multiple meaning words, plurals, and contractions.
I will be meeting with students individually to find out more about what books they have been reading.
There will not be a theme test for this theme.
Read and Feed on Wednesday Nov. 25 - More info to come Friday!
October 26- November 11
We began Theme 4: Seeds, Fruits, and Flowers. We will work on Creating Images as we read and will also review making inferences. We will read: "Century Farm", "Mrs. McClary's Very Weird Garden", "Waking up a Bean", "Ode to the Giant Redwood", and "The Pea Blossom". We will also learn how to write a fiction summary in this theme.
We will learn about proper nouns and reference materials.
The theme test will be on WEDNESDAY, NOV. 11th.
October 12-23
We began Theme 3: So Many Kinds of Animals. We will learn how to make inferences as we read. We will read "Weird Animals", "Slimy, Spiny Riddles", "Invertebrate or Vertebrate - What's My ID?", and "Animals". We will also use poetry to practice making inferences.
We are also learning how to summarize non fiction and fiction writing pieces. This is a skill that we will use and assess frequently throughout the year.
We will work on different types of sentences and using proper punctuation in each of them. Nouns and long vowels are also begin studied.
Theme 3 Test will be on Friday, Oct. 23. There will be a study guide as well as some practice passages for kids to make inferences with at home. The study guide will come home Monday.
Sept. 28 - Oct. 6
We will continue theme 2: A Place for Us. We are working on Determining Importance as we read and will also review Making Connections. We will read "Celebrate Our Roots" and "The Fair" this week.
We will learn about word families this week.
We began small groups in reading. Kids are in small groups with a variety of teachers working on reading skills. In small groups this month we are learning about the Midwest region.
The theme test will be on Tuesday, Oct 6. A study guide will go home.
We began our first theme in Rigby. We are working on Making Connections as we read. We will read "Two Homes", "Mystery of the Box in the Wall", "Working on the Transcontinental Railroad", and "Samuel Goldwyn: Picture This." We will make Text to Text, Text to Self, and Text to World connections as we read.
We are learning about short vowels and initial consonants in this theme. We will also combine subjects, predicates, and sentences.
The theme test will be on Thursday, September 17th. A study guide will come home the beginning of that week.
