Hello there.
Tuesday folders came home today. Inside you will find the invitation for the Civil Right's Showcase. When the tallies were tallied, the best night for the majority was Tuesday. I wish I could make everyone happy, but that isn't possible with so many amazing parents that want to attend. I hope that some of you can find a way to come, but I will for sure do some videoing and put it on the blog as well. Please fill out the form and return it tomorrow.
I also put in the Valentine's Day class list. While I find it hard to believe that we are all ready in February, we are (almost)!!!! Yikes! We also talked at group about the upcoming Valentine's Day party. There will be a $300 fake money buy in. I know everyone can do it!!!! Many all ready wanted to buy in today. Lastly, we talked about the Valentine box that they will need to create at home to put their valentines in that day. There will be a contest involved with them. More details to come on that one.
Homework tonight is Dyna Math pages 12 and 13 along with a vocabulary sheet for MLK. After all that we have done on Civil Rights it should be a no-brainer! Some kids also need to finish up their morning work and their research on their Civil Right's movement person. We will write the report tomorrow and they will need to have the following 4 questions/topics researched and ready to go.
1. Who is your person? Fast facts here. Married? Kids? Dead? Alive? Age? Birthday?
2. What are they famous for. Be specific.
3. When were they born/die? What was their life like in this time period. Give specific examples.
4. Why is it important that (insert your child's name) learns about this person? What impact will it have on their future? What did they learn from them? Again, being specific.
Even if they didn't bring it home, can you please ask them these four questions and get a sense of if they are ready for tomorrow or if they need to do a little more digging tonight? If you do, write QUESTION in the planner for $10 tomorrow.
Kids also should have brought home their MLK Jr. song to practice. The youtube is on my blog off to the right. Kids need to memorize the lines by next Tuesday. They have a pretty good handle on it all ready, especially the chorus. I will be holding auditions for the speaking part of MLK Jr in the beginning and the end. Kids must have it memorized and really show interest to be selected. I will pick one for the beginning part and one for the end, but for the tryouts they need to know both. Auditions will be held tomorrow during lunch recess.
In CC Meeting today, we focused on Jackie Robinson. We watched a Hall of Fame summary youtube on him. What a spectacular display and example of character for kids! To be able to resist the temptation to fight back and be bothered by such hurtful people is amazing! I was glad to see some of the kids had selected him to do their research on to learn even more. If you have yet to view the movie 42, it is awesome! I highly recommended it for the kids, but only if an adult could watch it with them as well. There is some high level stuff in there, along with some language. I am guessing a discussion or two would happen quickly after it.
In language today, we spent a lot of time on the different parts of speech. We made a poster about all of the 4th grade ones. Then, kids read their spelling sentences and had to determine what part of speech the spelling word was. We had some arguing going on, but for the most part they were able to determine what was a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. We also took a look at pronouns, linking and helping verbs, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. Tomorrow, one of our rotations will be to determine the part of speech of each word in a given sentence. This is where those high level kids fly and soar! This is the gold that shoots those end of the year language test scores to the sky. If they can learn to figure out any word's part of speech by figuring out what it is doing in a sentence then they can figure out any test question about that concept. Magic! This is also helpful for those that need a better grasp on these parts of speech. Learning them in isolation doesn't work. They need to see how text is connected and why. Hang on to your seats…we are ready to take off!!!!
We are finishing up our quarterly test for Lead 21 this week. Next week, we will move to Unit 5 which ties directly into our next region in SS…the Midwest. Love when subjects crossover!
Pen pal letters are being finalized and will be ready to send across town by the end of the week. We will be hosting our pen pals from Bitterroot when we hit Unit 6 in Lead 21…animals. We will also see them on one of our end of the year field trips! Yay!!!!
Well, I think that about does it. I am throwing good hunting thoughts out to Nolan. I hope that you and a wonderful time bonding with gramps and pops making a million new memories that will last a lifetime. We missed you, and we can't wait to see you again tomorrow.
Have a Terrific Tuesday evening!
Ms. Erickson
