Sausville's Class Notes

Week of April 28

Oh Happy May Days!

CRCT done and summer almost begun!

Students and staff have begun counting down the days to summer.  We do have 17 school days, counting Wednesday, so that means 17 opportunities for teaching and learning.  Help make these days happy and productive by ensuring that your child gets enough sleep each night and is prepared each day with the necessary homework and supplies. 

On May 1, we will begin a used book drive to raise money for a service project to be completed by Big Shanty's student council.  Please donate gently-used children's books to help support this project. 

Our mock RELAY FOR LIFE  will take place on Friday, May 2.  Comfortable clothing layers, sneakers, and water bottles will help each student be "one tough walker."  Our RELAY FOR LIFE goal for the school is to collect one dollar for every person that works or learns at Big Shanty.  We are dedicating our walk to Mrs. Hammond and her ongoing fight against cancer.

The PE department is still looking for a few good volunteers for Field Day on Friday, May 16th.  Parents help make every activity run smoothly and that makes the activity more enjoyable for the students.  Please consider volunteering your time and be a FIELD DAY HERO! 

I would like to begin planning our end of the year celebration.  If you have a great idea or you can attend and help out, please let me know by sending a note or calling 770-361-8086 or emailing at donna.sausville@cobbk12.org .

Week of March 24

Just when you think the weather has finally turned the corner---it snows!

Would you like to help your child become a more fluent reader?   A great way to practice fluency is to practice reading phrases.  I am including a link that will connect you to Fry's Phrase List.  There are around 300 phrases on this link that you can use with your child to increase word automaticity.  Pick out 25 to master and then move on as he/she becomes error free and smooth with those phrases.  Also, don't forget to discuss the meaning of the phrase, because reading isn't just fluency, it's comprehension, too!

Fry's Phrase List                                                      

Our Movie Night basket supplies are due on March 28.  Some suggestions might be popcorn, movie rental card,  candy, juice boxes or sodas, a movie---rated PG or G,  movie passes, gum,  a neck roll or snuggly cushion for lounging on....can you think of other things????

This Saturday is CLEAN-UP DAY at Big Shanty.  Volunteers will be weeding, raking, and tidying up all around our school to make it beautiful for spring!  Come and be part of the fun.   Starts at 9:00 am.   

We are beginning the final nine weeks of school and the countdown to the CRCT. With the arrival of spring, many children suddenly have more demands on their time and they are not always the best time managers.  You can help your child be as successful as possible during these last months of school by having them get enough sleep every night and by making sure that they are completing homework. 

In case you are wondering why all the rainforest creatures are visiting our blog,  it is to remind you that Author's Night is next Tuesday and we are on a RAINFOREST ECOTOUR.  We hope to see you there!

Week of March 10

AUTHOR!  AUTHOR!  AUTHOR!   

Big Shanty Author's Night will be Tuesday, April 1 from 7:00-8:15.  Our class is presenting the Rainforest Ecotour.  Your children have been hard at work researching, writing, and publishing.  They have also created photo shows to accompany their stories.  We are looking forward to presenting our work to family and friends.  Please make plans to attend our show plus sample some of the great works from other classes in the school.

Sparkles Family Fun Night is Thursday, April 3 from 4-8:30.  There is a rumor that teachers will be playing laser tag with students.

Reminder from Ms. Ryan:  Movie Night basket contributions are due March 28.  The basket will be auctioned at the Spring Carnival as a PTA fundraiser.  Let's make our basket the best of the bunch!

Reading logs are due every Friday---If your child loses the log, they can write a summary of the chapters they read for the week or they can download the log from the link provided in an earlier blog. 

Math concepts for the next nine weeks will include solid geometric figures, solving for an unknown variable, reviewing associative and distributive properties, plotting coordinate points on an xy axis, interpreting graphs, and multiplying and dividing decimals.  As always....you can support your child by helping them know multiplication and division facts with fluency and accuracy.

Week of February 11

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY 

We will exchange Valentines on February 14th.  Your child has a list of first names recorded in their agenda. 

It has been a very busy January and a very busy first week of February for TEAM 4B!  We finished our Fire Safety health unit with truck day on Friday.  We also visited the Cobb Youth Museum Friday. During the visit, every student participated in one or more skits about the events leading up to, during and following the American Revolution.  It was lots of fun! 

As spring approaches, please help your child remember that their most important job every day is learning.  We are ramping up expectations for fourth grade in the second half of the year in preparation for the demands of fifth grade.  Students are expected to complete a chapter book every two weeks and a reading log weekly.  If these goals aren't met, then students are not meeting standard for reading.  They have weekly  ELA homework (including spelling, handwriting and grammar) and nightly math homework (as assigned). 

Week of January 8

                                      

    

Welcome back!  I hope everyone had a glorious winter break.          

January Events

January 21    Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday---no school

January 22-28    Parent teacher conferences---students are released two hours early each day

January 22-29    Reports cards are distributed during conferences, or on Jan. 29

January Announcements-Thanks to everyone who returned their parent/teacher conference form so quickly!

Please note that we are beginning a new type of reading log that needs to be completed after reading at home.  The logs are due each Friday. Download ReadingLog5.doc

During January, after school tutoring sessions  and foreign language clubs will not meet until further notice.  The letters for French and German club went home in Thursday folders.

Chorus begins practice again this week.

January begins fire safety education for fourth graders.  Fire safety will be taught at 8:15-9:15 on January 9, 11, 14, 16, and 30.  The program continues in February on the 1st, 4th and 8th.  Students are required to complete two homework assignments for a portion of their health grade.  Their first homework assignment is due on January 11.

The dental van will be visiting the school soon---forms went home in Thursday folders.  If you are interested in having your student receive dental services, the form must be returned by Monday, January 14.

Students can practice the CRCT online from home.  I have assigned several tests that were created by fourth grade teachers.  The online CRCT is excellent preparation for the actual test.  Instructions for logging on were sent home with the students in Thursday folders.

Science

This nine weeks, our class is studying ecology with Mrs. Jamee Douglas.  The students will be researching biomes and will create a biome project.  The project information is coming soon---it will include research, writing, and creating a model. The project will be due the week of February 20th.

Math

Mrs. Sausville's math class will be continuing to review multiplication and division facts.  We are working on division. We will also review subtraction and addition with regrouping and decimals (adding and subtracting money).  We will be working with fractions and decimals.  Weight measurements will also be discussed.

Vocabulary for this nine weeks includes:  fraction, numerator, denominator, tenths, hundredths, mixed numbers, improper fractions, linear, area, set, model, equivalent fractions, common denominators, rounding to nearest whole number

Reading and Writing

                                  The focus for reading and writing this nine weeks is on information.  Students will be exploring how to read to get information and the strategies to use when dealing with different types of nonfiction text.  They will examine and experiement with various ways of structuring information to present to an audience and will produce a piece of writing in the informational genre. 

We are also beginning literature circles very soon. 

Spelling words for this week are:  their, through, usually, family, really, course, ideas, cannot, shown, complete, strong, probably, class, piece, common, stop, am, talk, whether, fine

Week of December 10

Happy Holidays! I hope you have a wonderful Winter break!

We have 9 school days left---and students are acquiring critical skills daily.  Please help your child remember to be ready to learn every day. We are currently drafting, revising, editing and publishing a response to literature that compares two versions of the fairytale Cinderella.  Several students began publishing today.  We just finished our science unit on Sound with Ms. Phillips and our next unit will be Ecosystems with Mrs. Douglas beginning in January. 

Dates to remember:

• Tuesday, December 11--Spelling Test
• Friday, December 14--Geometry Test for Mrs. Sausville's Math Class
• Tuesday, December 18--Math posttest for Mrs. Sausville's Math Class
• Tuesday, December 18--Spelling Test
• Tuesday, December 18--Final due date for Response to Literature writing
• Wednesday, December 19--STAR Lab
• Thursday, December 20--Holiday party
• Friday, December 21--last day of school

Spelling words for this week:

1. there's
2. their
3. through
4. because
5. thought
6. both
7. children
8. lives
9. across
10. sure
11. answer
12. though
13. hundred
14. that's
15. class
16. piece
17. surface
18. river
19. common
20. there

We will be looking at plural nouns that need the suffixes "s", "es", "ies", "ves", or a word change:

boy---boys     church---churches     lady---ladies     half---halves     goose---geese   

Our phonics will cover frequent spelling for /k/ and /s/ sounds

/k/:    c, k, qu, ch, x

/s/:  s, ss, sc, c, ce, ci, cy

CRCT Math Vocabulary for all fourth graders:

transformation--repositioning a geometric figure using a translation, rotation or reflection

translation--slide, rotation--turn, reflection--flip      

                           So without anymore FA-LA-LA-LA-LA  Happy New Year!

Week of October 15, 2007

Greetings from Room 125

Coming soon:

• October 17     EARLY RELEASE DAY
• October 22     REPORT CARDS                         
• October 26     FALL COSTUME BALL

The past week has been a busy one---Math pre and post tests preparations and testings, revisions and editing in writer's workshop, setting up power point presentations in the computer lab, locating the culture groups of Native Americans on the map and much more.  We had our hvac unit repaired on Monday and were quite chilly on Tuesday, but our temperature has evened out.

Please remind the students to dress in layers so that they can remain comfortable throughout the day and label their sweater and jacket tags with their names.  There are about twenty five discarded jackets in lost and found in the cafeteria.  If your child has misplaced a jacket at school, remind her/him to look on the stage.

This week's spelling words are :  their, first, its, because, always, together, form, animal, several, ground, front, Americans, means, certain, fire, ready, green, yes, built

The vowel review pattern for this week is /ow/ spelled ou and ow.

We are discussing suffixes and spellings with words ending in silent e.  The consistent spelling rule is included on the parent page.  Look for the parent page on Monday.

Spelling words and homework are in your child's agenda.  Homework is due on Thursday and we will have a spelling test on Wednesday or Thursday.

New Math Unit Vocabulary will include: angle, ray, line, line segment, acute, obtuse, right, equilateral, rectangle, trapezoid, parallelogram, perpendicular, parallel, triangle, scalene, isoceles, product, factor, divisor, remainder, protractor, degrees, rotate/rotation

Please continue to practice multiplication and division facts with your child.  The instant recall of facts makes your child's math life so much more rewarding.

                                                                                                                              

Week of October 1, 2007

Happy fall!  I hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather.  Hopefully, we will have a rain before long.  Did you know Governor Perdue has challenged everyone to cut their shower time by one minute to help with water conservation and that this weekend is a tax-free weekend for energy saving device purchases? 

We had an awesome field trip.  The students enjoyed all the activities and were very well-mannered.  I think everyone's favorite was the wagon ride(including Ms. Ryan and myself---we rode on the very back and got to experience all the bumps---whooo-hoooo!)  The class decided that they definitely liked twenty-first century life best, although writing on a slate and having unsupervised recess did sound appealing.

Students have written the spelling words and spelling homework for the week in their agendas.  Look for the Dear Parents letter Friday.  Homework is all due next WEDNESDAY.  The words for this unit are:

there     their     then     than     words     most     work(ed)     enough     country     true     United States     cold     Americans     though     behind     rest     perhaps     certain     six   feet

Phonics review for this unit:  s,ss,sc, ce, ci, cy

Vowel pattern review for this unit:  r-controlled vowels that make the /er/ sound :  er, ur, ir

Our first End of Unit test for Math will be October 15th.  To help your child prepare for the test, have them practice multiplication and division facts.  They will need to know and understand how to apply these math vocabulary words:   

• value     digit     place value     standard form     word form     expanded form/notation 
• round to the nearest:  ten or  hundred or thousand
• factor     product     multiple     array     commutative property    zero property    identity property   associative property  distributive property
• input     output    rule/pattern

Our class is with Ms. Morris for the space science unit.  They will be with her for 5 weeks. 

We are continuing our regions work.  We will be discussing Native America groups that occupied various regions in the U.S. We have begun using our new Social Studies Nystrom map kit and the students seem to really enjoy it.  The lessons are presented in a very "hands-on"  manner and I hope these learning experiences will help students retain the presented information more quickly and completely. 

Week of September 17

Hi!

Our highlighted standard of the week is Reading.  Every child in fourth grade is expected to read 25 chapter books by the end of the year.  Our class has set that goal and we have several students who are meeting that standard right now.  We want everyone to meet standard, so they need to be reading every night at home on their "just right" reading level, recording the title in their agenda, and writing down the pages read each night.  With 30 minutes of reading, your student should be able to read at least 20 pages in that time.  If their progress seems too slow, check to be sure the book is not too challenging.  Use the five finger rule:  open the book to a full page of text and have your child read aloud to you.  First, the reading should be fluid--like talking and second, count the number of words missed.  If you count five or more missed words, then chances are the book is too difficult for independent reading.  If the reading isn't fluid, chances are the book is too difficult for independent reading.   

Some important information for this week: 

Wednesday is an Early Release Day

Field Trip Information:  Please return permission slips and money for the field trip as soon as possible.  We have one parent chaperone and we would love to have at least one more, if anyone is interested.  If your child is planning to bring lunch from home that day, please pack it in a disposable container. Please label the bag and the drink (no sodas, please) with your child's name.  This is a rain or shine field trip and we will be outdoors.  Watch the weather and layer accordingly.  Since we will be going on a hay ride, long pants will be more comfortable than shorts and tennis shoes will be more comfortable than flats or flip-flops.

This promises to be an exciting field trip.  The students will make a colonial toy and try other aspects of colonial life and pick a pumpkin (gourd) to bring home.

Spelling words for this week:  even, which, yet use, few, there, front, letter, its, people, behind, point, among, something, also, several, example, through, wind, cannot

Phonics review for this week: *k words can be spelled with these patterns /c/ch/ck/k/qu. 

We will have a Science test on Friday. Look for study guides home on Tuesday, September 18, 2007.  Our class will begin changing for Science next Tuesday.  We change for Science on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

In Social Studies/Media Center and Computer Lab, we are working on a social studies project that will cover regions, Native Americans and early European explorers.  Each student in the group will create and present a power point slide after gathering research on their topic. Your children have been asked to look for pictures of areas of interest in their region.  If the family has visited the region or has relatives in the region and you have postcards or pictures that you can share that would be great!

Academic progress updates will be coming home in Thursday folders.

Sausville's Class Notes August 27, 2007

It is hard to believe we are beginning week three.  As our rituals and routines are gradually being introduced, the students are becoming responsible and accountable for their learning.  Our class is working on narrative reading and writing.  In writing, we are working on developing writerly lives.  Students are encouraged to record observations of their world in their Sourcebooks so that they have a wealth of story ideas to choose from.  We are examining maps and regions in Social Studies.  Our science exploration of how light behaves continues. We will be comparing and ordering numbers this week. 

The PTA fundraiser begins today and your child has a packet.  The number one rule is safety---children should not go door-to-door to sell without a parent or guardian. 

The Boy Scouts will meet Tuesday night at 7:00---ask your child for the informational flyer.  If you aren't able to make it to the meeting, there is a number listed to get information and to register.

Please remember class t-shirts orders and performing arts permission forms and donations.

Mrs. Sausville's Math Class Homework:  Monday--do page 1,2 in your workbook.  Be sure to bring workbook back on Tuesday.   Tuesday--complete study guide to prepare for Wednesday quiz.  Wednesday--practice "6" multiplication/division facts.  Write fact families for each fact.  Here is an example:

FACT FAMILY:  6 X 7 = 42

                       7 X 6 = 42

                      42 / 6 =  7

                      42 / 7 =  6

Thursday:  Math worksheet

Parents, please check your child's agenda for other homework assignments from other math teachers and from myself.

Have a fantastic last week in August and enjoy your Labor Day holiday next Monday!