MRS. KING'S SCHOLARS

The char­ac­ter trait being fea­tured in Jan­u­ary is cit­i­zen­ship. Wear pur­ple on Wednesdays.

Par­ents, please help your chil­dren to remem­ber to bring their parent-​​initialed Clean Slate Chart to class I check it first thing every Monday(Tuesday) morning.

MATH: We take Light­ning Rods tests on Tues­days and Thurs­days. Progress reports are sent home on those days for par­ent ini­tials. Forms need to be returned the next day in order to be updated with the cur­rent test results.  Third grade stu­dents can pre­pare for these tests by down­load­ing the drill their are cur­rently work­ing on from the Math Fact Prac­tice Pages link. Fourth grade stu­dents’ test are 80 – 100 basic fact prob­lems in addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and division.

Typ­i­cally, math home­work is assigned Tues­day –Thurs­day nights. Check your child’s plan­ner for spe­cific assignments.

Grade 3:

From Mr. Romanowski: These next two units in math focus on help­ing stu­dents mas­ter their mul­ti­pli­ca­tion facts to 10 as well as develop a strong con­cep­tual under­stand­ing of the rela­tion­ship between mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and division. Many stu­dents already have a good grasp of the facts, but that can cause prob­lems in under­stand­ing the con­cept. When they see a story prob­lem with easy num­bers, they just “know” the answer, but they don’t under­stand “why” that is the answer. As we get into sim­i­lar prob­lems with dif­fi­cult num­bers, they don’t under­stand what each num­ber rep­re­sents, # of groups, #in each group, or total #, there­fore, we are really focus­ing our dis­cus­sion in class on a deeper under­stand­ing of those parts. One way of help­ing with that at home is to have your child draw and explain a pic­to­r­ial rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the problem.

From Ms. Einspar: We are work­ing on unit 4, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and divi­sion 0 – 5, 9 and 10.

From Mrs. Pen­ner: We are fin­ish­ing up mini-​​unit C.  On Wednes­day we will start mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and divi­sion in the new book.

Grade 4:

Mrs. King’s math stu­dents: We will con­tinue to work in Unit 3, Mul­ti­digit Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion. Unit 3 reviews and builds upon the con­cepts of arrays, single-​​digit mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, place value, and area that the stu­dents dis­cov­ered in ear­lier units. The activ­i­ties in this unit help stu­dents gain a con­cep­tual under­stand­ing of multi-​​digit mul­ti­pli­ca­tion. They are expected to apply their under­stand­ing of multi-​​digit mul­ti­pli­ca­tion to numeric cal­cu­la­tions and real-​​world problem-​​solving sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing mul­ti­pli­ca­tion com­bi­na­tions and com­par­isons. There are six­teen lessons in this unit and it is antic­i­pated that we will cover lessons 7 – 10 this week.

From Mrs. Har­vey:

From Ms. Medved: We are work­ing on order of oper­a­tion and expres­sions (Chap­ter 7 in the CA math books)

For spelling/​word study, our class will be work­ing on the web­site:  SpellingC​ity​.com. I have pur­chased the pre­mium account for this site. I have given all stu­dents their user and and pass­word so they can log onto our class’ site. As of right now, I am con­tin­u­ing to ask­ing stu­dents to work way through the 1000 most often used words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. All lists have been added to the queue.

Grade 3 -In Social Stud­ies We are con­tin­u­ing with our book study of Indi­ans of the Oaks. We are cur­rently on Chap­ter 15, and com­plete an aver­age of two chap­ters a day. That means, we should fin­ish the book on Tues­day! We still need to spend this Fri­day fin­ish­ing up loose ends, and allow­ing for stu­dents to rewrite their own end­ing to the book. Next Mon­day will be a review, and the test will be given next Tuesday.

Grade 4 -Social Stud­ies: Mrs. Calder’s and Mrs. King’s 4^th graders have begun a new unit of instruc­tion in Social Stud­ies, Unit 2: Early peo­ple in Cal­i­for­nia. In this unit, stu­dents will learn how the arrival of the Span­ish changed the lives of the Cal­i­for­nia Indi­ans. Stu­dents will also learn how life in Cal­i­for­nia changed when Mex­ico took over the area. This unit cov­ers the explo­ration, mis­sion and ran­cho period of time. This week we will fin­ish les­son 1 and begin work­ing with les­son 2. There are 8 lessons plus a review, so it will take us a while to cover the material.

As always, there’s so much to cover and so lit­tle time! Make it a great week. AND: WHBK (work hard; be kind)

If you have any sug­ges­tions on how I can make this blog more ben­e­fi­cial to you, please email me at kking@​powayusd.​com and share your ideas with me. Thank you.

The char­ac­ter trait being fea­tured in Jan­u­ary is cit­i­zen­ship. Wear pur­ple on Wednesdays.

Par­ents, please help your chil­dren to remem­ber to bring their parent-​​initialed Clean Slate Chart to class I check it first thing every Monday(Tuesday) morning.

MATH: We take Light­ning Rods tests on Tues­days and Thurs­days. Progress reports are sent home on those days for par­ent ini­tials. Forms need to be returned the next day in order to be updated with the cur­rent test results.  Third grade stu­dents can pre­pare for these tests by down­load­ing the drill their are cur­rently work­ing on from the Math Fact Prac­tice Pages link. Fourth grade stu­dents’ test are 80 – 100 basic fact prob­lems in addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and division.

Typ­i­cally, math home­work is assigned Tues­day –Thurs­day nights. Check your child’s plan­ner for spe­cific assignments.

Grade 3:

From Mr. Romanowski: This week will begin work­ing in Unit 4, Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and Divi­sion with 0 – 5, 9, and 10.

From Ms. Einspar: This week will con­tinue work­ing in Unit 4, Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and Divi­sion with 0 – 5, 9, and 10.

From Mrs. Pen­ner: Fin­ish­ing Unit 3.

Grade 4:

Mrs. King’s math stu­dents: We will begin Unit 3, Mul­ti­digit Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion. Unit 3 reviews and builds upon the con­cepts of arrays, single-​​digit mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, place value, and area that the stu­dents dis­cov­ered in ear­lier units. The activ­i­ties in this unit help stu­dents gain a con­cep­tual under­stand­ing of multi-​​digit mul­ti­pli­ca­tion. They are expected to apply their under­stand­ing of multi-​​digit mul­ti­pli­ca­tion to numeric cal­cu­la­tions and real-​​world problem-​​solving sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing mul­ti­pli­ca­tion com­bi­na­tions and com­par­isons. There are six­teen lessons in this unit and it is antic­i­pated that we will cover lessons 1 – 5 this week.

From Mrs. Har­vey: We are start­ing work­ing with func­tion tables, gen­er­at­ing the “rule” for the func­tion table, and mul­ti­ple vari­ables this week.

From Ms. Medved: We are work­ing on order of oper­a­tion and expres­sions (Chap­ter 7 in the CA math books)

For spelling/​word study, our class will be work­ing on the web­site:  SpellingC​ity​.com. I have pur­chased the pre­mium account for this site. I have given all stu­dents their user and and pass­word so they can log onto our class’ site. As of right now, I am con­tin­u­ing to ask­ing stu­dents to work way through the 1000 most often used words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. All lists have been added to the queue.

Grade 3 -In Social Stud­ies We are con­tin­u­ing with our book study of Indi­ans of the Oaks. We are cur­rently on Chap­ter 15, and com­plete an aver­age of two chap­ters a day. That means, we should fin­ish the book on Tues­day! We still need to spend this Fri­day fin­ish­ing up loose ends, and allow­ing for stu­dents to rewrite their own end­ing to the book. Next Mon­day will be a review, and the test will be given next Tuesday.

 Grade 4 -In Social Studies/​Science: Mrs. Calder’s and our 4^th graders are begin­ning a new unit of instruc­tion in Social Stud­ies, Unit 2: Early peo­ple in Cal­i­for­nia. In this unit, stu­dents will lern how the arrival of the Span­ish changed the lives of the Cal­i­for­nia Indi­ans. Stu­dents will also learn how life in Cal­i­for­nia changed when Mex­ico took over the area. This unit cov­ers the explo­ration, mis­sion and ran­cho period of time.

As always, there’s so much to cover and so lit­tle time! Make it a great week. AND: WHBK (work hard; be kind)

If you have any sug­ges­tions on how I can make this blog more ben­e­fi­cial to you, please email me at kking@​powayusd.​com and share your ideas with me. Thank you.

Thank you so much for the gifts you all gave me before win­ter break. I was sur­prised, a bit over-​​whelmed and def­i­nitely taken back by your gen­eros­ity. I can’t wait to go shop­ping with my gift cards. AND then there was the food…the candles…candy.…WOW! Thank you– thank you –thank you!

The char­ac­ter trait being fea­tured in Jan­u­ary cit­i­zen­ship. Wear pur­ple on Wednesdays.

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS IS THIS FRIDAY
On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 6 we will be hon­or­ing our Char­ac­ter Counts Stu­dents of the Month at our Stu­dent Coun­cil led Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons before Fri­day Flag. I am proud to announce that Tianna Voll­rath will rep­re­sent our class for the pil­lar of trustworthiness.

Par­ents, please help your chil­dren to remem­ber to bring their parent-​​initialed Clean Slate Chart to class I check it first thing every Monday(Tuesday) morning.

MATH: We take Light­ning Rods tests on Tues­days and Thurs­days. Progress reports are sent home on those days for par­ent ini­tials. Forms need to be returned the next day in order to be updated with the cur­rent test results.  Third grade stu­dents can pre­pare for these tests by down­load­ing the drill their are cur­rently work­ing on from the Math Fact Prac­tice Pages link. Fourth grade stu­dents’ test are 80 – 100 basic fact prob­lems in addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and division.

Typ­i­cally, math home­work is assigned Tues­day –Thurs­day nights. Check your child’s plan­ner for spe­cific assignments.

Grade 3:

From Mr. Romanowski: Begin­ning mini unit C, Pat­terns. Test on Friday.

From Ms. Einspar: We are work­ing in two units this week.  Mini unit C — Motion geom­e­try pat­terns ( rec­og­niz­ing and describ­ing slides, flips, and turns), Repeat­ing pat­terns and growing/​shrinking pat­terns (num­ber and geo­met­ric pat­terns).  Test on Friday.

We are also con­tin­u­ing with Unit 3 — Com­plet­ing tables (rows, columns, and cells), work­ing on word prob­lems with extra infor­ma­tion, not enough infor­ma­tion to solve, or solv­ing two-​​step word problems.

From Mrs. Pen­ner: Please con­tact Mrs. Pen­ner if you have a spe­cific ques­tion con­cern­ing your child math studies.

Grade 4:

Mrs. King’s math stu­dents: We will com­plete Mini Unit B: Lines, Angles, and Tri­an­gles. Unit B reviews lines, seg­ments, rays, and angles. Stu­dents use these con­cepts to explore dif­fer­ent kinds of tri­an­gles. For exam­ple, per­pen­dic­u­lar lines make right angles, and a roght tri­an­gle has one right angle.

This unit also builds on the explo­ration of quadri­lat­er­als from Unit A and the con­cepts of perime­ter and area as the stu­dents dis­cover the stan­dard method for find­ing the perime­ter of a tri­an­gle (side + side + side) and the area of a tri­an­gle (1÷2 base x height). I antic­i­pate that the Mini Unit B test will be given on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 6.

From Mrs. Har­vey: We are start­ing work­ing with func­tion tables, gen­er­at­ing the “rule” for the func­tion table, and mul­ti­ple vari­ables this week.

From Ms. Medved: We are work­ing on order of oper­a­tion and expres­sions (Chap­ter 7 in the CA math books)

For spelling/​word study, our class will be work­ing on the web­site:  SpellingC​ity​.com. I have pur­chased the pre­mium account for this site. I have given all stu­dents their user and and pass­word so they can log onto our class’ site. As of right now, I am con­tin­u­ing to ask­ing stu­dents to work way through the 1000 most often used words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. All lists have been added to the queue.

Grade 3 -In Social Stud­ies We are con­tin­u­ing with our book study of Indi­ans of the Oaks. This week we are watch­ing an infor­ma­tive movie made by the Kumeyaay that demon­strates their pro­duc­tion of pot­tery, bas­ketry, and other var­i­ous aspects of Kumeyaay cul­ture. Later in the week, we’ll read about how the main char­ac­ters in our story, Pion, Kwee-​​tahk, and Op-​​a-​​chuck, weave bas­kets and build their Kumeyaay huts.

 Grade 4 -In Social Studies/​Science: Mrs. Calder’s and our 4^th graders are going to Ms. Medved for their sci­ence instruc­tion. I will be tak­ing her class for their Social Stud­ies instruction.

In Sci­ence our class will be pre­sent­ing their projects this week and cel­e­brat­ing the com­ple­tion  of the Elec­tric­ity Unit.

As always, there’s so much to cover and so lit­tle time! Make it a great week. AND: WHBK (work hard; be kind)

If you have any sug­ges­tions on how I can make this blog more ben­e­fi­cial to you, please email me at kking@​powayusd.​com and share your ideas with me. Thank you.

The char­ac­ter trait being fea­tured in November-​​December is trustworthiness…true blue! Wear blue on Wednesdays.

Par­ents, please help your chil­dren to remem­ber to bring their parent-​​initialed Clean Slate Chart to class I check it first thing every Mon­day morning.

We have a field­trip to the Chal­lenger Learn­ing Cen­ter in Bal­boa Park sched­uled for Mon­day, Decem­ber 12. We are leav­ing at 9:15 sharp and all stu­dents need to bring a sack lunch. We will return to school around 3:00.

MATH: We take Light­ning Rods tests on Tues­days and Thurs­days. Progress reports are sent home on those days for par­ent ini­tials. Forms need to be returned the next day in order to be updated with the cur­rent test results.  Third grade stu­dents can pre­pare for these tests by down­load­ing the drill their are cur­rently work­ing on from the Math Fact Prac­tice Pages link. Fourth grade stu­dents’ test are 80 – 100 basic fact prob­lems in addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and division.

Typ­i­cally, math home­work is assigned Tues­day –Thurs­day nights. Check your child’s plan­ner for spe­cific assignments.

Grade 3:

From Mr. Romanowski: This week we worked on under­stand­ing tables and charts. We focused on using exact lan­guage to tell what each row, col­umn and cell rep­re­sents. We also prac­ticed writ­ing ques­tions based on the infor­ma­tion in the chart. We also took a look at var­i­ous story prob­lems with either extra infor­ma­tion, hid­den infor­ma­tion, or not enough infor­ma­tion. We are going to push through the last few lessons in the unit and try to take the test before we go on break next week. Con­tinue mem­o­riz­ing mul­ti­pli­ca­tion facts.

From Ms. Einspar: We are work­ing in two units this week.  Mini unit C — Motion geom­e­try pat­terns ( rec­og­niz­ing and describ­ing slides, flips, and turns), Repeat­ing pat­terns and growing/​shrinking pat­terns (num­ber and geo­met­ric pat­terns).  Test on Friday.

We are also con­tin­u­ing with Unit 3 — Com­plet­ing tables (rows, columns, and cells), work­ing on word prob­lems with extra infor­ma­tion, not enough infor­ma­tion to solve, or solv­ing two-​​step word problems.

From Mrs. Pen­ner: Please con­tact Mrs. Pen­ner if you have a spe­cific ques­tion con­cern­ing your child math studies.

Grade 4:

Mrs. King’s math stu­dents: We will begin (and com­plete) Mini Unit B: Lines, Angles, and Tri­an­gles. Unit B reviews lines, seg­ments, rays, and angles. Stu­dents use these con­cepts to explore dif­fer­ent kinds of tri­an­gles. For exam­ple, per­pen­dic­u­lar lines make right angles, and a roght tri­an­gle has one right angle.

This unit also builds on the explo­ration of quadri­lat­er­als from Unit A and the con­cepts of perime­ter and area as the stu­dents dis­cover the stan­dard method for find­ing the perime­ter of a tri­an­gle (side + side + side) and the area of a tri­an­gle (1÷2 base x height). I antic­i­pate that the Mini Unit B test will be given on Fri­day, Decem­ber 16.

From Mrs. Har­vey: We are start­ing a new unit — Unit 4 — Vari­ables and Alge­braic Expres­sions … we will be work­ing on this for the next sev­eral weeks.  we are con­tin­u­ing to work on our Math Quest prob­lem solv­ing sup­ple­men­tal unit.

From Ms. Medved: We are work­ing on order of oper­a­tion and expres­sions (Chap­ter 7 in the CA math books)

Grades 3 – 4: In Lan­guage Arts, Our class book is off to the printer. I can’t wait to get it back.

In Read­ing Both third and fourth graders are using the Houghton Mif­flin read­ing anthol­ogy as their text. The theme for third grade is cel­e­brat­ing tra­di­tions and for fourth grade, Amer­i­can sto­ries. Var­i­ous com­pre­hen­sion, gram­mar and spelling skills will be taught and reviewed fol­low­ing read­ing the stories.

For spelling/​word study, our class will be work­ing on the web­site:  SpellingC​ity​.com. I have pur­chased the pre­mium account for this site. I have given all stu­dents their user and and pass­word so they can log onto our class’ site. As of right now, I am con­tin­u­ing to ask­ing stu­dents to work way through the 1000 most often used words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. All lists have been added to the queue.

Grade 3 -In Social Stud­ies We are con­tin­u­ing with our book study of Indi­ans of the Oaks. This week we are watch­ing an infor­ma­tive movie made by the Kumeyaay that demon­strates their pro­duc­tion of pot­tery, bas­ketry, and other var­i­ous aspects of Kumeyaay cul­ture. Later in the week, we’ll read about how the main char­ac­ters in our story, Pion, Kwee-​​tahk, and Op-​​a-​​chuck, weave bas­kets and build their Kumeyaay huts.

 Grade 4 -In Social Studies/​Science: Mrs. Calder’s and our 4^th graders are going to Ms. Medved for their sci­ence instruc­tion. I will be tak­ing her class for their Social Stud­ies instruction.

We are fin­ish­ing our study of elec­tric­ity and magnets.  The focus of this unit of study is Elec­tric­ity and Mag­net­ism. The lessons cov­ered will include: 1) What is Sta­tic Elec­tric­ity? 2) What is an Elec­tric Cur­rent? 3) What is a Mag­net? and 4) What is an Elec­tro­mag­net?. Vocab­u­lary words include: charge, sta­tic elec­tric­ity, elec­tric field, elec­tric cur­rent, cir­cuit, elec­tric cell, con­duc­tor, insu­la­tor, resis­tor, series cir­cuit, par­al­lel circuit,magnet, mag­netic pole, mag­netic field, electromagnet.

The stu­dents will fin­ish tak­ing their sci­ence test on Tues­day.  All sci­ence projects are due on Tues­day, Decem­ber 13^th.  All sci­ence pack­ets are due Tues­day, Decem­ber 13^th as well.

As always, there’s so much to cover and so lit­tle time! Make it a great week. AND: WHBK (work hard; be kind)

If you have any sug­ges­tions on how I can make this blog more ben­e­fi­cial to you, please email me at kking@​powayusd.​com and share your ideas with me. Thank you.

The char­ac­ter trait being fea­tured in November-​​December is trustworthiness…true blue! Wear blue on Wednesdays.

Par­ents, please help your chil­dren to remem­ber to bring their parent-​​initialed Clean Slate Chart to class I check it first thing every Mon­day morning.

We have a field­trip to the Chal­lenger Learn­ing Cen­ter in Bal­boa Park sched­uled for Mon­day, Decem­ber 12. There is a $20 dona­tion being asked to help cover the cost of the bus and entrance fee for this fab­u­lous learn­ing experience.

MATH: We take Light­ning Rods tests on Tues­days and Thurs­days. Progress reports are sent home on those days for par­ent ini­tials. Forms need to be returned the next day in order to be updated with the cur­rent test results.  Third grade stu­dents can pre­pare for these tests by down­load­ing the drill their are cur­rently work­ing on from the Math Fact Prac­tice Pages link. Fourth grade stu­dents’ test are 80 – 100 basic fact prob­lems in addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and division.

Typ­i­cally, math home­work is assigned Tues­day –Thurs­day nights. Check your child’s plan­ner for spe­cific assignments.

Grade 3:

From Mr. Romanowski: This week we con­tin­ued work­ing on round­ing and esti­ma­tion and began work­ing with money. We learned how to use sub­trac­tion and “count­ing on” to find change. Although it is often quicker to just sub­tract, please ensure that your child knows how to count on as well. Another skill we worked on was round­ing money up or down based on whether you are round­ing what you have or what you need. Con­tinue mem­o­riz­ing mul­ti­pli­ca­tion facts.

From Ms. Einspar: We are work­ing in two units this week.  Mini unit C — Motion geom­e­try pat­terns ( rec­og­niz­ing and describ­ing slides, flips, and turns), Repeat­ing pat­terns and growing/​shrinking pat­terns (num­ber and geo­met­ric pat­terns).  Test on Friday.

We are also con­tin­u­ing with Unit 3 — Com­plet­ing tables (rows, columns, and cells), work­ing on word prob­lems with extra infor­ma­tion, not enough infor­ma­tion to solve, or solv­ing two-​​step word problems.

From Mrs. Pen­ner: “I’m doing geom­e­try (mini unit) namely angles, types of tri­an­gles, symmetry.”

Grade 4:

Mrs. King’s math stu­dents: are con­tin­u­ing to work in Unit Two, Place Value and Multi-​​Digit Addi­tion and Sub­trac­tion. Unit 2 devel­ops the con­cepts of group­ing and ungroup­ing num­bers as a key step in per­form­ing multi-​​digit addi­tion and sub­trac­tion. The activ­i­ties in this unit help stu­dents gain a prac­ti­cal under­stand­ing of addi­tion and sub­trac­tion and the rela­tion­ship  between the two oper­a­tions. Stu­dents are expected to apply their under­stand­ing of addi­tion and sub­trac­tion to numeric cal­cu­la­tions and real world prob­lem solv­ing sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing those involv­ing tables of data. Esti­ma­tion and men­tal math pro­vide stu­dents with a method to val­i­date their answers. There are 21 lessons in this unit. It is antic­i­pated that we will cover lessons 15 – 19 this week.

From Mrs. Har­vey: We are start­ing a new unit — Unit 4 — Vari­ables and Alge­braic Expres­sions … we will be work­ing on this for the next sev­eral weeks.  we are con­tin­u­ing to work on our Math Quest prob­lem solv­ing sup­ple­men­tal unit.

From Ms. Medved: We are work­ing on order of oper­a­tion and expres­sions (Chap­ter 7 in the CA math books)

Grades 3 – 4: In Lan­guage Arts, Our class book is off to the printer. I can’t wait to get it back.

In Read­ing Both third and fourth graders are using the Houghton Mif­flin read­ing anthol­ogy as their text. The theme for third grade is cel­e­brat­ing tra­di­tions and for fourth grade, Amer­i­can sto­ries. Var­i­ous com­pre­hen­sion, gram­mar and spelling skills will be taught and reviewed fol­low­ing read­ing the stories.

For spelling/​word study, our class will be work­ing on the web­site:  SpellingC​ity​.com. I have pur­chased the pre­mium account for this site. I have given all stu­dents their user and and pass­word so they can log onto our class’ site. As of right now, I am con­tin­u­ing to ask­ing stu­dents to work way through the 1000 most often used words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. All lists have been added to the queue.

Grade 3 -In Social Stud­ies We are con­tin­u­ing with our book study of Indi­ans of the Oaks. This week we are watch­ing an infor­ma­tive movie made by the Kumeyaay that demon­strates their pro­duc­tion of pot­tery, bas­ketry, and other var­i­ous aspects of Kumeyaay cul­ture. Later in the week, we’ll read about how the main char­ac­ters in our story, Pion, Kwee-​​tahk, and Op-​​a-​​chuck, weave bas­kets and build their Kumeyaay huts.

 Grade 4 -In Social Studies/​Science: Mrs. Calder’s and our 4^th graders are going to Ms. Medved for their sci­ence instruc­tion. I will be tak­ing her class for their Social Stud­ies instruction.

We are fin­ish­ing our study of elec­tric­ity and magnets.  The focus of this unit of study is Elec­tric­ity and Mag­net­ism. The lessons cov­ered will include: 1) What is Sta­tic Elec­tric­ity? 2) What is an Elec­tric Cur­rent? 3) What is a Mag­net? and 4) What is an Elec­tro­mag­net?. Vocab­u­lary words include: charge, sta­tic elec­tric­ity, elec­tric field, elec­tric cur­rent, cir­cuit, elec­tric cell, con­duc­tor, insu­la­tor, resis­tor, series cir­cuit, par­al­lel circuit,magnet, mag­netic pole, mag­netic field, electromagnet.

The stu­dents will begin tak­ing their sci­ence test this Fri­day and will con­tinue it on the fol­low­ing Tues­day.  All sci­ence projects are due on Tues­day, Decem­ber 13^th.  All sci­ence pack­ets are due Tues­day, Decem­ber 13^th as well.

As always, there’s so much to cover and so lit­tle time! Make it a great week. AND: WHBK (work hard; be kind)

If you have any sug­ges­tions on how I can make this blog more ben­e­fi­cial to you, please email me at kking@​powayusd.​com and share your ideas with me. Thank you.

The char­ac­ter trait being fea­tured in November-​​December is trustworthiness…true blue! Wear blue on Wednesdays.

Par­ents, please help your chil­dren to remem­ber to bring their parent-​​initialed Clean Slate Chart to class I check it first thing every Mon­day morning.

We have a field­trip to the Chal­lenger Learn­ing Cen­ter in Bal­boa Park sched­uled for Mon­day, Decem­ber 12. Please look for the yel­low flyer com­ing home on Mon­day. There is a $20 dona­tion being asked to help cover the cost of the bus and entrance fee for this fab­u­lous learn­ing experience.

MATH: We take Light­ning Rods tests on Tues­days and Thurs­days. Progress reports are sent home on those days for par­ent ini­tials. Forms need to be returned the next day in order to be updated with the cur­rent test results.  Third grade stu­dents can pre­pare for these tests by down­load­ing the drill their are cur­rently work­ing on from the Math Fact Prac­tice Pages link. Fourth grade stu­dents’ test are 80 – 100 basic fact prob­lems in addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and division.

Typ­i­cally, math home­work is assigned Tues­day –Thurs­day nights. Check your child’s plan­ner for spe­cific assignments.

Grade 3:

From Mr. Romanowski: Last week we fin­ished Unit 2 and took the test. Results were very good over­all. Keep up the good work. This week we worked on mini unit B which focuses on sym­me­try, and con­gru­ence, as well as under­stand­ing and mea­sur­ing angles and tri­an­gles. There are two con­cepts that are always dif­fi­cult in this unit: think­ing that diag­o­nals of rec­tan­gles are lines of sym­me­try and not draw­ing all lines of sym­me­try on non-​​quadrilateral shapes such as stars, hexa­gons and octagons. Please look for these mis­takes in the prac­tice work that comes home.

From Ms. Einspar: Unit B — nam­ing poly­gons, tri­an­gles, and angle mea­sures con­tin­ues on and tests Weds. Thurs. will be some­thing project ori­ented or pre-​​assess for unit 3.

From Mrs. Pen­ner: “I’m doing geom­e­try (mini unit) namely angles, types of tri­an­gles, symmetry.”

Grade 4:

Mrs. King’s math stu­dents: are con­tin­u­ing to work in Unit Two, Place Value and Multi-​​Digit Addi­tion and Sub­trac­tion. Unit 2 devel­ops the con­cepts of group­ing and ungroup­ing num­bers as a key step in per­form­ing multi-​​digit addi­tion and sub­trac­tion. The activ­i­ties in this unit help stu­dents gain a prac­ti­cal under­stand­ing of addi­tion and sub­trac­tion and the rela­tion­ship  between the two oper­a­tions. Stu­dents are expected to apply their under­stand­ing of addi­tion and sub­trac­tion to numeric cal­cu­la­tions and real world prob­lem solv­ing sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing those involv­ing tables of data. Esti­ma­tion and men­tal math pro­vide stu­dents with a method to val­i­date their answers. There are 21 lessons in this unit. It is antic­i­pated that we will cover lessons 7 – 11 this week.

From Mrs. Har­vey: We are start­ing a new unit — Unit 4 — Vari­ables and Alge­braic Expres­sions … we will be work­ing on this for the next sev­eral weeks.  we are con­tin­u­ing to work on our Math Quest prob­lem solv­ing sup­ple­men­tal unit.

From Ms. Medved: We are doing our geom­e­try unit.  We just fin­ished with iden­ti­fy­ing lines, and now we are doing clas­si­fy­ing Quads and polygons.

Grades 3 – 4: In Lan­guage Arts, Our class book is off to the printer. I can’t wait to get it back.

In Read­ing Unit tests have gone home for cor­rect­ing, goal set­ting and par­ent sig­na­tures. Fourth graders are using the Houghton Mif­flin read­ing anthol­ogy as their text and will begin a new unit this week.  Third graders will begin read­ing from a grade-​​level core lit­er­a­ture book, Indian of the Oaks. Var­i­ous writ­ing activ­i­ties will be used as a follow-​​up the the daily reading.

For spelling/​word study, our class will be work­ing on the web­site:  SpellingC​ity​.com. I have pur­chased the pre­mium account for this site. I have given all stu­dents their user and and pass­word so they can log onto our class’ site. As of right now, I am con­tin­u­ing to ask­ing stu­dents to work way through the 1000 most often used words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. Each week I will add one or two new lists to the queue.

Grade 3 -In Social Stud­ies We are start­ing Indian of the Oaks today, and have fin­ished with out Kumeyaay cul­ture group presentations.

 Grade 4 -In Social Studies/​Science: Mrs. Calder’s and our 4^th graders are going to Ms. Medved for their sci­ence instruc­tion. I will be tak­ing her class for their Social Stud­ies instruction.

The focus of this unit of study is Elec­tric­ity and Mag­net­ism. The lessons cov­ered will include: 1) What is Sta­tic Elec­tric­ity? 2) What is an Elec­tric Cur­rent? 3) What is a Mag­net? and 4) What is an Elec­tro­mag­net?. Vocab­u­lary words include: charge, sta­tic elec­tric­ity, elec­tric field, elec­tric cur­rent, cir­cuit, elec­tric cell, con­duc­tor, insu­la­tor, resis­tor, series cir­cuit, par­al­lel circuit,magnet, mag­netic pole, mag­netic field, electromagnet.

This week we will begin to cover les­son 2, What is an Elec­tric Current?

As always, there’s so much to cover and so lit­tle time! Make it a great week. AND: WHBK (work hard; be kind)

If you have any sug­ges­tions on how I can make this blog more ben­e­fi­cial to you, please email me at kking@​powayusd.​com and share your ideas with me. Thank you.

Par­ent Teacher Con­fer­ences begin this week. Progress reports will be going home on Mon­day for any­one not sighed up for a con­fer­ence. Dis­missal time is at 12:45. Recess time is from 10:20 – 10:35, and lunch will be from 12:10 – 12:40. We will dis­miss from the play­ground. That being said, we will have lim­ited read­ing and writ­ing instruc­tion mixed in with music from Mr. Lee before recess, and between recess and lunch, we will have math instruc­tion. Please check your child’s home­work plan­ner for spe­cific assign­ments and homework.

Enjoy your Thanks­giv­ing break and your fam­ily next week. I look for­ward to see­ing you all when we return.

For those of you who have requested Par­ent teacher conferences, the con­fir­ma­tion notices are going home tomor­row. Please let me know if there is a problem/​conflict and you are not able to come to your sched­uled con­fer­ence time so that we can reschedule.

The char­ac­ter trait being fea­tured in November-​​December is trustworthiness.

Par­ents, please help your chil­dren to remem­ber to bring their parent-​​initialed Clean Slate Chart to class I check it first thing every Mon­day morning.

MATH: We take Light­ning Rods tests on Tues­days and Thurs­days. Progress reports are sent home on those days for par­ent ini­tials. Forms need to be returned the next day in order to be updated with the cur­rent test results.  Third grade stu­dents can pre­pare for these tests by down­load­ing the drill their are cur­rently work­ing on from the Math Fact Prac­tice Pages link. Fourth grade stu­dents’ test are 80 – 100 basic fact prob­lems in addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and division.

Typ­i­cally, math home­work is assigned Tues­day –Thurs­day nights. Check your child’s plan­ner for spe­cific assignments.

Grade 3:

From Mr. Romanowski: Last week we fin­ished Unit 2 and took the test. Results were very good over­all. Keep up the good work. This week we worked on mini unit B which focuses on sym­me­try, and con­gru­ence, as well as under­stand­ing and mea­sur­ing angles and tri­an­gles. There are two con­cepts that are always dif­fi­cult in this unit: think­ing that diag­o­nals of rec­tan­gles are lines of sym­me­try and not draw­ing all lines of sym­me­try on non-​​quadrilateral shapes such as stars, hexa­gons and octagons. Please look for these mis­takes in the prac­tice work that comes home.

From Ms. Einspar: Unit B — nam­ing poly­gons, tri­an­gles, and angle mea­sures con­tin­ues on and tests Weds. Thurs. will be some­thing project ori­ented or pre-​​assess for unit 3.

From Mrs. Pen­ner: “I’m doing geom­e­try (mini unit) namely angles, types of tri­an­gles, symmetry.”

Grade 4:

Mrs. King’s math stu­dents: are begin­ning to work in Unit Two, Place Value and Multi-​​Digit Addi­tion and Sub­trac­tion. Unit 2 devel­ops the con­cepts of group­ing and ungroup­ing num­bers as a key step in per­form­ing multi-​​digit addi­tion and sub­trac­tion. The activ­i­ties in this unit help stu­dents gain a prac­ti­cal under­stand­ing of addi­tion and sub­trac­tion and the rela­tion­ship  between the two oper­a­tions. Stu­dents are expected to apply their under­stand­ing of addi­tion and sub­trac­tion to numeric cal­cu­la­tions and real world prob­lem solv­ing sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing those involv­ing tables of data. Esti­ma­tion and men­tal mat pro­vide stu­dents with a method to val­i­date their answers. There are 21 lessons in this unit. It is antic­i­pated that we will cover lessons 1 – 4 this week.

From Mrs. Har­vey: Unit 3, chap­ter 7 — relat­ing mul­ti­pli­ca­tion to divi­sion; alge­braic think­ing with mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and divi­sion expres­sions /​ equa­tions; con­tin­u­ing our Math Quest prob­lem solv­ing project — cur­rent strat­egy is draw­ing a picture

From Ms. Medved: We are doing our geom­e­try unit.  We just fin­ished with iden­ti­fy­ing lines, and now we are doing clas­si­fy­ing Quads and polygons.

Grades 3 – 4: In Lan­guage Arts, We are cur­rently work­ing on a class book to be pub­lished as a hard­back book. Last week we word processed our pages and this week we will illus­trate our writ­ing. This is so exciting!

In Read­ing we are work­ing in read­ing groups and are using the Houghton Mif­flin read­ing antholo­gies as our texts.  Third graders will be tak­ing a unit test cov­er­ing the skills we stud­ied in the last three sto­ries. Then we will begin read­ing from a grade-​​level core lit­er­a­ture book, Indian of the Oaks.

Fourth graders have one more story to read this week before they take their unit test.

For spelling/​word study, our class will be work­ing on the web­site:  SpellingC​ity​.com. I have pur­chased the pre­mium account for this site. I have given all stu­dents their user and and pass­word so they can log onto our class’ site. For this first trimester, I will be ask­ing stu­dents to work way through the 1000 most often used words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. Each week I will add one or two new lists to the queue.

Grade 3 -In Social Stud­ies we will begin Unit 2, les­son 1: How are Cal­i­for­nia Indi­ans in you region alike and dif­fer­ent. Vocab­u­lary words include: cus­tom (n.) a way of doing things; folk­lore (n.) the sto­ries and cus­toms of a group of peo­ple; tra­di­tion (n.) a spe­cial way a group of peo­ple does some­thing and that has been passed on to oth­ers; cer­e­mony (n.) an impor­tant activ­ity done for a spe­cial reason.

 Grade 4 -In Social Studies/​Science: Mrs. Calder’s and our 4^th graders are going to Ms. Medved for their sci­ence instruc­tion. I will be tak­ing her class for their Social Stud­ies instruction.

The focus of this unit of study is Elec­tric­ity and Mag­net­ism. The lessons cov­ered will include: 1) What is Sta­tic Elec­tric­ity? 2) What is an Elec­tric Cur­rent? 3) What is a Mag­net? and 4) What is an Elec­tro­mag­net?. Vocab­u­lary words include: charge, sta­tic elec­tric­ity, elec­tric field, elec­tric cur­rent, cir­cuit, elec­tric cell, con­duc­tor, insu­la­tor, resis­tor, series cir­cuit, par­al­lel circuit,magnet, mag­netic pole, mag­netic field, electromagnet.

This week we will begin to cover les­son 2, What is an Elec­tric Current?

As always, there’s so much to cover and so lit­tle time! Make it a great week. AND: WHBK (work hard; be kind)

If you have any sug­ges­tions on how I can make this blog more ben­e­fi­cial to you, please email me at kking@​powayusd.​com and share your ideas with me. Thank you.