Geography Exam on Friday the 15th of November

Students should study their Study Guide and know:

1. the countries and capital cities of South Asia

2. the difference between the following landforms and how to sketch these landforms: 

plateau  archipelago, island, mountain, river valley, coastline, delta,

ghat, 

3. how to use a scale bar to measure distance between two cities on a map 

4. the physical features of S. Asia that we labeled on our Salt Dough map projects

5. how to use a compass rose to compare the directions of two cities, for example 

is Delhi is northeast or northwest of Chennai? 

Longitude Latitude Game: Try this one at home...

Would you like to play this game at home with your family? It will help all of you remember how to find "absolute location" by identifying longitude and latitude coordinates on the map. I have photocopied the small game cards, and you may have a laminated map as well. Let me know if you'd like these materials for your home.

Cheers,
Ms. T

What are the computation expectations for a grade 4 student according to the Common Core Standards?

Grade 4 students should be able to solve these with ease:

4,356 + 5,467

7,000 - 2,345

5678*5

3564/6

Geography Games

Only South Asian nations will be tested, but most games cover all of Asia

Learn the countries of Asia: click here  and here and here

Learn the physical regions of Asia: click here 

What is on the math test for unit 3 on Friday the 25th of October?

1. Know the difference between factors and multiples

2. Solve open sentences: basic algebra

3. Examine a number sentence and identify if it is true or false

4. Use parentheses to make equations/number sentences true

5. Complete fact triangles and list out the fact family for a fact triangle

6. Discover patterns for RULE Charts/Function Machines and fill in the chart using the rule

7. Read word problems; determine the important information; write a number sentence/equation; and solve the word problem

8. Read a bar graph to find the data set. Use the data set to find the mode, range, and 

median.

Labels: How the labels gadget will improve our digital portfolios.

This week 4B students will add a "labels" gadget to their Blogger digital portfolio website. Then, they will learn how to add a few key words to each blog they post by hitting the "Labels" Post Setting to the right of the blog text box before hitting "Publish". If for example, a student was adding a link to a challenging math project, the student would enter 2013, grade four, challenging, math, etc before they publish the post.

Adding labels to each blog allows for Blogger to create a "Labels Word Cloud" that provides valuable information. For example, if the word "creative" is larger than the word "challenging" a student knows that he or she has posted more creative work samples than challenging work samples.

The Labels gadget is a fun tool that is visually stimulating; that helps students self-asses their blog posts; and that also has a search feature. Search, how? If you click right into a word within the cloud, you can pull up all the blog posts that relate to that particular label. It is like an insta-search!

I have added the labels feature to my blog. Look to the left of my posts for the "Labels Cloud" and click on a word to see what happens.

Remember, ask your son or daughter to help you build a personal Blogger website. Imagine if you are a baker and you hit the word "chocolate" and suddenly have all of your posts related to chocolate at your fingertips.

Blogging is awesome for students and teachers and parents too!

I want to thank our tech integrator, Carlina, for teaching me about the power and importance of labels.

Cheers,
Ms. T

Link for Current Newsletter: October 4

October 11th: Writing Celebration in Room 3140

We are getting closer to our Writing Celebration on October 11th at 11:15. Students will have completed children's books for their realistic fiction stories. They will read their story to a parent(s), and then the stories will be on display as we snack. We have worked very hard to learn how to arc a story; draft a story scene by scene; and, then revise and edit.

Stories will not be perfectly edited, but our language skills focal points are currently capitalization rules; correcting for run-on sentences and sentence fragments; and, using correct punctuation in our dialogue writing. Of course, we will also use the Spell Check feature!

Students use their Skills Book in class to practice these skills, and they have one-on-one writing conferences with their teachers to catch these mistakes as well.

Parents are welcome to assist students during the writing and editing process, as long as they prompt the student to catch his/her own errors. We want the kids to learn and grow vs. having a perfect paper that made us smarter.

I want to thank our room parent, Sarah Naidoo, in advance for organizing our celebration.

Ms. T

Word Study: 4B Digital Taxonomy

This year, all of us, including parents should add valuable words to our class Digital Taxonomy. Because Google Documents is such a powerful tool for collaboration, I have created a spreadsheet with tabs along the bottom. Each tab is categorized, for example "Said is dead" is a tab and a spreadsheet to add words that we can use in our writing instead of "said."

Each of us should enter the Digital Taxonomy here at least one time per week and add to a section. Then, just before we edit our writing, we should skim through the Digital Taxonomy and use the words there in our writing. "Use or Lose!"

Thanks,
Ms. T