I hope you all have a relaxing and enjoyable holiday with loved ones! It is hard to believe how quickly the second quarter is coming to a close.
Eval Writing Day:
As the semester draws to a close, Archway Arete teachers are hard at work drafting narrative evaluations for each of their students. This labor of love requires many hours of intentional reflection and to facilitate this process, our teachers are given one work day to focus on writing these evals. On Friday, December 6, Mrs. Conforti will be away from the classroom writing narrative evaluations. If you are interested in supporting our classroom during this absence, please email Mrs. Conforti and Mrs. LaVell (tmartin@archwayare.org and rlavell@archwayarete.org). Thank you in advance!
Lessons This Week:
Spalding: This week, students will study their next 30 words. For nightly Spalding homework, students should have the words dictated to them by someone at home and should write them one time each in syllables. Any words that are misspelled should be written again for additional practice. We will take our 30-word Spalding test on Friday.
Writing/Grammar: This week, students will continue their study of Grammar. They will be learning about the predicate nominative, predicate adjective, demonstrative pronouns, and state-of-being verbs this week. Next week, they will review the parts of speech we have learned about this year in preparation for their cumulative review nest next Friday (12/13).
Math: Students will continue learning about fractions of a set this week. In order to allow for more practice, I have pushed the date of the Fractions of a Set test to Friday (12/6).
History: This week, students will continue their study of Arizona’s history be learning about the Mexican War, the days of Arizona being a Territory of the US, and learning how Arizona finally became a state. They will also be learning about the state symbols and the state crest.
Science: Students will continue their study of meteorology this week by learning about the difference between weather and climate, as well as the people who study weather and climate. On Wednesday, they will review for their unit meteorology test that will be given on Thursday.
Literature: We will begin reading The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Please send your copy to school with your student. For nightly homework, students will read a book of their choosing for 20 minutes every night, unless otherwise specified. Students will keep their quarterly reading log in their yellow take-home folder. All reading logs are due at the end of the quarter.
Greek and Latin Roots: Students will learn roots #45-47 on Tuesday. On Wednesday, students will take the review quiz over roots #42-44.
Poetry: Students will learn their new poem for memorization, “The Flag Goes By” by Henry Holcomb Bennett. Recitations for this poem will be on Monday, December 16.
Important Dates: *assessment dates are subject to be pushed back if necessary
- Wednesday:
- Week 8 Math Quiz: Review
- Roots Quiz: #42-44
- Thursday:
- Science Test: Meteorology
- Friday:
- Spalding Test: 30 words
Class Information:
Typing:
The skill of typing is an important one for all of our students to be able to learn and perform effectively. While I do not expect any fourth grader to be a typing professional, I would like to get them as comfortable as possible using a keyboard. Not only do we type essays in class, but students will be expected to type their essays for the AzMERIT Writing test in the Spring. For this reason, it is imperative that students feel comfortable enough to perform this skill.
I highly encourage you to allow your student to practice typing on a computer keyboard as often as possible at home. Many students are wizzes when it comes to navigating a tablet, phone, or other touch screen device, but many of them do not have proper exposure to regular computers. It would be beneficial if you and your student found something on a computer that they enjoy, that would also help them practice typing on a regular computer keyboard. I will be periodically updating the blog with any examples I find, and if you have any ideas, feel free to email us and share them! Thanks!
Xtra Math:
Any student who passes multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division on XtraMath will earn a special secret prize from Mr. Gillingham! Please encourage your students to work on this at home whenever you have spare time. Each practice session of XtraMath only takes about 5 minutes to complete. If you need another login sheet, send us an email and we will send your student home with a new one.
Headphones:
All students need to bring in a pair of headphones to keep at school. Students are expected to use headphones whenever they do activities on the computer, such as Khan Academy and TypingQuest. They will also need to have them each time they take a standardized test. I have room in the classroom for students to keep headphones at school. Thanks!
--Mrs. Conforti
TMartin@ArchwayArete.org
--Mrs. LaVell
RLavell@ArchwayArete.org
