Book Report

During the new year I'll more information about our upcoming book report. I just wanted everyone to be aware of it so they can pick a book and start reading now. Your book should be on the Accelerated Reader list, which is located here:
http://www.abington.k12.pa.us/Overlook/AR%20Book%20Guide%20Nov%202012%20for%20website%20pdf.pdf

Holiday Concert & Party

Our holiday concert is tomorrow @ 9:30. The fourth grade strings will be performing. Strings members are asked to wear black slacks or skirt, black shoes, black socks, white shirt or blouse.

If you are planning on attending our holiday party, please make sure to fill out a registration form for yourself.

Gold Cards & Eco Columns

Gold Card Night

Gold Card Night is tomorrow. If the students are invited, they should have received a letter from me today. If there are questions or concerns about this, please contact me prior to Gold Card Night.

Because of the many safety initiatives brought on by recent events, all students need to be accompanied by a parent, guardian, or adult chaperone.

Eco Columns Adoption

A letter will be going home tomorrow about adopting our eco columns. You probably saw them during conferences. They are a self contained ecosystem that only needs to be watered every few days. They are built by the students and can lead to many different science discussions and ideas. Please contact me if you would like to have one. It is first come first serve.

We have a weekly test and a spelling test this week.

Unit 4 Math Test

Hello,

We have our Unit 4 Math Test tomorrow. The test is mostly about decimals: adding, subtraction, ordering, comparing, writing and understanding.

There are also questions about measuring in cm and then converting to other metric units.

(Here is a great measuring game: http://www.funbrain.com/measure/)

The test is not very vocabulary heavy, so I have been holding out on sending home math flash cards. Here they are: http://quizlet.com/17604014/everyday-math-unit-4-vocab-flash-cards/

Thanks!
- Mike

A Few Dates

Here are a few upcoming dates:

Gold Card Night - It has been rescheduled for 12/19.

Barnes and Nobles - This will be this Wednesday from 5 - 8. The school gets a percentage of all sales as well as the whole school has a great time seeing everyone.

Holiday Hollow - Our Holiday Hollow will be this Thursday @ 1.

Tests & Break

We have two tests this week. Throughout the whole week we will be doing our Unit 2 Assessment for Communication Arts. On Friday we will have our Math Unit 4 Assessment on decimals.

If you are looking for a way to study for Communication Arts, review all of the family letters for Unit 2 with the students at home.
http://www.abington.k12.pa.us/overlook/gradefour.shtml

To be prepared for our math test, you can review the family letter for Unit 4 (same link as above). Here are some math games that target some of our weaker areas.

The students can use some practice in ordering decimals. Here is a great game:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/ks2_activities/maths/decimals.shtml

Top-It is a great game that the students are very familiar with from class. They can play it with using decimals on www.everydaymathonline.com

Winter Break:

I have recently been trying to give the students time in class to finish their homework. The reason is because when I think back at meaningful moments when I was in fourth grade none of them involved homework. I remember inventing games with my friends, building toys, and playing sports. I know everyone's lives are busy, but I think it's important to be "bored."

I heard an interview with the founder of a new website DIY.org. If you start an account, the students then can earn badges for completing different activities. They can be anything from building a flute out of a carrot to making a pumpkin pie, or from building a mini motor to a stop motion animation. Most activities come with a video explanation on how to complete the task. After you have complete a specific number of activities for each topic, you receive a badge for that skill.

If anyone does end up using this, please tell me what you think. Here's an example: How to make a balloon racer: https://diy.org/nednewton/000j2y#30370

Also, found a great website for finding books for the all-starts:
http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/4th-grade

After Conferences

It has been great to see everyone over conferences. The students have been working really hard in class, especially of recent, and I hope that shows in their grades and our conference. This is a great group of kids!

If you're looking for ways to help your students improve in certain areas, here are some online resources.

Communication Arts:

Reference the Home-Connection Letters - This is a great way to stay informed about the content for each week. We have our Unit 2 test next week. Please use these to review for the test.
http://www.abington.k12.pa.us/overlook/gradefour.shtml

Finding enjoyable books - This is mostly an issue for the "dudes." This website has a lot of fun books aimed at guys.
http://www.guysread.com/

Math:
My website - On my website I have many math games that align with what we are learning about for each unit. For this unit (Unit 4) I would recommend the ordering decimals game and the counting money one.
http://carroll-everydaymath.wikispaces.com/home

Everyday Math Online - The new online piece has games, references, and extra practice for every math lesson.
www.everydaymathonline.com

Science:
Learning Science - An area where a lot of students that struggled with science was with applying the science ideas we talked about in different scenarios. Learningscience.org is a fantastic website built by a former professor of mine that has many different interactive examples of science ideas.
www.learningscience.org

Ecosystems:http://www.learningscience.org/lifescience.htm

Electrical Circuits (Our upcoming unit): http://www.learningscience.org/psc2ctransferenergy.htm
P.S. - Launchball is a class favorite

Class Party
Tomorrow we are having a class party. The students voted on watching a movie (rated G) and eating some pizza. If anyone would like to send in a few dollars (no more than $5 please) to help spread around the cost of the pizza that would be great.

Holiday Hollow
Here is a great opportunity for the students to purchase different items for family members at school. There will be more information about this in homework folders tomorrow. Our date is 12/13 @ 1.

Barnes & Nobles Night
This upcoming Wednesday is Barnes and Nobles Night. It is always a lot of fun to see everyone at the store and find some great books together. 20% of all sales go to the school.

Also, I'm deactivating the blog email list. It seems that some parents were receiving the emails at midnight, many hours after I would send them. I'm going to keep the blog active, just send the emails from my account.

Everything and the Kitchen Sink

I look forward to seeing everyone at conferences next week. If the time I offered you didn't work, expect me to get in touch soon and we'll find a time that does work.

Ok, where to start... how about with tomorrow...

Bryn Mawr Film Institute
Our field trip to the Bryn Mawr Film Institute is tomorrow. We are all very excited for this unique opportunity. We will be back in time for lunch so there is no need for a brown bag lunch. We will also be there only school there so no need for wearing anything special (unless you are doing picture retakes).
http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/education/seehear.php

Picture Retakes
Tomorrow is the day for picture retakes.

Assessments
We will have a "weekly" assessment as well as a spelling test on Friday.

Holiday Hollow
Here is a great opportunity for the students to purchase different items for family members at school. There will be more information about this in homework folders tomorrow. Our date is 12/13 @ 1.

Test Folders
Test Folders will be going home tomorrow. I want you to be able to see them before conferences. Please try to have them back as soon as you can, or at least bring it to the conference.

Communications
There were a few glitches with communication this first semester. I think from now on I'm going to send mass emails for all communications and also post them here. It should make things easier because some SPAM folders are blocking the blog posts.

See ya next week :-)

Amjerican Ed. - Veteran's Day Assembly

On Monday, November 19th at 2:00 we will be having our Veteran's Day Assembly as part of our American Education Week Celebration.

All parents are invited to come and watch as our student learn from honoring some of the veterans in our community.

If the students could wear Red on Monday, that would be great.

Also: Math Test on Tuesday.

Gold Card Night is Canceled

Gold Card Night is unfortunately canceled and will be rescheduled on another date.

Science Test

We had a busy day today so it was pushed back to tomorrow.

 

Upcoming Tests

Here is a quick breakdown:

We were going to have our Science test today, but I pushed it back.

Thurs - Science (pushed back)
Fri - Spelling, Weekly, & Science PSSA (book report is due)
Monday - Social Studies
Tuesday - Unit 3 Math Test

Math Test

We will be having out Unit 3 math test on Tuesday, November 20th. For this test the students should practice:

• unit 3 vocabulary
• multiplication and division
• understanding a bar graph
• completing a "What's My Rule?" chart
• solving open sentences (example: 4 x n = 12  What does n equal?)
• multiples and factors (and the difference between them)
• adding parentheses to a number sentence
• finding missing values on a fact triangle
• word problems

Here are some great games to practice for Unit 3:

• EM Facts Workshop Game (www.everdaymathonline.com)
• Beat the Computer (www.everdaymathonline.com)
• Factor Bingo (www.everdaymathonline.com)
• More links on my website (http://carroll-everydaymath.wikispaces.com/Unit+3)

http://quizlet.com/16401272/unit-3-grade-4-everyday-math-vocabulary-flash-cards/

Another Update (sorry)

Student Council

Elections for classroom representative are this Friday. If you submitted a form, please prepare a short speech.

Study Guide Cards

Here are some flashcards to study with for the Science PSSA Test. Rememebr students can print these out at home or I can at school (just email me).

http://quizlet.com/_9p8x7

PSSA Science Test - Nov. 16

Science PSSA Test on Nov. 16th.

There will be a science test in Mrs. Eberman's classroom for our class on Nov. 16th. This is different than my Science Test, but similar in some ways. It will focus on living things. I will email the study guide.

Next Week

Hello,

It is nice to be back to a  more normal routine after Hurricane Sandy. The students are one spark away from earning a class party! Hopefully this will happen next week.

Math - Multiplication

We are going to continue with Unit 3 next week. The test will either be the end of next week or early the following. The bulk of the unit is multiplication. Feel free to use these games and fact triangles to practice at home:
https://carroll-everydaymath.wikispaces.com/Unit+3

Science

We will be having our Science Test on Wednesday of next week. The test is about the hands-on lessons we have down in my class about ecosystems. Here are flash cards to study from as well as a copy of the study guide.

Ecosystems Study Guide


http://quizlet.com/16204472/ecosystems-end-of-kit-flash-cards/

Social Studies

We will have our Chapter 3 Social Studies Test on Monday, November 19th. The test will be open notes, so it is very important that the students bring their study guide and have the correct information on there. Please get used to your study guide before the test - read it over every few days.
Click here for: Study Guide  /  Study Guide with Answers
(These Study Guide files are being a little weird. I'm going to email them also.)

Weekly Test

Next week we have a weekly test on Friday in addition to our spelling test

American Education Week - Veteran's Day Assembly

The date of our Veteran's Day Assembly has been changed to November 19th at 2. This is a great chance for the parents to come in and observe us, as well as a great opportunity to honor and learn from the veterans in our community. If you have a veteran in your family, please either invite them, or send me a picture of them. We will include them in our assembly. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

After Hurricane Sandy

Hopefully everyone and their homes are in good health after Hurricane Sandy. For all the time the students had off, they were very focused, respectful, and worked hard today. I have also heard that their behavior for the sub was the same. Thank you to any parent that helped. As Ms. Greene always say, we are better together.

We are very close to earning our class party! We do have a lot of "catch up" to play since our marking period is coming to an end soon.

Bryn Mawr Film Institute

I was out on Friday, and unfortunately missed Halloween (I did see some pictures and heard great reports), for training on a new writing initiative we are undertaking. Our fourth grade class will be participating in the See-Hear-Feel-Film program. This program uses films as a way to explore writing. The program is short and will be a more creative approach to the writing assignments we will already be doing. This program will be kicked off with a field trip to Bryn Mawr Film Inst. on Nov. 29th.

Here is some more info: http://75.126.29.244/education/seehear.php

American Ed/Veteran's Day Assembly

Because of the hurricane, we will be postponing the assembly until Nov. 19th at 2. As of now, we only have a few participants. If you have a veteran in your family, please invite them into our school so we can honor them as well as learn from them. I will be sending some more info about this shortly.

Social Studies Test

The new date for our Social Studies Test is Thursday, Nov. 8th.

Science Test

We will be having a Science Test soon; I will be able to choose a date once we figure a few things out schedule wise. We reviewed today and they students seemed to have a firm grasp on the content. They have a study guide in their binders. I'll give everyone the date soon.

Gold Card Night is 11/14

Correction: Picture Day is Thursday!

Correction: Picture Day is Thursday, not Friday

Book Fair, Picture Day, & Reading Night

Book Fair

Our Book Fair was today during our library time. The book fair will be open all week long as well as during Reading Night

 

Picture Day - Friday Thursday

Our picture day is Friday Thursday in the morning. Feel free to practice smiling :-)

Reading Night Thursday 6-8

Reading Night is this Thursday from 6-8. The book fair will be open during this time as well as other reading events. We will be introduced to this year's One Book, One School program. This year's book is going to be a big hint. I'll give everyone a hint: It's about a utensil, but we don't eat with it.

Math Test Friday & More

Math Test Friday

The students have been preparing for our math test this Friday. Today we started our self-assessment and math box assessment. Most didn't finish. That will be going home tomorrow and need to be signed. These are not for a grade, but rather to illuminate areas where we need to improve before the test. Please review them when they come home.

Studying

In addition to the flashcards, here are a few more tools to help study. A majority of this assessment is about understanding, writing, and using data from/for a graph. Here are a few fun interactive games that might help your students while preparing. Please also use your Student Reference Book on www.everydaymathonline.com. There are more games if you click on Math Resources on my blog also.

Bamzooki
This is a fun action pack game about mean, median, mode, and range. Median, mode, and range are large focuses for this assessment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/maths/data/mode_median_mean_range/play/

Interpreting Data
This is a simple, but fun game where you have to interpret data.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/ks2_activities/maths/interpreting_data.shtml

Estimating Game
I enjoy this game a lot; the kids do too. The goal is to quickly estimate the answer to the addition problem (select add 100s). You don't need to be accurate, just make a ballpark estimate.
http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/estimation-game.php

Unit 3
Feel free to take a sneak peek at Unit 3 - https://www.wrightgroup.com/download/em/em3mm_g4_u03_family_letters.pdf

Social Studies Test October 30th

The students will be getting a study guide for this shortly.

Reading Olympics

Many students signed up for Reading Olympics which is great! Reading Olympics is a competition that the students train for all year by reading books off of a specific list. Towards the end of the year, we will go to a competition where we will be asked to answer basic questions about these books. It is truly a fun and special time that is more rewarding the more effort you put into it. There should have been a green paper that went home recently about this. Please contact me if you didn't receive this. You need to sign up to participate.
Here is this year's list: http://www.mciu.org/Portals/0/MCIUDocuments/CIPD/Elem.%202013%20Booklist%20II.pdf

Halloween Permission Slips

I'm still missing a few Halloween permission slips. Your child will not be able to participate in our Halloween parade if they do not have the permission slip. If you need another one, please ask. If you do not want your child to participate, there will be an alternative activity for them, but please return the form.

Spelling Test Friday

This will be our last spelling test in Unit 1. Next week we will not have a spelling test, but we will have our Unit Test. I'll give everyone more info on that shortly.

Real World Daily Edits

I'm trying to start something new this year by encouraging students to find grammar errors outside of the classroom. If your student find one, they can do one of two things: take a picture of it if there is a camera or smart phone available or write down the grammatically incorrect text and where they found it. Either one is fine. I'm going collect the pictures on my blog as examples of common real world grammar errors. Errors in your little brother or sisters homework doesn't count. Here is an example  where they are missing an apostrophe (this was sent to me, but they are not related):

Sorry for the long post. That is everything, for now... :-)

Unit 2 Math Test Friday

We are going to have our Unit 2 math test this Friday.

We only have a spelling test this week in Communication Arts. Next week will be our Unit 1 test. Homework and classwork will be slightly different as we prepare. Note: If studying tonight, Partial-Difference Subtraction will be taught tomorrow.

I was able to find flashcards online to help us study for our math test.

Flashcards: http://quizlet.com/14193668/everyday-math-gr-4-unit-2-flash-cards/

Feel free to use our Family Letter as a study guide, too. A different study guide will be going home shortly.

Unit 2 Family Letter: https://www.wrightgroup.com/download/em/em3mm_g4_u02_family_letters.pdf

Also, please bring in any clear soda bottle you might have. We need them for a science project.

Partial-Sum & Column Addition

Today we learned two new ways to add. The students were able to quickly grasp partial-sums, but struggled with column addition. I think this is becuase it just seems like the traditional way they add, but with more (and confusing steps). Part of the theory behind our Everyday Math program is to develop a great "number sense." This means learning more than just one way to solve a problem.

I asked students who were struggling to bring home their Student Reference Books (pgs 10&11). These pages can also be access on www.everydaymathonline.com.

Here are two examples with videos (click the titles) of each method:

Partial-Sums

Column Addition

More examples can be found here under "Algorithms," "4," and then "Addition."

Clear Soda Bottles

Hello all,

A quick request:

If anyone has any clear 2-liter soda bottles at home please bring them in. We need them to build our ecotowers in science to similate an ecosystem. I have offered the students PROUD tickets if they can bring some in.

2 tickets for the older style bottles with straight sides
1 ticket for the newer bottles with curvey sides.

Thanks!

Science PSSA Test Date Change

PSSA Science Test is changed to Wednesday, October 17th. 

This was done to give the students more time to student. As I said before, these tests are historically challenging for students. You need to not only study, but be able to apply the knowledge learned too.

I have created a set of flashcards you can use for studying. These flashcards can be used to learn the terms and also to play games with. I think they can be accessed by a smart phone via a free app from Quizlet. If you use this, tell me what you think.

Study Guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/106eSCuAUj8dhSM3JRaqpsRPy0R_d-LMGiUEzW1Exn0g/edit

Flashcards: http://quizlet.com/_8vkqs

I have embedded this link to study, but if you click on the link above, you will be able to play some games with the words.

Today I sent home all of our tests in our Test Folders. If you can, please sign the tests in the folder by tomorrow. The students get a PROUD ticket for returning their Test Folder in one day. If you would like more time to look over the tests, please just write a note. If I get the note by tomorrow, they will get a PROUD ticket. Either way I will need all test folders returned by Friday, please. Today we talked briefly about what we can do better on our test. Each student came up with two or three goals for how they can better prepare for a test. Please review these and we will work as a team to make sure it happens.

We will have a test in Science PSSA on Thursday. These tests have historically been challenging for the students. They were given a Study Guide today. Please use it to guide your studying because it was developed from the test. I have a few extra copies if one is misplaced.

As always, please feel free to ask me any questions or share with me any concerns.

We will be having our first math test this Thursday. It will be on what we have covered so far in Unit 1. In short, the test is very vocab heavy. The students need to know what line segments, lines, and rays are as well the differences between them and how they are named. There will also be a section on properly categorizing and identifying shapes.

A review sheet went home tonight as homework that should properly cover the span of the contenet for this assessment. Please make sure you're using the great online resources we have available also.

Family Letter: This shows what is part of Unit 1
https://www.wrightgroup.com/download/em/em3mm_g4_u01_family_letters.pdf

Everyday Math Online:
http://www.everydaymathonline.com

This is my first post since Back to School Night and my first time using this blog for parent communication. I chose to use this service because not only will you receive emails when I post, but you can always reference this site for dates, notes, and past updates, as opposed to digging through old emails. If you subscribe, then all posts will automatically be sent to you.

Hopefully this post has also come through as an email. If you can, please forward the email to me at: michaelcarroll@abington.k12.pa.us


Here is my PowerPoint Presentation from that night:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByViZRLZTZ-pLTdzXzNNUXBiUGs

Hello,

We are off to start another Open House tonight. I was very excited to start this year. My excitement increased once I was able to meet all of the amazing students in my class. They are a very smart, respectful, kind, and dedicated group. It is going to be a great year.

I plan on using this blog to post upcoming notices about tests, assignments, and special events. Please make sure you subscribe (look to your right). This way you will get an email sent to you with every post. Please explore the links to the right. I have been able to gather a great group of resources for our classroom.

Here are some resources of note:

Homework - You can acess this online homework book everyday to double check homework assignments.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiViZRLZTZ-pdDgtZThiUm1sMWR3d1JkT0tjdDNzRUE#gid=0

Workbooks - If your child forgets either his Practice O, Grammar, Spelling, and/or Study Link, they can access them online here:
http://carroll-overlook.wikispaces.com/Workbooks

Everyday Math Online - This is new this year. Your student can find examples, word meanings, and play games that involve the daily math lesson.
www.everydaymathonline.com

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns that rise.

michaelcarroll [at] abington.k12.pa.us

- Mike