This Week in Our Class

Classroom News

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Welcome Back  Welcome Back to school!  I hope you had a relaxing Spring Break.   Thank you to all the families who attended our Open House back in March.  The students were so proud of their work!  Thank you for your support, as always. Reminders: Our field trip to the Olivas Adobe is on Friday.  Please be sure to dress in layers and bring an old towel.  Students should have their lunch in their lunch box or bag and their snack kept in a separate bag.  A little yellow reminder sheet will come home on Wednesday with more information.    Return your Spring Pictures or money or both by this Friday.  Look for our Gold Rush Day flyer coming home this week.  We need lots of help for this day!  Thank you!  Gold Rush Day will be on May 1st. We are preparing for our play, which will be on May 6th! Students should be practicing and singing at home EVERY DAY!! I would appreciate your help with this! Curriculum News English Language Arts - We are starting to read Esperanza Rising, as well as the picture book called Harvesting Hope - The Ceasar Chavez story Mathematics - Continuing fractions and moving on to decimals Writing - One more informative piece and Intro to Persuasive Writing Science - Finishing Earth Science with Mrs. Dant, and moving on to Life Science Social Studies - moving from the CA mission system to the Rancho time period in history

Open House This Wednesday!

Reminder 

This Wednesday is Open House

March 25th from 6:00 - 7:00

We will get out of school at 12:30 

Because Open House is not at the end of the year anymore, it is showing work accomplished so far, and work in progress.

You will get to experience activities, games, and experiments that your children are engaged in on a daily basis! Super FUN!

The students are very proud, and I know excited to share everything!

I am thrilled to be able to watch them share with you. 

I encourage you all to attend!

Reminder!

A reminder that Wednesday, March 11, Thursday, March 12, and Friday, March 13 are minimum days with a dismissal time of 12:30. If your child is involved in El Camino Tutoring, it is cancelled this week!

HOMEWORK FOR TONIGHT!

Homework for Thursday, February 26th

We are getting ready for the Smarter Balance Test at the end of fourth grade! 
Tonight, check out the website and the practice test for math 4th grade. Become familiar with the tools and try some Language Arts questions.

• Type http://caaspp.org/practice-and-training/ in the address or search bar or click here: Practice Test  and click on "Student Interface Practice and Training Tests"
• click on "sign in" (you are a guest)
• Select your grade and click "yes"
• Select ELA 3-5 Training Test

There is no other ELA homework tonight! You don't have to do the entire test but do some practice. About  1/2 hour is good!

Have fun!

Remember, your ADJUSTING A RECIPE PROJECT is due tomorrow!

We Ask, Hailey Answers!

Check out the answers to some questions we asked Hailey about Bele, Ethiopia!CLICK HERE to go to Hailey's Blog Post "From the Mouths of America's Future

The Week Ahead...

First of all, I'd like to take a minute to thank you all for making me feel so special and loved on Friday! I would also like to thank you for your donations to our "Minute to Win It, Valentine Edition" games! A HUGE thank you to Mrs. Keating, Mrs. Hahm Takelender, Mrs. Avellaneda, and Mr. Petersen for their help in making it such a memorable experience for our kids!

To see PHOTOS click on the PHOTO link above! Hysterical videos coming soon!

We are still in need of paper towels, tissues, white copy paper, and baby wipes in the classroom

Thank You!

Come watch your child BALLROOM DANCE! 

This Thursday, February19 from 12:20-1:10 come to the auditorium to be treated to a peek of their growing talent! Please sign in at the office before coming to the auditorium!

Curriculum This Week in:

Math: 

We will continue to focus on fractions. 
There will be a FRACTION KNOWLEDGE AND DECOMPOSING FRACTION QUIZ ON WEDNESDAY!
Please continue to refer to the link I sent last week to help you help your child. Here it is again: CLICK HERE. You can also refer to the Eureka Form that went home a few weeks ago and is highlighted on the JANUARY 25TH post.

English Language Arts:

Informational Writing and annotating text. Finish up work with Who Was Steve Jobs?

Science (Mrs. Dant):

Continuing to work on Earth Science

Social Studies:

Delving further into our unit on California Missions. Taking the perspective of BOTH the Spanish and the California Natives!

Health:

Informational Writing on various health topics

Canoga Park HS Art Show

One person from our class has submitted art to the Canoga Parks Art Show taking place on Saturday, February 21, 2015.  

All the other students who were interested in having their art displayed, remember please turn your work in to me by Wednesday.  I gave all the students who were interested in submitting their artwork a flyer with an application last week, but will send another slip home on Tuesday asking for your permission to submit the WARM AND COOL COLORS SUNSET piece we did in class. If you choose to ONLY submit the sunset piece from school. all that is needed is the signed application by WEDNESDAY!

Parents, you must fill out the application on the page 2.  Everything is due on Wednesday.  Please let me know you have any questions.  Here is the information on the art show.  Everyone is welcome to stay and enjoy the show and other activities on this day.  Thank you!

Minute to Win it

THANK YOU! And On To The Third and Final Phase!

We are the proud recipients of 4 Chromebooks and 6 colorful covers! 

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Our 3rd and final phase (3 Chromebooks, 1 more cover, and a storage compartment) of our project is up!

If you have any friends or family who would like to help, we were lucky enough to get the opportunity for matching funds again. By entering SPARK in the promo code section, the donation will be DOUBLED!!

Here is the link Our Donation Page for TechYeslogy, Not TechNology, To Ethiopia and Beyond3

EXCITING NEWS

A journalist got wind of our request and may be writing a short article on us, our request, and our relationship with our new pen pals from Ethiopia!

Updates and Other Points of Interest

This week we will be studying:

In Math: Finishing up our division unit and moving on to fractions
Click HERE for an EXCELLENT overview of fractions the COMMON CORE way

In ELA: Continuing Who Was Steve Jobs, along with informative writing and text structure

In Science: Mrs. Dant continues instruction in Earth Science

In Social Studies: Finishing up Explorers and moving on to California Missions. There will be a quiz on Explorers this Wednesday. Use the link in the upper right hand corner to log on to your  Pearson OLE Social Studies  page (using the same username and password as Pearson Realize-Math) for assignments to help you study

In Art: Continue our study on creating texture using lines to create Power Hands!

Thank you for contributing to our Donors Choose project. 

We have secured 4 Chromebooks and 6 iPearl covers!

You are the best!

We are SO grateful and appreciative!

The 3rd and final phase will include 2 more Chromebook and a storage center! That will be coming soon!

GLOBAL THINKING

Ethiopian Pen Pals

We are in the process of writing back our Ethiopian Pen Pals and creating a video to show our life in West Hills. We are even learning how to write some Amharic phrases in Fidel! Pretty impressive!

Students are brainstorming ideas and we may need your help in capturing photos and very short videos of your child engaged in their everyday activities like dance and sports.

A video they shared with us of their Wolitic traditional dance

We are in need of tissues, paper towels, and white copy paper in the classroom

Thank You!

Our New Way to Divide

Today we learned a really cool way to divide. Here are examples for students who need help remembering, and for their parents!

Click HERE for Division Homework Help Video Explanation (This uses a 2 digit divisor and we are only using a one digit divisor)