February 9-13

Happy Valentine's Day!

A big thank you to all who came in for parent teacher conferences. It was wonderful to meet with each of you. If you did not make it into a conference your child's progress report will be coming home on Monday. If you would like to conference with me please know my door is always open and I would be happy to schedule a time.

AZ Merit Test....A heads up you will be seeing a lot of the common core workbooks coming home! We are working on them in class and there will be homework from the ELA (English Language Arts) book and the Math book.

Valentines Day Party...We will be making Valentine "Mailboxes" in class. I have a white bag and decorations for the students to make one this week. So you don't have to worry about making a mailbox! Students are encouraged to bring valentines to share with the class. Please make sure they have a valentine for everyone in the class, it is no fun to be left out. We have 25 students in our class. Our party will be for the last hour of the day on Friday and the children can pass out their Valentines and share treats they have brought in. Treats are welcome, I am not making any assignments. An easy peasy party. Please just have your student sign their name in cursive on the Valentines. (Please don't send in Valentine's or treats until Friday) Thank you!

WEDNESDAY IS EARLY RELEASE 11:30
NO SCHOOL MONDAY- President's Day

Our field trip was a success! We had so much fun at the World Wildlife Zoo. I love spending time with my class outside of the classroom. It is fun to see their personalities! What an awesome group of kids I have. Here are a few pictures.

The fourth grade team is THE BEST TEAM!! Log ride! 

I'm sorry...love my wack-o hair in this one!

For Fun: In class today we read an Asian/Indian Folktale called, One Grain of Rice. The heroin in the story makes a deal with the Raja to double one grain of rice each day for thirty days. We did the math today, doubling all the way from 1-30. It was a lot of math! However, the kids were totally engaged and loved it! I have given them the option if they are done with their work in class to use the computer to play educational games on FreeRice.com. They also have to pay me $20.00 of class money for computer time. Free Rice is AWESOME! They donate ten grains of rice to children in third world staving countries for each correct answer! I am going to assign math fact practice on FreeRice for homework tonight (Monday) that way the kids get a chance to check it out and help other kids in the process. I hope they end up loving it and will use this site often. I am making it mandatory at my own home that my kids use Free Rice for 10 minutes after homework and before any TV or video games. Enjoy!! Here is the link to the site. ( This all ties into our study of China/Asia)

http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1442

Spelling Words:

1. paragraph
2. patient
3. patience
4. pianist
5. pianos
6. piano
7. pickles
8. pickle
9. prisoner
10. release
11. resign
12. reveal
13. sleeve
14. soldier
15. summary
16. sum
17. sword
18. tomatoes
19. tomato
20. often
21. motion
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23. improvement
24. improve
25. century
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27. total
28. mention
29. arrive
30. supply