From Mrs. Collins' Desk....

This week I read a picture book to the students called The Mitten Tree. In the story, an elderly woman knits mittens and hangs them on a blue spruce tree for the needy children in her neighborhood. It is a very sweet story with a touching lesson. The fourth grade students will have their own mitten tree to help the needy. If your child would like to participate, please send mittens or gloves to school the week we return from Thanksgiving Break. The mittens or gloves can be any size, color or design. This will be a special project for our students to share many mittens and gloves with needy children this winter season. Thanks for your help.

I have been so impressed with the Book Talks given by the students during the past weeks!  Students have shown such enthusiasm for the books that they have read.  Their excitement is contagious.  Other students are wanting to read the books they are hearing about or read other books from the same author that they have enjoyed.  

Speaking of books, the Scholastic book order has been shipped and will be given out tomorrow.  Thank you for ordering from Scholastic, because of our order I was able to receive close to 100 free books for our class library!  Many of the free books were presented in the Book Talks.  I have asked students to return all of my classroom library books by today.  During Thanksgiving, I want to reorganize it to make it more user friendly.  Please look around your home and ask your child to look in their backpack and school desk for my books.  

Lastly, students are reading the story "Pat Cummings:  My Story".  The skills taught this week are fact/opinion, summarizing, and suffixes.  The story quiz will be on Friday.  There will be no new word wall stems, definitions, and words given out this week.  We will pick back up on the Wednesday we return from break.  

I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with lots of family, fellowship, and food!

From Mrs. Collins' Desk....

The students are doing a fabulous job on their Book Talks!  The students are really getting interested in many different books.  We will be finishing them up next week.


Social Science News from Mrs. Baugh:  This week, in science, we had a fun time as we tried to simulate different bird beaks using spoons, forks, straws, and toothpicks.  The students worked in pairs as they tried to pick up rice, foam packing peanuts, and water.  It was an interesting way to introduce a lesson on animal adaptations.  Ask your child about the "Blubber Glove," and why we did that experiment.  Science is so much fun!

Keep clipping out those Box Tops for our Box Top Bonanza in November!  The grade level who has collected the most Box Tops receives a pizza party.  Plus we are earning money for our school.

From the Mrs. Collins' Desk

Students will begin presenting their Book Talks next week.  For the past two weeks, they have been given a large part of their reading class to read their book.  Many have finished their books and preparing for their Book Talk.  Each student knows what is to be expected and the calendar of when they will present.  It is key that students practice their Book Talk several times, preferably in front of someone.  Here is the schedule of who is presenting next week:

Monday:                No school

Tuesday:              Hannah & Dorian

Wednesday:        Caleb & Lydia

Thursday:            Corynne & Westin

Friday:                 Eli & Harrison

Next week, we will be starting a new unit by reading The Hatmaker's Sign.  The skills we will be working on are making judgments/decisions, using context clues, summarizing, and learning suffixes.The new unit's theme is how we can use our talents to communicate ideas.  

Even though we won't have school on Monday, Word Wall will still be on Wednesday and the story quiz will be on Friday.

On Tuesday, I sent home November's Scholastic book order.  If you would like to order books for gifts and keep them secret from your child, you can send me an email to hold those books and I will keep them in my classroom for you to pick up.   Book orders are due Friday, November 11th.