Penny Harvest Begins!

Please support our annual Penny Harvest! We were visited by the Penny Savers today with some great information on how our pennies can help our communities. Check out the video above!

We accept nickels, dimes, and quarters, too.

Week 9

Our second month comes to a close. We are within two weeks of our first (gasp) report card! Please note that report cards will be given out on Nov. 14 and Parent Teacher Conferences will take place the next day. A notice will be sent home next week with sign up slips.

Here are some other events to look forward to this upcoming week:

• We have begun our second Social Studies unit, Native Americans of New York State. The focus of the unit will be on two groups: the Iroquois and the Lenape Algonquins. We have already read an article introducing us to the Algonquins and looked at some artifacts. We also enjoyed a short film about the life style of the native people. At the end of the unit, students should recognize the contributions of the Native Americans to our history and culture.
• The third Math unit will include work in Multiplication and Division through number sentences and algebraic equations. Students will review multiplication/ division facts and fact families, then solve multiplication/ division problems in different formats such as the In and Out boxes.
• Monday is Halloween! Alex's mom, Mrs. Lewandowski, will teach us how to make pumpkin bread. 
• Monday is also Wacky Wardrobe Day. Your child has the following note explaining the event: On Monday, October 31,  we are observing Halloween with some odd wardrobe choices. This can be:
  ·    clothes worn inside out
  ·    mismatched shoes or socks
  ·    interesting color combinations
  ·    pajamas
  Please be aware that Monday is our gym day, so footwear has to be comfortable for physical activities.  Also, students might be asked to remove any pieces that can be distracting (ex. a hat, loud jangly jewelry, etc.).
  
  
  We discussed in class that this also means that there are no masks or costumes, in compliance with school policy. 
  
  
• Our First Friday on Nov. 4th will be led by Mrs. Treinen, Stella's mom. Students will construct False Face masks, an important item in the Native American culture. These masks have deliberately exaggerated features intended to scare away evil spirits.
• We are also finishing our Realistic Fiction and Character Study work in our reading and writing work this week. Students will publish their short stories. At times during the week, your child will bring home the piece to work on. Please encourage your child to look over his or her work for capital letters, punctuation marks and clear paragraphs. While some children will resort to inventive spelling for challenging words, basic sight words should be spelled correctly.
• Finally,  the median in this set of numbers: {23, 18, 16, 23, 25, 15, 11} is 18. All voters were correct! Great job!!! Please check out the new poll question.

I appreciate all the positive support the class and I have received over this first two months. What a great class and great families we have!
Have a fantastic weekend!

Week 8

We had an exciting week with our first trip and our first visit to the Armory.
Here are some events to look forward to in the upcoming week:

• Thursday is Picture Day! Our class will be in the MMR at 11:45am to have pictures taken. If you are interested in purchasing pictures, please return the order form with your child by Thursday. 
• We are finishing our second unit in math. The Unit 2 test will be given on Friday. Students who want additional practice can look at the following pages in the Student Reference Book (SRB) for:

                             Maximum, Minimum, Mode,
                                     Range and Median: p 73-74
                             Addition Methods: p 10-11
                             Trade First Subtraction:  p 12
                              Line Plots and Charts: p 71
There are extra practice questions in the blue boxes labeled Check Your Understanding. Feel free to use those questions. Each child was given a paper back copy of the SRB this week to keep at home until the end of the year.

In addition to the topics listed above, the test will also contain questions about expanded notation and word form of numbers.

Have a great weekend!

Green Meadows Pictures by Ms. Rao

Bird watching.

Bird watching us back!

Home with our pumpkins!

A Native American Dancer in regalia.

We had a great time at Green Meadows. Despite our late arrival, we were able to witness some amazing sights on a beautiful day. Our thanks to Uma's mom for these great pictures!

Partial Sums Addition

If your child is struggling with the Partial Sums Addition method, please look under our Math Links and click on the Everyday Math Algorithm link. There is a link to a video demonstration of the method.
Children were encouraged to bring home their math notebook if they felt it was needed for tonight's homework.

Poll

Another name for 64,037 is sixty four thousand, thirty seven. Numbers can be given in word form. Be careful not to say sixty four thousand AND thirty seven because that would make it a decimal number! Good work to most of the kids who voted! Please try our new poll!

Week 7

Thank you to all the internet connected families who read this blog! By doing this, you are helping PS 154 save paper and be a greener school.

The school has placed an order for copies of the Take Home Student Reference Book for each student in our class. Until we receive them, your child has permission to take home the class copy. Students are also encourage to bring home their notebooks whenever they feel the need to, as long as the notebook is returned the next day.

Here are some events to note for this upcoming week:

• On Tuesday, we will be headed to the Armory! Please make sure your child wears sneakers and clothes that are appropriate for physical activity.
• Please look for a Behavior and Effort Progress Report in your child's Homework folder this Tuesday. This is not a report card but will hopefully give you some idea about how your child's behavior is in class. 
• On Thursday, we will head over to Green Meadows to participate in the Festival of Cultures. We have six wonderful parent chaperones going with us. If you have signed up to be a chaperone, please expect a letter with more details on Monday.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Vote on Our Poll!

In last week's poll, a shape that has three rectangular faces and two triangular faces is a triangular prism.
Please vote on this week's poll. Watch out for the tricky choices!

Week 6

It was great to see how many parents came to our Curriculum Conference on Wednesday! It was all too brief but I hope the information was helpful. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please send a note with your child to me and I will do my best to answer it.

In regard to some concerns about math, please note that there is now a link on this website to the Everyday Math Website Mr. Havlik mentioned at the meeting. It is located under the Math links, labeled Everyday Math Homework Help. Mr. Havlik is also looking into ordering Take Home copies of the Student Reference book for our class.

Here are some events coming up for the week starting October 18:

• School is closed on Monday for Columbus Day.
• Our Personal Narratives were well received by the many parents who came to read our stories this First Friday! The next unit of writing will build on our narrative skills. We will make short Realistic Fiction stories. Children will work on developing a story with a plotline, believable characters and a moral.  We will  continue practicing our show not tell strategies, such as descriptive writing and using similes/metaphors to describe.
• We also began a new unit in math today. This unit will focus on Numeration and Data, which includes exploring place value into the billions, and creating charts and line plots.

We have booked our first trip for October 20th. The fourth grade is going to a Festival of Cultures in Green Meadows Park to experience the culture of the Native People of New York.  Please send in your child's permission slip and admission if you have not already done so. Many thanks to the parents who have already replied and to those who have volunteered to be chaperones. I will contact you with more information about chaperone duty soon. 

Thank you very much for your support! Here are some pictures from our first Music class as we learn to read sheet music!

Have a fantastic weekend!

What is Realistic Fiction?

As we start this new reading unit, please be aware that not only will children read realistic fiction, but historical fiction as well. Historic fiction is considered a subcategory of realistic fiction since these are stories that could have happened in real life. In historical fiction, setting (time and place) has a greater impact on the characters' behavior, especially in gender roles.