Curriculum Sept. 21- Oct. 2

Reminders:
Oct. 1 - Picture Day -  Order online at mylifetouch.com Use code KM985101Q0 
or you can return the order form your child brought home.

Oct. 8, 2015: Early Release Day:  School Dismisses at 1:30pm

Oct. 23 2:00-3:00:  Fall Festival Party- Our theme is 70s Retro

Reading - We are continuing to read Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo as a class to practice making inferences, describing characters, and summarizing.  Students practice these same skills independently in their book club books.  Teachers meet with students weekly for a collaborative book club discussion.  

Writing - Students have picked a topic for their realistic fiction piece and are currently working on developing their character both internally and externally.  Students will also use a story arc to help them plan out their story.

Math - Fourth graders are working on comparing, ordering, and rounding numbers in our current place value unit.  Students will take their Topic 3 test at the end of the week.  We'll begin Topic 4 next week.  

Science - Our animal research projects are complete!  Students did a fabulous job making computer presentations and presenting their findings to their classes.

Social Studies - We finished up our geography unit and are now diving into an economics unit.  We'll spend this unit learning about economic topics such as natural resources, renewable/nonrenewable resources, supply & demand, goods & services, financial investments vs. savings, and taxes.  Students will choose a business partner and then they will develop a business that provides either a good or service.  

Parent-Teacher Conference Sign-up

Parent and Teacher Conferences will be held on Wednesday, October 28 and Thursday, October 29, 2015. We need your help to achieve our school goal of 100% parent attendance at conferences.

Conferences are twenty minutes in duration and are scheduled back-to-back beginning at 5:00pm on Wednesday. Once again this year, we are using the online SignUp Genius tool to schedule conferences. Please click on the link to schedule your conference appointment:

Here is the link:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d49afa622a5fe3-English

Early Release Dates

Fall Career Share Signup... For the Guys

Sept. 14- 18 Curriculum Updates

Reading - We began our second topic this week:  Following Characters Into Meaning.  In this unit readers will be focusing on strengthening their abilities to make interpretations of texts.  This is a unit which teaches students to read with inference and interpretation, developing text-based theories about characters, supporting those theories with evidence from the text, and viewing characters and their motivations through a different lens.  Students began reading a book club book this week and started learning about their main character by thinking about internal and external traits as well as motivations, desires, and obstacles in their life.

Writing - Fourth graders worked this week on publishing their piece from Unit 1.  Next week, we'll begin Unit 2.

Math - Students worked this week to generate a number or shape pattern that follows a rule.  Often these patterns were found in tables.  Students learned to find the rule and fill in missing numbers.  We ended the week by learning to draw a picture or use reasoning to problem solve.  Next week students will take their Topic 2 Test and we'll begin Topic 3.

Science - Students continued to research a Missouri animal this week and began creating a digital presentation (PowerPoint or Google Slides) to share the information with the class.  Students will be presenting these projects next week.

Social Studies - We finished up our first unit of geography this week, by discussing urban, rural, and suburban communities.  We also learned about Missouri's Art and Culture. Students will be assess on this unit before we begin on our next unit.

Picture Day is Coming Soon!

English Landing School
Picture Day: Thursday, October 1
Picture Day ID: KM985101Q0

Picture Day is Thursday, October 1. 
Simplify Picture Day by ordering online at mylifetouch.com. No need to send cash or flyer back to school when you order online

• See more options available online
• Use credit card or PayPal on our secure site

Pedidos en español disponibles por internet. ¡Encarga hoy en mylifetouch.com!

 

Student Expectations for Responsible Computing

Red Thursday!

English Landing will once again participate in our long standing tradition of wearing red for the Kansas City Chiefs home opener on Thursday, September 17^th. This is a unique change since most “red” celebrations occur on Red Friday with the first home opener coming on the following Sunday. This year the first home opener falls on a Thursday. This day is now being called “RED THURSDAY!”  Here is the official statement from the Chiefs website.

Curriculum Updates: Sept. 9 - Sept. 11

Thanks to all the families who came to Touchdown Family Math Night!  It was fun seeing families play math games together.  If you were unable to attend, look for some math games to come home next week.  These would be great games to play for home learning.

Reading - Students focused on completing their English Language Arts Acuity Test this week to provide teachers with some baseline data to help guide instruction.

Writing - Fourth graders worked on revising, editing, and publishing their small moment piece of writing from the introductory writing unit.  Next week we'll be making plans for writing a realistic fiction story.

Math - On Wednesday, fourth graders took the Topic 2 Pretest on the Pearson SuccessNet website. We began Topic 2 - Generate and Analyze Patterns.  On Thursday, students learned about repeating patterns.  On Friday, students found the missing rule in a pattern and learned how to explain the pattern's rule. Topic 2 is only 6 lessons long so we'll be finishing all the lessons by the end of next week.

Science - Each 4th grader has chosen a Missouri animal and they working to research the animal's environment, interactions with other plants and animals,  specialized structures, and special behaviors that help the animal survive.  Finally, students are researching how humans have helped or harmed the animal. We are finding out that there are a lot of interesting animals in Missouri!

Social Studies - We finished up learning about the 4 geographical regions of Missouri this week.  We are also studying how all the regions are interdependent on one another.  Finally, we discussed the similarities and differences between rural, suburban, and urban areas in Missouri.

Touchdown Family Math Night

We are looking forward to seeing you on Thursday!  

Missouri Animal/Ecosystem Research

Use these links to help you find a Missouri animal to research:

Missouri Department of Conservation
Xplor - Missouri Dept. of Conservation Kids Site
National Park Service
State Symbols of Missouri

August 31 - Sept. 4 Curriculum Updates

Reminder:  No School on Monday, September 7 due to Labor Day & No School on Tuesday, September 8 due to a Teacher Professional Development day.

Reading - We wrapped up our first reading unit this week.  We discussed how important it is for readers to share their reading with others.  Fourth graders were paired up with a classmate so they can frequently share their thinking about what they are reading.  Classes developed expectations for accountable talk such as making eye contact when someone is speaking and asking follow-up questions about their reading.  Readers also learned how to stop and jot their thinking as they read.  Finally, classes read and then wrote down their thinking about the main character in Thank You, Mr. Falker as a pre-assessment to Unit 2.  Classes also worked on English Language Arts (ELA) Acuity on the computer.  Next week, we'll being our 2nd Unit:  Following Characters Into Meaning.

Writing - Our writing mini lessons this week focused on grammar.  Each day students learned about one of the following:  adjectives, verbs, adverbs, homophones & pronouns.  After learning what each part of speech was, students practiced spicing up their writing by adding more interesting language to their writing.

Math - In math, we studied special quotients such as 0 and 1.  Students also used multiplication facts to find division facts.  Finally, students practice solving problem situations by drawing a picture and writing an equation to match.  Classes took their Topic 1 Assessment to end the week.  Next week we'll begin Topic 2 which is a shorter unit on patterns.  Students will also complete the Math Acuity on the computer as well as on paper.

Science - In science, we continued our Ecosystems unit.  Some topics we learned about are how plants interact with animals (pollination/seed dispersal), how people disturb the balance of ecosystems, and Missouri fossils.  Finally, students chose a Missouri animal to begin researching for their research topic.  We'll continue our research next week as well!

Social Studies - Students continued to study Missouri's geography including how rivers and lakes are used in Missouri and effects of flooding.  Next week we'll look more closely at Missouri's 4 geographical regions.