March 25 - 29Dear Parents & Students!
One more week and then spring break! Hope you all have some excited things planned. Breaks are a great time for students to have fun experiences and use these for improving their writing. Consider encouraging them to keep a journal or write a couple of things down about their adventures. Topics this week: Reading: We are almost done with the BAS assessment, a reading assessment that is done one on one with each kid. Students are working in small groups to pick a book for their final book club. For most groups this will be their last book. Thank you so much for supporting your child's love of reading this year by helping them to get more personalized reading material. At this point in the year we have covered all of the fourth grade standards and will begin circling back with mini lessons to review and prepare for Milestones. We will go through each standard, comparing and contrasting the literary and informational standards. This week we will review standards:
In language arts students will be finished their non-fiction projects. We have extended the due date to this Wednesday. Students will continue to write about the topics they chose for their informational essay, however, they will incorporate the five text structures and text features. They will also have to identify which perspective they wrote the majority of their project in (first or secondhand account.) Students are working on these projects in Google Classroom. Grammar: We are still learning about affixes. We will continue learning about the affix "tele" this week. The students have done a great job identifying roots in the words they are reading and writing. We will begin our review of standards with reviewing:
Reminders: 4th grade READING AND LANGUAGE ARTS has a NEW WEBSITE! Everything we are learning about, including extra resources will be housed on this new website (for all of 4th grade.) Instead of having resources just for my class, the 4th grade Reading Team decided to spread the love! Here is the link: http://dolvin4threla.weebly.com iReady: Fulton County's goal is to strive for students to work on iReady for 45 minutes a week in Reading. I have started to assign this as homework (just 25 minutes at home) and we will continue to work on this program in class. I will be sending home a weekly accountability sheet that students will fill out as they are working on this program. CLASSROOM NEEDS: Candy! If you have any candy laying around the house that you would like to donate to our class, I would be more than happy to take it off your hands. The students love incentives! The School Governance Council would like to examine ways we can help all parents be more involved at Dolvin. Please take this short survey to provide the council with valuable information about how to improve opportunities for parent volunteering. Your answers will be anonymous unless you choose to provide contact information. Thank you! https://goo.gl/forms/lf2X6ZYehIXFxl4V2 Chick-Fil-A Spirit Night is this Wednesday! PLEASE GET A RECORDER FOR YOUR CHILD FOR MUSIC! :) That's all for now! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns by emailing me directly at [email protected]. Have a wonderful week! Jenn Shaffer Dolvin Elementary School E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://mrsjennshaffer.weebly.com Twitter: @mrsjennshaffer March 11 - 15Dear Parents & Students!
I hope you have fully adjusted from the time change. I am excited that it will be light out a little longer and that spring is right around the corner. Topics this week: Reading AND Writing: I will (hopefully) complete administering the BAS assessment to all students by the end of the week. This is done one on one with the teacher. Thanks so much for continuing to support your child's love of reading by getting them a copy of the book they chose to read for book club. These books are on their individual reading levels. Some students are starting to complete their books and will be working on answering comprehension questions based on what they read. We will also be reviewing non-fiction text structures (description, compare & contrast, cause & effect, chronological order, and problem & solution), non fiction text features (graph, bold print, illustration, photograph, map, glossary, index, etc.), and perspective based on a non fiction text (firsthand and secondhand account.) We will have a test on these concepts on Wednesday. Remember, there are notes in your child's binder, on our Google Classroom, on our class website, and on the grade level ELA website. In writing, we have completed the informational essay and have started the Non Fiction project. Students will continue to write the topics they chose for their informational essay, however, they will incorporate the five text structures and text features. They will also have to identify which perspective they wrote the majority of their project in (first or secondhand account.) You can find the beginning phases of their project on Google Classroom. Grammar: We are still learning about affixes. We will be complete learning about the affixes "chron" and "graph/gram" this week. The students have done a great job identifying these root words in their reading and also defining words that consist of these roots. We will have short quiz on these roots as well as words from their last two Words Their Way spelling sorts on Friday. Reminders:
That's all for now! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns by emailing me directly at [email protected]. Have a wonderful week! Jenn Shaffer Dolvin Elementary School E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://mrsjennshaffer.weebly.com Twitter: @mrsjennshaffer March 4 - 8Dear Parents & Students!
Topics this week: Reading AND Language Arts: We will continue working on taking the BAS assessment and this is done one on one with the teacher. Thanks so much for continuing to support your child's love of reading by getting them a copy of the book they chose to read for book club. These books are on their individual reading levels. Some students are starting to complete their books and will be working on answering comprehension questions based on what they read. We will also be continuing to learn about non-fiction text structures (description, compare & contrast, cause & effect, chronological order, and problem & solution). We are reading aloud Fantastic Failures and through this read aloud students have been able to identify a variety of text structures. We have currently read about Oprah Winfrey, J.K. Rowling, and Nelson Mandela. For our essays, we have completed the Fulton County Write Score assessment. We have also completed all of our lessons on how to write an informational essay (intro, body, and conclusion). We will continue to review as students finish their informational essays on their chosen topic. We will then move into writing about our informational topics using the five text structures. You can find notes and info on our website as well as Google Classroom. Students will also continue to work on the informational essays for their magazine. Grammar: We are still learning about affixes. We will continue learning about the affixes "chron" and "graph." Take notice of when you use words with these affixes at home. Reminders:
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Mrs. ShafferMy name is Jennifer Shaffer. I have been teaching for 16 years now. I have taught a variety of different grades and levels. I graduated from the University of Alabama with my undergraduate degree. While there I did my student teaching abroad in Australia. After college I loved learning so much that I continued my studies at Piedmont College where I got my Master in Early Childhood Education and my Specialist in Teaching and Learning. I have taught at a variety of schools around Georgia and have had many experiences to observe in unique classrooms. In 2008 I went with the Japanese Consulate to Japan to study their educational system and culture through the International Educators to Japan (IEJ). Weekly E-mail/BlogArchives
May 2019
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