The Brubaker Buzz

December 2, 2011 Impor Mrs. Brubakers 4th Grade Issue 14

Mrs. Claus Cottage Dont forget to send the tags and money with your child for their shopping day on Wednesday. All Pro Dads There was a note sent home about providing breakfast items for next weeks breakfast. Please consider doing this special thing for them. Its a great way to show compassion to the men and children. Ive signed up as well!
I cannot believe that December is already here! Fourth grade seems to fly by more quickly each year. Your children are working very hard in class to learn everything they can. With only 2 weeks left until the end of 2nd quarter, we have to continue our pace of learning and work just as hard. Encourage your child to go the extra mile while working on school work. Let them share what they learned with you at school. This will help them remember what theyve learned even better. Our mission, at school, is to develop life-long learners, not just a learner that knows things for a test. Weve been working on that in class, by learning how to critically think while were completing tasks. For example, while working on finding the most important detail from the text, students were encouraged to debate with their teams; then come up with one detail together. I heard a lot of great discussions and the strongest details came from those. After that, the students had to develop a main idea sentence that came from the details they picked in the story. When you read a little with your child, make a mental note of important details and develop a main idea from those. Your child knows that the main idea is different than details, but it will be developed from the details they gather while reading.

Character Word:
Dates to Remember
*12/6 Angel Tree items due *12/7- Our visit to Mrs. Claus cottage *12/8 School board mtg. 6:30 p.m. *12/9 All Pro Dad breakfast @ 7:30 *12/15 PTA Movie party 5:30-8:00 p.m. *12/19-Moms, Mugs, and Muffins @9:30 *12/21-Bucket Buster Assembly @ 2:30 Compassion

Putting others first

Ask Me, I Know! -What are the three branches of government? What does each branch do? (Use the cheer that we learned in class) -What are the types of metric measurement units that weve learned so far? -What are the types of U.S. Customary measurement units that weve learned this far?

A Look Back
We certainly kept busy this week! We dabbled a bit in a review of measurement and learned quite a bit of new things. We learned how to better read a ruler and break the inches side down into fractions of an inch. We also learned the difference between Metric and U.S. Customary units. The students also had a chance to measure items around the classroom using several different tools, such as ruler, meter sticks, and yard sticks. Well do a quick review on Monday of what weve learned and tie that in with 2D and 3D shapes next week. This week, during reading, we focused on finding the main idea of a passage by using details straight from the text. It sounds easy, but its difficult to match the main idea and specific details at this age. Well work on that many times throughout the year. We also finished our large social studies unit on the American Revolution and government. That means well begin our next big science unit next week!

Math Well review what weve learned how to do in measurement on Monday. Then for the remainder of the week the class will look at different types of shapes to learn their attributes and well do some measuring of them as well.

A Sneak Peek

Reading- During reading well be reading a couple of different stories to work on story elements such as authors purpose, problem/solution, and cause/effect. Writing The class will review a friendly letter. We will also take a look at the proper usage of apostrophes and commas. Science We will begin a unit on matter and energy next week! This is a fun unit that lends itself to many experiments. Well learn about a mysterious type of matter and what it takes to make it. The class will also experiment with items to determine if its a mixture or a solution. It will be an event filled week!

S.M.I.L.E. Schedule (Next weeks schedule will start with I on Monday) Mon- I- Music Tues-L- P.E. Wens- E- Art Thurs S - Computers Fri- M - Library

Essential 55

Reading logs are due each Friday. Your child should be bringing home their homework folder each night.

Be the best person you can be.