Week of September 10th

Happy Monday Everyone,

     We will have early release on this Wednesday. Please make sure your child knows how they are getting home. Students will be released at 1:30.

     This week in math we will take our first math test. The test will be on Thursday. It will cover the work that we have done on with place value, multiplicative comparison, ordering numbers, comparing numbers, rounding numbers, and using the standard algorithm to solve addition and subtraction problems. Students will complete a study guide in class this week. Please review it with your child to help them study.

     After this unit we will begin working on our measurement unit. Students will learn how to convert within units for both the metric system and customary systems. Students don't have to memorize specific conversions because they will access to a reference sheet for in class work, quizzes and tests. They will also be give a reference sheet for the FSA in the spring. Students will learn when they need to multiply or divide to make a conversion. During the first part of the unit we will work on the metric system. To get ready for the unit they can watch the video links below.

Study Jams: Units of Measurement (click the link)

Brain Pop: Metric Units

Brain Pop Jr: Centimeters, Meters, Kilometers, Grams and Kilograms, Milliliters and Liters

Number Rock: Metric System Conversion Song (click the link)

     We will finally get to do our first hands on lab this week!! Students will work with another scientist to complete the, How many drops of water will fit on penny lab? The real science behind this lab deals with molecule cohesion and surface tension. However, we will use this lab to help us:

*learn how to use the scientific method

*learn how to make a prediction and write a hypothesis

*how to control variables

*why performing several trials is important

*why collecting and recording data and observations is important

*how to draw conclusions from collected data and observations

*communicating results with others

*how to work with other scientist

     We will also take our first test. The test will be on Friday. Students will complete the Benchmark Review in their science books, pages 61-64. This will be our test study guide. It was assigned in class today and whatever was not finished should be completed for homework on Monday. We will check it in class on Tuesday and also complete some additional review items. Please remember to help your child to study because they will not be allowed to use their books or journals on the test. Vocabulary for chapter one should be completed in science journals this week. Vocabulary is also due on Friday. Please see the Science Vocabulary section of this website to find out the words. 

     This week in social studies we will study map skills. Students will learn the different parts of a map and we will talk about different types of maps. We will learn how to use a map scale to calculate approximate distances on a map. Students will also learn about latitude and longitude, the equator and the prime meridian. Students won't just learn about lines of latitude and longitude they will also learn how to locate places on a map using latitude and longitude coordinates. 

Here are some games to play

http://www.abcya.com/latitude_and_longitude_practice.htm  

https://kidsgeo.com/geography-games/latitude-and-longitude/

Have a Wonderful week,

Ms. Johnson

Week of September 4th

Hi Everyone,

     I hope everyone had a wonderful 3-day weekend. It was great to have a extra day to sleep in and spend time with family.

     I will be out on Thursday, Friday and Monday. Mrs. King, who subs a lot at JBE will subbing all three days. If any emergency should arise please send an email to Ms. Billiard or call the front office. 

     We will have Fall Pictures on tomorrow. These pictures will be used in the year book. Students don't need to do anything but wear their best smile.

     Also on tomorrow we will go to our first Enrichment Lab for this year. Ms. Johnson's class will go Code.org with Ms. Chin and Technology Skills with Ms. Strong. Ms. Billiard's class will go to Etiquette with Ms. Comacho and Fitness with Coach Banister. Labs begin at 1:10 and end at 2:45.

     All students new to Duval County Public Schools will go down for vision screening on this Friday. If your child normally wears glasses/contacts please make sure that they wear them on Friday.

     This week in math we work on using the standard algorithm for addition and subtraction. Students need to be able to line up the numbers according to their place value and show any needed regrouping in their work. You might know that regrouping as "carrying" when adding or "borrowing" when subtracting. Students also need to be able to figure what digit is missing from a completed problem.

     Now that we are done with our i-Ready testing we will hopefully begin to get ourselves on schedule and have time to do our science lessons everyday. We will continue to work on working like a scientist this week. Students did not take the quiz for lessons 1-3 last week so we will take that this week on Thursday. 

     This week in social studies students should read lesson 4 in chapter 1. This lesson is all about Florida's climate and resources. Students can also begin to take a look at the map skills and latitude/longitude skill builders on pages 12 and 26.

Have a Wonderful Week,

Ms. Johnson

Week of August 27th

Happy Monday Everyone,

     I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Just think this weekend will be a 3-day weekend since we are off on Monday for Labor Day!! 

     Our rug came in last week!!! Thanks to your generosity, my Donor's Choose project was fully funded. I asked for a new classroom rug and it was delivered last week.The students are loving having enough room to sit. Thank you so much!!

     We have several things happening this week. We will have our first early dismissal day on Wednesday. Students will be released at 1:30. Please make sure your child knows how they are going home. Thursday night we will have Open House beginning at 6:00. This is a parents only event. You will go to the cafeteria first. After Ms. Mattingly's presentation you will come to Ms. Billiard's room for our presentation. We hope that you will be able to attend.

     Please write your child's name on their lunch box. All of 4th grade goes to recess at then to lunch at about the same time and many of the students have similar looking lunch boxes. We have had several times where students have picked up the wrong lunch box.

     There was lots of confusion about some of websites last week. One of the emails that I sent last week included the directions for how to register for Brain Pop and how to get to the online resources for our science book. These are two different websites. You can not get to the science book through Brain Pop. To get to the science book, your child must log in to the Blended Learning website. You can reach Blended Learning by going through the Students tab on the DCPS website. If your child was a DCPS student last year they should be familiar with Blended Learning. This is how they accessed i-Ready and Achieve 3,000 last year. 
     This week for technology students need to make sure that they have registered for Brain Pop and Prodigy. Students need to also go on to Ed Your Friend in Learning and complete the Digital Lesson for lesson 1 What do Scientist Do.

    This week in math we will continue working in Module 1 Place Value. This week students will take their first math quiz. The quiz will cover place value concepts that we have worked on so far: comparing and ordering numbers, number relationships (10 times greater), showing numbers in different forms, and rounding.

     This week in science we will cover lessons 2 and 3. Lesson 2 discusses the skills that scientist use in their work. Things like observing, making inferences, communicating their results, making comparisons to the work of other scientists and collecting and displaying data. Students will take their first quiz on Thursday. The quiz will cover lessons 1, 2, and 3. Students are allowed to use their books and journals for all quizzes, so it is important that students always bring needed supplies to class.  

     This week in social studies we will continue to learn general information about Florida. We ran out of time on last Friday so we will spend time discussing both lesson 1 and lesson 2. Lesson 1 is a general getting to know Florida reading. It talk the geography of our state. Lesson 2 talks about Florida's land and water. Students will take quizzes for both lesson 1 and lesson 2. Students should comprehend the material well enough that they can discuss the material with the class. This week for homework students also need to complete the vocabulary for lessons 1 and 2. If your child is not able to copy down the words on the board in the classroom, they can find the words on the S.S. Vocab tab of this page. This week's words are the first six on the list under chapter 1.

     Have a GREAT week,
     Ms. J

Week of August 20, 2018

Hi Everyone,

     We made it through the 1st week of school!! I look forward to us getting into our groove and being able to complete our subjects on schedule this week.

     Last week in math we learned that a number in one place is ten times more than the number to it's right. For example in the number 1,259,980 the nine in the thousands place is ten times greater than the nine in the hundreds place. We also learned how to take a number written in unit form (word and a number) and change it to standard form (word written with digits). For example if I have 20 tens, I can multiply 20 x 10 and find out that I really have 200. If I have 15 thousands, I can multiply 15 x 1,000 and find out that I really have 15,000. 
     This week in math we will continue our work with place value. We will learn how to place commas in numbers. The different forms that numbers can shown, word form, standard form, expanded form and unit form. We will learn how to compare and order numbers using inequality symbols (<, >, and =). We will learn how to quickly add numbers that are 1, 10 and 100 thousand more or less than a number using mental math. We will end the week reviewing strategies for rounding numbers to any place. 
     You probably heard about our timed test baseline that we took last week. We will take timed quizzes every other week. For the 1st nine weeks students will have 3 minutes to answer as many problems as they can. During the 2nd nine weeks students will have 2 minutes and 30 seconds. For the 3rd and 4th nine weeks students will have 2 minutes. Most of the grades will go into the grade book as a classwork grade. The last one of the quarter goes in as a quiz grade. During the 1st nine weeks the division quizzes will not count as a grade. We will take our first one for a grade this Friday.

     This week in science we will learn how scientist do their jobs. We will learn about the scientific method. We will learn about the different types of investigations that scientists perform. We will also learn that not all questions are equal. Some questions are ordinary and some are scientific. We will learn how to identify a scientific question and how to write a scientific question.

     This week in social studies we will begin learning how Florida history. Students should read with comprehension chapter 1 lesson 1, Getting to Know Florida pages 2-11. On Friday we will discuss the lesson and students will take a quiz on the material. Social studies homework is always assigned on Monday's and due on Friday.

     Thanks and have a GREAT week,
      Aesha

Welcome to 4th Grade

Hi Everyone,

     I am so excited that a new school year is about to start!! I can't wait to get know everyone.

     Each week on this page I will update you on what we will cover in math, science, and social studies. I will also let you know about upcoming school events. This page will also let you know about upcoming assessments and when projects are due. Keeping up with homework assignments will come home in your child's agenda. By accessing the pages of the blog you can also see the vocabulary that your child will be completing in their journals for science and social studies.
  
     This week in math we will begin working on Module 1 which is about place value. This week we will learn how a digit in one place is 10 times the place the right. For example, it takes 10 ones to equal 1 ten. 10 tens is equal to 1 hundred. We will also work on the different forms numbers can take (standard form, unit form, expanded form and word form).

     This week in science we will learn how scientists do their work. We will learn about the different types of investigations that scientists perform. Students will also begin to understand what the scientific method is and that even though scientist use it in their work it does not follow a rigid order. 

     This week we will not work on social studies. We will begin that work next week.  

Have a wonderful week,
Ms. Johnson

Week of May 28th

Hi Everyone, 

     As we pause today to say thank you to all of the members of the military that gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect our country. 

    I would also like to thank each of you for a GREAT year. This is our last week of school and it is full of lots of fun activities. 

Tuesday
*Awards Ceremony--10:00 in the cafeteria
*End of the Year Lunch--11:00 in the classroom. We will have pizza from Milano's, chips, and  carrots. Students will also have water and juice boxes. 
*End of the Year Party-- We will walk to Beach Bowl. Students will enjoy an afternoon of unlimited bowling. Students need to wear tennis shoes for bowling. Students can also bring extra money for the concession stand and a camera. Due to the possibility of rain we are also asking students to bring an umbrella and rain coats.

Thursday
*Games Day--Students are invited to bring in a board game to play with their peers.

Friday
*Last Day--Students are invited to bring in a game. Students will be dismissed at 12:00. There is no extended day. Please make sure your child knows how they are going home.
*Report Cards--Students will receive report cards and any 4th quarter rewards that they have learned.
*Summer Packet--Students will receive a packet of sheets that will cover content that they will work on in 5th Grade.  Students will also have access to i-Ready. I will assign 5th grade skills on Prodigy so that students can begin practicing 5th grade math skills.

Have a GREAT week,
Ms. Johnson

Week of April 30th

Hi Everyone,

     We are finally done with FSA Testing!! Thank you to everyone that sent in snacks for testing. We got so many that we are still eating snacks this week!!!

     Important Dates:
April 30th and May 7th Child Safety Matters with Mrs. Forest
May 14th and 15th School Performances of Alice in Wonderland
May 18th Play Day-wear class shirt
May 21st Career Day
May 23rd Final Enrichment Labs/Ticket Cash In
May 29th Awards Ceremony and End of the Year Bowling Party
June 1st Last Day of School- Noon Dismissal

     In math this week we will be taking our i-Ready end of the year diagnostic. We will also begin a new unit to introduce students to some 5th grade concepts. This week we will learn about exponents.
Students will also take a quiz this week on some of our 4th grade concepts. This week's quiz will cover our NBT and OA standards. Students will have questions on place value, comparing numbers, rounding, ordering numbers, patterns, multiplication. I have assigned this concepts on Prodigy is students need to practice or review. They may also continue to use Ten Marks.

     Also in math we will work on our 4th grade end of year project, Dream House. Students will work in groups to plan and design their dream house. This project uses many of our 4th grade math skills. If you are an architect or do similar work I would love it if you could come in and speak to the students about how you do your job.

    In science this week we will learn about rocks, minerals, weathering and erosion. We will also learn spend time reviewing for our end of the year district science baseline. Students will be getting homework to help them review each unit that we have studied. Please be on the look out for an additional email with a list of Brain Pop titles that students can watch to help them review. Students can also find many of the same concepts by searching in Brain Pop Jr. and Study Jams (http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/index.htm).

Thanks,
Aesha