Mrs. Spata’s Fourth Grade Blog

Hello!!

If you are visiting our site… we would love to hear from you.

We have had almost 500 visitors in less than 1month!! How exciting!!!

We would love to learn about new places and people. Please tell us where are you from? This will turn into an excellent geography lesson.

Thank you!  :o) Mrs. Spata

I wanted to take a moment to wish my students and their families a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Enjoy each other!!!

If you would like to tell us what you are thankful for this year… I would love to read about it. This invitation is not only for my students, but also for their family members.

Personally, I am very thankful for the new addition to my family Noah!!! My husband and I are enjoying every moment with him. I am also very thankful for my class this year. It is wonderful that I am able to spend a second year with many of them and continue to watch what wonderful young men and women they are turning into!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!! I’ll see you all on Monday.

Hi everyone!

I thought it would be great if we adopted a virtual pet for our class. Meet Montey the Monkey!!

You can click anywhere on his tree and he will jump to that spot. You can also pick him up and move him. Feel free to click the “more” tab and feed him banannas.

Have fun with him!! :o)

I would like each of my students to take a moment and think about our year together so far. It is now the end of November… time is going so quickly!!! Please write a comment telling us about your favorite part of fourth grade so far. Do not tell me that it is recess!! Really think about what makes fourth grade special and different from your past years at Tackan.

I can’t wait to read your responses.   :o)

You are invited to come in on Tuesday, November 25th to help during our Native American Day. You will be supporting various stations that will be set up in the classroom. The stations will take place from 9:30 AM to 12:15 PM. The fourth graders will be cycling through each of our rooms, so you will not be with your child the entire time.

If you are interested and available… please contact Mrs. Giglio or Mrs. Weidtman. You will find their numbers on our “friendship chain”.

Thank you! 

There are a few supplies that we would like you to send to school for our upcoming Native American Day. They will be used for fun activities and projects. Please send them to school as you get them.

• a brown paper bag (large size from a supermarket)
• a coffee can or formula can or drink mix can (something that we can turn into a drum)
• either a large pringles can or a paper towel roll
• optional- a wooden spoon

Since we are collecting… we will be needing any old magazines that you might have laying around the house for our December Science day. If you have any that you would like to donate we would appreciate it.  🙂

Thank you for your support!!

:o) Mrs. Spata 

This is another “tool” for our toolbelt. Everyone MUST try this strategy!!

There are three steps to using expanded form. The first is to multiply the bottom factor to the ones of the top factor. The second step is to multiply the bottom factor to the tens of the top factor. The third step is to add the two products to each other. 

For example:

      27                                         ** Go to the math EnVision website to watch a tutorial

     x 4                                             if you need more detail about this. 🙂

    _____

     28

+  80

    ___

   108

Hi. Wednesday night’s math homework may seem a little “scary”. My students were told that they had to do the break-apart section of the page. This is a strategy that we have used before and that we should be getting pretty good at. The compatible numbers part of the homework is for extra credit.

Today was the first day that they were introduced to using the compatible numbers strategy for multiplication. We used a similar strategy in addition… and this is very similar until the last step. I explained to the class that this is just another “tool” to put into their math belt. I want everyone to try it out for now…. but there are many ways to solve math problems and they do not need to use this on the test if they don’t like it.

Everyone will find the strategies that they like the best and that work best for them. But I DO want everyone to give them all a try first before they decide they don’t like it.

We will continue to practice this and other strategies throughout this unit.

Thanks for your support. :o)Mrs. Spata

Welcome to my new blog!!!

The students in my class are building their individual responsibility by writing in their agendas every morning. They are also being asked to communicate many things to their parents.  I am not used to using my students as my home-school “connector”.

It is my intention to use this blog to give the parents of my students a window into our classroom. To give you a resource to find out what exactly is going on and what your child is possibly not telling you. 🙂

We will keep the agenda up-to-date so that you will know what has been assigned for homework. I will also include big events or things that are going on in the classroom that I think you should know about.

This blog will evolve as the year progresses… but for now I want to use it as a starting place for us to stay on the same page.

As always, if you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact me.