Parent/Teacher Conferences

If you haven't already heard, Parent/Teacher Conferences are going to be a lot different this spring.  For one thing, they are going to be before spring.  Conferences will be in February.  They will also occur over two weeks time. The first night of conferences is Wednesday, February 15th from 3:45 to 8:00 PM.  The following week we will have conferences on Tuesday, February 21st from 3:45 to 8:00 and Thursday, February 23rd from 3:45 to 8:00 PM.  The kids will follow their regular school schedule on those days.  Conferences are held after school gets out.  I will be sending home conference notes this Wednesday.

When you come you will be able to see all the great work the kids did as we learned about the American Revolution.  During December and January we studied the things that led the colonies to rebel against England.  As we learned we made and created step books, lock books, flip books, circle books, and mini books.  Then we assembled all these little projects into our American Revolution books.

If you are tall, you may have to duck, because our Circle Books are draped across the room. In these books we wrote about four important events that happened after the war began; Washington Crossing the Delaware, the Battle of Saratoga, the Winter at Valley Forge, and the final battle of the war, the Battle of Yorktown.

Our final wrap up for this Core Knowledge study was their biography posters of a Famous Person From the American Revolution.  I am very pleased with the work the class did, and I think you will be too.

Learning About Our World

One of the many things I love about Phillips is the Core Knowledge Curriculum and as part of Core Knowledge we have been learning about the mountain systems of our planet.  Mountains cover one fourth of Earth and are found on every continent.  We spent more than three weeks studying mountains through our Mountain Trek webquest.  You can see that at www.mountain-trek.wikispaces.com.  

We spent a long time reading, learning how to take notes, and writing.  We learned about organizing the information by main idea and supporting details.  Then we created our Mountain Trek Field Guides.  You will be able to see them when you come to parent/teacher conferences this week.  I have been doing this project for three years, and these are the best field guides I have seen.  

Our science unit, Earth Materials, is a perfect compliment to the Mountain World Geography unit.  So we have also been reading and learning about rocks and minerals.  On Friday, we observed mineral samples of quartz, calcite, fluorite, and gypsum.  Then we conducted scratch tests to determine the hardest mineral of the four.  Ask your student what they learned.

Next week we will be conducting experiments to determine which rock samples contain calcite.  

We have a lot going on in 4th grade.  Come to Parent/Teacher Conferences this week to check out some of the things we have been doing.  Also, don't forget about the PTA book sale that will be going on in the gym.