Week 17

Dear Parents,

This is our last full week before Christmas break. Next week (12/12—12/16) we will have two full days on Monday and Tuesday and three half days on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

This week our fourth grade winter concert will be held at King of Kings Church in Goodyear on Thursday, December 8. The address is 3095 N 140^th Ave, Goodyear, AZ 85395. Students are expected to arrive in full concert dress at 5:20pm. There will be a dress rehearsal from 5:25-5:55, and parents will not be allowed in the church during this time. Please keep in mind that punctual attendance at the dress rehearsal and participation in the concert are required as part of your student’ music grade. If you have any questions about the performance or about appropriate concert attire, please send Miss Sassaman a message through your Jupiter Ed account.

 PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR STUDENTS HAVE USED THE BATHROOM RIGHT BEFORE ARRIVING AT THE DRESS REHEARSAL. We will not be able to accommodate bathroom requests during practice or during the concert itself.

This week in math we will continue to study division, especially long division. We also have our test on finding the perimeter and area of squares and rectangles on Tuesday. Please note that students are required to use the traditional method of two-digit column multiplication to find the answers to area problems. Any other methods will result in losing some or all credit for the problem. There are still a few students trying to break apart problems like 456 x 28 into 456 x 8 and 456 x 20 instead of using the traditional method. This is not acceptable; they need to be able to use the traditional method. I have created a study guided; it is posted below my signature line.

In science, we will continue our study of geology by studying earthquakes, volcanoes and natural disasters. The geology project on the earth’s interior is due tomorrow. Students should bring their project into the science lab and set it on the table marked 4A or 4B as appropriate before going out to play. Projects should be in sealed plastic bags clearly marked with the students’ names.

I am sorry that I was not able to post the instructions to my blog last week in addition to sending them home on paper. I had intended to do so, but through an unfortunate accident my work laptop broke and I could do computer work only during brief snatches of time on another people’s computers. For the same reason, I am sorry for any missing/late responses to messages. I now have a new work computer, so I should be in better touch with you all this week.

Students who are interested in extra credit can use any leftover clay to make a cross-section model of a volcano’s interior. I will hand out pictures of the volcano cross-section by Tuesday, but I will not give detailed instructions on how to complete the project. It should have all the same parts as the volcano cross-section picture, and it should be labeled. Students can earn up to 10 points of extra credit for volcano models turned in by December 15 (next Tuesday).

On December 16 we will have our Shakespeare festival.  All are welcome to see our students perform in the MPR! The exact time is TBA, but it will be sometime during the morning. Fourth and fifth grade students are currently practicing and adapted version of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” during literature and writing classes. They are not required to memorize their lines; they can read them from the script during the play. However, we will be asking them to practice reading their lines and scenes at home so they will be familiar with them. We want them to work on understanding what the lines mean and reading them with fluency and appropriate expressions. We will work on these things in class as well, and we will also work on stage blocking.

These are all the notes I have for you this week. Please send me a message through your Jupiter Ed account with any questions, comments, or concerns you may have.

Sincerely,

Miss Wycklendt

Study Guide for Math Test on Area and Perimeter of Squares and Rectangles

1.       Perimeter is the measure of the border around the shape. Area is the amount of space inside a shape. If you imagine a playground, the perimeter is the fence around the playground. Finding perimeter means finding how long the fence is. Area would be the space inside the playground where you actually run and play. Finding are would mean finding how much space is contained in the playground fence.

2.       We measure area in square units such as square inches, square feet, square centimeters, or square miles. A square inch is a square with sides of one inch; a square centimeter is a square with sides of one centimeter, etc. We write square inches as in², square centimeters as cm², square feet as ft² and square miles as miles².

3.       The long side of a rectangle is called its length. The short side of a rectangle is called its width. All rectangles have two lengths which are equal to each other and two widths which are equal to each other.

4.       Finding the perimeter of a rectangle means finding how long the sides are all together. The formula for the area of a rectangle is 2(L + W).

5.       Finding the area of a rectangle means finding how much space is contained inside it. The formula for the area of a rectangle is L X W. The length of the rectangle tells us how many square units will fit on the length and the width tells us how many rows of square units are in the rectangle.

6.       A square has four sides which are all equal. The formula for the perimeter of a square with side S is 4S. (Since there are 4 equal sides, instead of adding the 4 sides to find the length around them, it is quicker to multiply by 4.)

7.       The formula for the perimeter of a square with sides S is S² which equals S X S. Basically a square has is a rectangle that has its length equal to its width, instead of multiplying length times width to find area, we just multiply S X S.

8.       Students should not just write numbers when giving the answers for area or perimeter. The must also write the proper unit or square unit.