Good Afternoon,  

Thank you for reading the first newsletter of the year!  This is where you will find important information about upcoming tests, special events, and our schedule for the week.

A big thank you for all of you who were able to attend Back to School Night!  Again, communication is essential to the success of your child's school year.  Please call me or email me anytime with questions or concerns or happy thoughts.

The PowerPoint, handout, LEAD 21 PowerPoint, and other information are now up on the website.  Go to our page, click on "Forms and Documents" and you will find the resources in the "Back to School Night" folder.

Our first early release day of the school year is next Tuesday, August 28th.  Dismissal is at 2:00pm.

Your child will have an open note quiz over our science unit, Variables.  They will not have a study guide for this quiz.  They have been taking notes and conducting investigations to help them with the quiz.  I will normally post test dates at the bottom on the weekly newsletter in the Learning Targets section.

On Monday, your child will bring home the first round of our homework.  They will have a spelling list to study for the week unless they scored a 100% on the pretest.  They will also have a math practice quiz and a reading comprehension sheet to complete.  All homework is due back by Friday.

A note from the new Strings teacher :  My name is Joanna Metsker and I am the new strings teacher at Cedar Hills.  Your child has the amazing opportunity to participate in strings class this year!  Earlier this week, I met with all 4^th grade students to give them information about their instrument choices and the Cedar Hills strings program.  They received an informational packet about strings.  It also contains the enrollment form for 4^th grade strings.  If your child missed this meeting or lost the packet, please go to my website to download a new one.  www.bluevalleyk12.org/prm/strings  The packet is found in the Elementary Documents tab.  Next week, your child will have the opportunity to try out the instrument they are interested in.  Our first official class will be September 3^rd; students should turn in enrollment forms by that date and also bring the instrument they rented or bought.  Information about obtaining an instrument is available in the packet.  I am looking forward to a great year of music making!

Have a wonderful weekend!

The Student will learn to:

ELA (English Language Arts): Unit 1: Life Stories

• analyze an author's words and find details and examples to support both explicit and inferential questions.
• explain the difference between synonyms (words with similar meanings) and antonyms (words with opposite meanings).
• analyze the structure of words by finding compound words, roots, prefixes, suffixes, and syllables.
• read grade-level text fluently and show comprehension through voice, timing, and expression.

Writing:  Slice of Summer

• sequence the events in a story so that one event logically leads to the next.
• use the writing process while writing a personal narrative.

Math: Data About Us

• gather, organize, graph, and analyze data using data tables, frequency tables, and charts.
• create and interpret bar graphs, pictographs, point/line graphs, Venn Diagrams, line plots, and circle graphs.
• identify and develop numerical and categorical variables.
• find the minimum value, maximum value, mode, and median of a data set.
• plot points on a coordinate grid.
• solve 1- and 2-step real-world problems.

Science: Variables

• identify variables.
• plan an investigation.
• gather and record data.

*Open note quiz on Wednesday, August 29

Monday -Day 2: Computers

Tuesday - Day 3: Art

Wednesday - Day 4: Spanish/Music

Thursday - Day 5: PE/Spanish

Friday - Day 1: PE/Music