Search This Blog

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Anti-Litter Symposium

Congratulations to Kayce Copeland for earning FIRST PLACE out of all area schools in the "Keep Etowah Beautiful" poster contest. Way to go, Kayce!
Her winning poster is the one directly over her head. 

Montgomery Trip

Here are some pictures from our field trip to our state capital, Montgomery, Alabama! We had a great time!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Fact and Opinion

From last week:

In a piece of reading, a fact is a piece of information that can be PROVEN.

An opinion is how the narrator or someone FEELS.

Here is our class practicing some text "chunking" last week, and working together to determine facts and opinions within our "chunks."



Good job fourth graders! What a bright and hard-working group of students! 

-Miss Grey 

Monday, October 1, 2012

Reminders for October:

Wow, can you believe it's already October!? Here are some reminders of important upcoming dates:


  • Oct 10th-Muffins for Mom (7am-8am) 
  • Oct 17th- 4th Grade Montgomery Field Trip
  • Oct 18th- Titan Homecoming Pep Rally
  • Oct 19th- Titan Homecoming
  • Oct 24th- Donuts for Dad (7AM-8AM) 
  • Oct 25th- Fall Festival (2:30pm-5:30pm) 
Don't forget to keep bringing in Coke Tops and Box Tops to help out our school! Thank you! 

-Miss Grey 

Friday, September 28, 2012

Go Math! -Don't let it make you "Go Crazy!"

Parents and Students,

As we move towards the Common Core standards for mathematics, we have a brand new math textbook series this year, called Go Math! Keep in mind, "new" can be a GOOD thing. Change can be a GOOD thing. The moment we stop allowing change, is the moment we fail our students. In an educational setting, we must always be willing to go the next step in order to help our students achieve. This is how we will do that with math. The purpose of the Go Math! series, is to teach students to think and understand math concepts on a deeper level. If they can grasp that understanding, it will be extremely beneficial to them as they continue their learning.

For example, a student can easily memorize that 7 x 5 = 35, and 7 x 6 = 42, and so on. I know that is how I learned it in school, through memorization. Well, at some point, just memorizing methods and numbers is not enough. What we are trying to teach now, is that each of those numbers has a specific value, and that students don't just "know" what the answer is, but they understand WHY that is the correct answer. In order to get students to think in this format, we need to use a variety of methods that will seem new to the students and you.We use a lot of modeling, and a lot of words. Many times students will be asked to "Explain the reasoning" behind an answer.

I wanted to share this with you all because I know this is going to be a challenge. You are going to see some of this work and get frustrated. I am asking you to stay with it, and keep trying with your children. If you are trying to help them with homework, look back in the colored math pages in their green folder (they will match the lesson listed on the homework sheet); the step-by-step of how I taught the lesson is there.

This is going to be a tremendous breakthrough in how our students learn and that is fantastic. This will pay off, if we all work hard enough at it. If you have any questions about the math, please don't hesitate to call or email me. Or even schedule a meeting, and I will be more than happy to go over exactly what we are doing. Sometimes I know for me, it's just easier to sit down and have someone show me! Thank you very  much, parents, for your patience, understanding, and hard work with your students. I look forward to seeing how our boys and girls will succeed this year!

-Miss Grey

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

A peek into our classroom this week....

Take a look at what we've been up to in fourth grade! 

Payton and Caleb investigating Yosemite National Park (from our story this week)
via Google Earth on the iPad

Digging into some reading...

Eoin and Jackson showing off some good teamwork! 

Using a print resource to find answers...way to go Jonae! 

Science Station fun with plant and animal cells! 
Keep up the great work guys and gals! 
-Ms. Grey 

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Kid Blog

Our class has been working on creating online blogs during computer time... thanks Mrs. Rogers! We are having a lot of fun with them...check em' out HERE


Way to go boys and girls!