Please Help Fill Our Basket!

This year for the Fall Carnival, each of the classes have been asked by the PTA to create a basket that will be auctioned off. It is up to you guys to fill it. The theme for our basket is ........

PATRIOTIC

IT IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL TO DONATE!!!!

If you decided you are able to, please look for anything that would go along with this theme. I'm thinking a basket over flowing with American pride. :) Donations need to be at the school by October 6th.

THANK YOU!!!!!

Fall is in the Air!

WOW! I can hardly believe September ends this week! We have been so busy enjoying our school year. Here's a few things we've been up to.....

Guided Reading: Almost all of the class has been assigned a reading group and have begun to read their book. This is by far, my favorite time of day. I'm excited to work on comprehension and different reading strategies with the class!

Math: We've mastered graphing! This will be nice to use during our science units as well as charting our fluency each day. We're working with place value, rounding, estimating and comparing numbers that are SEVEN digits long!!!

Writing: The Writing Process has been fun to use while writing our Fractured Fairy Tales. A lot of us have begun to publish them and its exciting to see how many future authors/illustrators we have in the fourth grade!

Math Rotations: This is a time during the day, separate from our regular math time, that is used to break off into smaller groups. This way math concepts can be taught in a small group setting which allows me to make sure everyone understands concepts throughout the math units. It also allows time during the day to do math projects in smaller groups as well as get any extra help when needed.

Social Studies: We've been learning a lot about Utah's symbols, the three regions as well as how to use a Utah Map. Its exciting to hear about the places the class has visited and how excited it is for them to share their experiences! I love Utah and I can tell I'm not the only one!

Buddy Reading: Each Friday, the fourth grade visits the first grade classes and buddy reads with them. This is a GREAT chance for fourth graders to model good, fluent reading. They're able to practice their skills by reading to the first graders as well as coaching them on how to talk about books. This is such a beneficial time for both grades because they're learning SO MUCH from each other!

A lot of exciting things are happening in the fourth grade! We get to start Science this week learning about the Water Cycle, we've learned a song in sign language, Utah's state song and the ARMY song, and we're looking forward to an art project using dried, crumbled leaves.

Keep working hard on reading each night! Book reports are due this Friday....I can't wait to see them!

Mr. Menlove's Salsa Recipe

Several have wanted the salsa recipe from Friday's activity.....

Here's the recipe for the salsa......which will make as much as the bowl above holds. It fed 61 fourth graders and about 20 faculty members! On a scale of 1-5 for "heat"....this was about a 3! Enjoy!

12-15 tomatoes (makes it juicy)

6-8 Roma tomatoes (thickens it)

1 diced white onion

6-8 peeled CLOVES of garlic (blend well)

1 bunch of cilantro

2-3 Anaheim peppers (a little heat)

3 green bell peppers

2 jalapeno peppers (blend well)

4 cans of tomato sauce (This thickens if needed)

A lot of garlic salt for flavor

Regular salt for flavor

"Hot" salt for flavor

Add more or less of things depending on your flavor and consistency preference! Mr. Menlove really just tossed ingredients in left and right depending on how it tasted. He says start with low quantities, then add more if you want to adjust the taste!

Welcome Back!

I hope everyone had a fun safe Labor Day weekend....it was a lot of fun to see so many Taylor Tigers around the park and participating in the parade as well!

Just to let you know what we're up to in school:

Reading: We've started a new class book, "Fourth Grade Rats" by Jerry Spinelli. Even though we're only three chapters in, we're having a good time getting to know the two main characters and seeing how differently they view fourth grade.

Writing: Our class has set a goal that all of our writing will have capitals when needed, the correct punctuation at the end of a sentence as well as better word choice in our writing. These are things that we've already mastered and we want to spend our time writing without worrying about making these simple mistakes.

Math: We've worked with Line Graphs, Line Plots, Stem and Leaf Graphs as well as a lot of graphing vocabulary. Wow! There are a lot of ways to graph data!

Social Studies: Utah is part of North America, the United States as well as the western part of our country. Our state is also divided into three regions called the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado Plateau and the Great Basin. If you have a chance to travel to any of these regions....let me know!

It was a lot of fun to see those that came to back to school night. Please check online regularly to see grade updates!

I will be doing reading testing on Thursday this week. I'm excited to get reading groups started and this is the first step to making that happen!

Mr. Adams also visited our class and read the book, "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" He talked about the importance of building up one another and filling our peer's buckets with good thoughts and compliments!