Main Idea and Supporting Details

Last week, in reading, we found the main idea and supporting details in various texts. A main idea is what a story or other piece of writing is mostly about. Each paragraph can have a main idea. Supporting details are pieces of information that support, or back up, the main idea.

Mrs. Johnson showed us an easy way to organize the information we find when we read. She drew a huge fish on chart paper. On the fish, she created a backbone, which is the main idea because the main idea is the backbone of a passage. Then, all the bones coming out from the backbone were the supporting details. All of the supporting details MUST support the main idea. If they do not support the main idea, you probably have not found the main idea! Once Mrs. Johnson modeled this for us, and she allowed volunteers to add details to the chart, we worked in groups to create our own main idea map with a test passage.

Selicia and Monique find the main idea and details, so they are better able to answer the test questions. Once your information is organized, it's easy to answer the questions!

Wonderful work from the whole class!

D'Aubriney and Brindarius worked hard on their main idea map.

Good job, Nacolby and Sabbion!

Once again, Mrs. Johnson's class is hard at work ALL THE TIME!!! Come by and visit soon!

Fall Factor Trees

It's that time of year! Fall! The leaves will soon begin to turn bright colors of red, yellow, and orange. Mrs. Johnson loves fall, so she couldn't wait for us to begin some fall activities. She did not waste any time! Last week, we learned about multiples and factors.

Multiples are found by multiplying a certain number by 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. Multiples can go on forever! For example, to find multiples of 3...I would say 3x1=3, 3x2=6, 3x3=9, etc. So, the multiples of 3 are 3, 6, 9, etc.

Factors are the numbers you multiply together to get a product. For example, to find factors of 10...I know that 1x10=10 and 2x5=10. So, my factors are 1, 2, 5, and 10. Those are the numbers I multiplied together.

When we learned about factors, Mrs. Johnson had us create "Fall Factor Trees." We had a great time writing all the factors of a given number on the colorful fall foliage!

Kenyada, Sharnecia, Nadia, and Brindarius work to find the factors of 48.

Nareuna, Jendaya, and Nacolby are intelligently working it out on notebook paper first! Great idea!

Sabbion, Arrion, De'Eric, and James had fun finding factors!

Teamwork!

The factors of 30 are 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, and 30.

Sherrina, Selicia, Charles and Quintarrius are proud of their factor tree!

Jordan, Lyric, and Alero's hard work paid off!

Now we are ready and decorated for fall with out Fall Factor Trees!

Affixes

Mrs. Johnson's class has really enjoyed learning about affixes. You may remember the Mr. Potato Head activity we did earlier in the year for affixes! Well, this week, Mrs. Johnson planned another fun activity for us to review affixes. First, we talked about the two types of affixes. Prefixes are a group of letters that are added to the front of a base/root word. Suffixes are added to the end of the root word. Mrs. Johnson gave us all index cards. Some had prefixes, some had the meaning of a certain prefix, and the others had a word using a particular prefix. We walked around the room to find our matches. Once we found our matches, we worked together to define our new word based on the meaning of the prefix. It was very fun, and we did a fabulous job!

Nadia and Tatyanna try to find out if they are a match.

Selicia, Nadia, and Nareuna were the first group to find their matches!
"Anti- means against, so antiwar must mean against war."

Then, we did the same activity with suffixes today.

Kristin, Brindarius, and Alero found their matches!
"-ness means a state of being, so greatness must mean the state of being great."

Sherrina, D'Aubriney, and Quintarrius are working to figure out the meaning of their new word based on the meaning of the suffix.

Selicia and James were stuck, so they used the chart to find their matches.

Another day. Another fun learning experience!

Parts of a Book

Mrs. Johnson must have woken up on the "goofy side" of the bed this morning! During our reading lesson, Mrs. Johnson literally laid on a desk pretending to be a teenager. She told us that her high school teacher had asked her to write a paper telling about certain chapters in a book and defining important words from the book. She claimed she didn't know where or how to find this information! She was so upset because it was going to take forever.

Then, she turned into a "Fairy Bookmother." Seriously. She even had a wand! She floated around the classroom tapping us on the head and telling us how we can find all the information we need quickly. Mrs. Johnson reviewed the parts of a book: title page, table of contents, glossary, and index. Then, she told us about the new parts: appendix and footnotes. After going over these parts, Mrs. Johnson gave each group a sample of different parts. We worked together to match the sample with the correct part of a book.

The Fairy Bookmother helping Kenyada find his match - See the wand?

Our new parts - appendix and footnotes

We matched this sample with the glossary because it has important words and their meanings!

Now we are ready to complete our work quickly by using the appropriate part of a book! Special thanks to our "Fairy Bookmother!"

Picture Day

Today was our school picture day! We all came to school looking so nice with our hair done and our shirts nicely tucked in.

We sat on the stool,
smiled big,

said, "Cheese!"
...and ordered our pictures!

We can't wait for them to come in! Yay for Picture Day!

AR Update

It's that time again! Time to tally up our AR points so far! Our class has been super busy reading during our spare time. We read while standing in line, we read while waiting on everyone to be seated at lunch, we read while waiting on others to finish their work, we ready any time we can! And, we love showing off our AR points every Friday during our weekly trip to the computer lab!

5 Point Club: Jordan, D'Aubriney, Arrion, Sherrina, and Charles
We have some students not pictured as well.

10 Point Club: Selica, Sharnecia, Nadia, and James

15 Point Club: Sabbion!

Congratulations to all my STAR Readers! Remember, everyone should have AT LEAST 30 points by the time we leave in December! So, get busy and put your nose in a book!

Grandparents' Day

Our school celebrated Grandparents' Day on Friday with a special lunch with our grandparents. Mrs. Johnson's class had a good turnout for the special lunch. We love for visitors to come by our classroom to see what great things we are doing. But, to have our grandparents there was an even bigger treat! We even had some parents to visit as well. Nadia's mom spent time with us in the computer lab Friday before eating lunch with us!

Lyric and her grandparents

De' Eric's grandmother even sat with De'Eric for a while during class.

Jendaya and her grandparents - always a pleasure for the Wilsons to visit!

James grandmother came to visit several of her grandchildren!

Grandparents hold such a special place in the hearts of grandchildren, and we are so grateful for these grandparents who took time to join the students for lunch. The students were so proud to show off "their school home!"

Mississippi Brass Quintet

Mrs. Williams, our music teacher, had a special surprise for all fourth graders! The Mississippi Brass Quintet visited our school and gave a special performance just for us. It was wonderful! Not only did we listen to fun music, but we also learned a lot about the instruments in the brass section of an orchestra.


Brass instruments are known for their blazing sounds. They are typically made of metal tubes with a round mouthpiece. The sound is made by vibrating your lips and blowing air into the mouthpiece and through the tubes. One of the oldest brass instruments is the trumpet. One of the orchestra members showed us a special kind of trumpet called a piccolo trumpet. It is the smallest of the trumpet family.


Next, another member of the orchestra told us about his trombone. The most interesting characteristic of a trombone is the slide that is used to make the various notes. Our favorite thing for this trombonist to do was a glissando, sliding between the notes.


The tuba player was very funny. The tuba is the largest and lowest pitched brass instrument. It is known to play the "baseline," or harmony of the orchestra. Like, when we listen to an orchestra...we are tapping our toes to the "baseline" of the tuba. We don't even realize it!


He demonstrated by playing a song that left us snapping our fingers to the tuba beat! Sherrina really got into it!

We loved listening to all the members play together!

Loving the music!

After all the members told us about their instrument in the brass family, we took a quiz. One of the quintet members held up a rolled up water hose duct taped to a funnel. The question was, "Is this a member of the brass family?"

The answer...YES! The sound is made by vibrating your lips while blowing air through the tubes so that it can come out of the bell-shaped end. This makes it a brass instrument!

We all made an "A!" Thanks so much, Mississippi Brass Quintet for visiting our school! We can't wait to learn about the other sections of the orchestra!

President Obama's Back to School Speech

We had a special experience today. Our president, Barack Obama, addressed us - the students of America! We also learned that today was the first day of school for many Americans. Can you believe that!? We are halfway through our first nine weeks, and some students are just starting back to school! Wow!


Our school does not carry the TV channel we needed to watch, so Mrs. Johnson set up a live stream on our computers in our classroom. We all gathered around the computers to listen to and watch President Obama's speech. It was very inspirational!

President Obama encouraged us all to stay in school! He told us that we could not drop out of school and drop into a good job. He explained that we all have something that we are good at, and we must work harder at those things we do not do well. Education will help us discover what our strengths and interests are so that we will be prepared for college or whatever career we will love.


President Obama also told us about his childhood and how he had to work through his circumstances to succeed. He told us that there was no excuse for not trying:

"But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home -- none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying."

He challenged us to make a goal for this school year. It can be simple or complex, but we need to make a goal and stick to it. The President spoke of all the teachers, administrators, parents, and others who work tirelessly to help us succeed. But, we must do our part! We must put our best effort forward. President Obama closed by telling us that he expects great things from us!

We will not let our country down! We will not let our teachers and parents down! We will not let ourselves down! We will make you proud!

PTA Membership Dance

Each year, our parents have the wonderful opportunity to join the PTA. The PTA truly takes such great care of us throughout the year! To show their gratitude, the PTA and our school hosted a dance for all who joined the PTA this year. It was so much fun! Mr. Hodges, one of our fabulous custodians, served as DJ. He is awesome! We had a fantastic time showing off our dance moves...and laughing at all our teachers who were TRYING to dance! Ha!

Sherrina, Jendaya, Arrion, Lyric, and D'Aubriney doing the Cupid Shuffle

Nadia and Sherrina having a ball!

Mr. D even got in on the fun!

Zoom! Zoom!

Kenyada was gettin' down!

Miss Sasser and her baby had fun too!

Just take a look and see what fun we had!

Thanks to all who joined the PTA and supports us!

Accelerated Reading Kickoff!

You got it! Mrs. Johnson's class is by far the best class ever! We have been so busy since school started getting into the swing of things, learning new information, and READING! You wouldn't believe how much Mrs. Johnson asks us to read! But, we must say. It's fun!

James reading Captain Underpants

Kenyada reading Goin' Someplace Special

Mrs. Johnson is a huge fan of Accelerated Reading. She keeps up with how many points we have each day or two. She expects us to read books constantly. That is...while she is not teaching! So, whenever we have free time - we READ! At lunch, in line for the bathroom, in the morning, in the afternoon, and any time in between! When we finish reading, we create an entry in our AR Logs and take an AR test at the computer. Mrs. Johnson does not care about the points as much as our score. She really likes for us to make 80% or higher. She always reminds us that we WILL have an AR grade in reading!

Today was the deadline for this week's prizes. Mrs. Johnson checked our AR points. Everyone with 5 points put their name on a balloon displayed in the computer lab. Our class has the most! We have 10 people with 5 points. We even have three students with 10 points!!!! Can you believe it?! Mrs. Johnson was SO proud of us!

We have 5 points!
Congratulations to Kristin, Antasia, Nadia, D'Aubriney, Charles, and Sharnecia!
Also (not pictured) James and Jordan.

And our super stars are Sabbion and Selicia with a whopping 10 points! Woo hoo!

***Just to give you an idea of how hard these students have worked - Each picture book is usually worth 1/2 a point, and each chapter book is usually worth 1-2 points. So, these students have read a lot of books during the first couple of weeks of school!