Important Dates
Friday, October 5, NO SCHOOL
Monday, October 8, Columbus/Indigenous Peoples Day, NO SCHOOL
October 18-19, Parent-Teacher Conferences
Friday, October 19, NO SCHOOL
Friday, October 26, field trip to Richardson’s Farm: World’s Largest Corn Maze
*Follow the Gecko class on twitter @geckoknights!
This was a short week for us at Quest, but it was a week of many tests and quizzes in the Gecko class!
Math
We completed Unit 2 this week with looks at large numbers, decimal multiplication, and problem-solving using the concepts learned in this unit. We had Rainbow Day, our review of the unit, on Wednesday, and the unit test and Unit 3 pretest on Thursday. Students will begin Unit 3 on Tuesday in new groupings.
Language Arts
The Geckos took a vocabulary quiz on the words from chapters 1 – 10 in Blood on the River on Thursday. The graded quizzes are in the Friday folders today. They did well on this quiz! The current vocabulary assignment, chapters 11-15, is due on October 9. I have offered a vocabulary incentive to the Geckos: if a student finds the word in a book, television show, etc., or hears someone use it, or uses it themselves in writing or speaking, the class earns a marble. When the marble jar is full, the class will have a low-key party.
I told my students at the beginning of the school year that I will not accept work that is handed in without punctuation or capital letters. They are in 4th grade now and have been practicing applying the rules of punctuation and capitalization for several years, so there is really no reason that I should see work with a consistent lack of either.
In our read-aloud, Blood on the River, the English settlers and the nearby Native Americans are at peace and enjoying mutually beneficial trade. We also read a bit more in Pocahontas (Joseph Bruchac) in order to get Pocahontas’ opinion on the “Coatmen” and their settlement. We learned from her that her people know that the place the English chose to settle is not a good place in the summer. The water was brackish and undrinkable, the mosquitos came in hordes, and the soil was poor. The Geckos agreed that we have already seen some of these problems, especially the brackish water. The Geckos reviewed and discussed the story so far by playing Read-opoly, a board game in which players have to discuss aspects of a novel. 
All students should have a typed rough draft of their personal narrative now. I gave a mini-lesson on writing strong endings, so all the pieces of the narrative should be in place. We will work on revising and editing next week.
Social Studies
Our Pilgrims have finally left England and are sailing across the Atlantic. Students should be working on journal entry 3, which covers the beginning of the trip up to a massive storm in the middle of the ocean. Mr. Maskell and I are both stressing how important it is for children to keep up with these assignments. At the beginning of this unit, journal entries often need revision, and students sometimes neglect this step, and fall behind. Please check in with your Gecko and ask about the Pilgrims’ voyage.
Character Education/Service Learning
Our first service learning project of the year is Trick or Treat for UNICEF. We join with the 3rd grade for this venture. The students will publicize how UNICEF helps children around the world and how Trick or Treat for UNICEF works. Some 4th graders are creating a bulletin board outside our classroom. Others are writing blurbs for the Weekly Quest, making posters, and getting ready to present at the first pageant on October 15. Last year we raised almost $700 to donate to UNICEF. For more information about UNICEF and Trick or Treat for UNICEF, go to unicef.org.
World’s Largest Corn Maze
We will be taking our second field trip to Richardson’s Adventure Farm, featuring the World’s Largest Corn Maze, on October 26. We will leave school at 9:00 and return around 2:00. You should have received a permission slip electronically. All the information is in that document, but important things to remember are that your child needs to bring a lunch (preferably disposable), including a drink, and we can use as many chaperones as would like to come. It’s a fun trip, so please consider joining us if you can.