*Peking*

*Some highlights from our Explorers field trip to the South Street Seaport's ship, The Peking. What were your highlights from the trip? Please share!

*F L Y*

*Yesterday, we had a very cool artist visit us as a special guest. Her name is Fly, and she creates amazing story portraits of people, zines (mini-magazines), and super cool comic books! We LOVED visiting with her. She showed us a lot of her work, which was really inspirational, and then taught us how to make our own zines. Check us out with Fly!

What did you think of Fly's visit? How did her artwork inspire you? Please post your comments.

*testing info*

*We've officially started preparing for our fast-approaching ELA test coming up in January. I wanted to pass along these tips. Not to make too big a deal of it, but these are simple tips that 4th graders are expected to do in ALL of their work, and can make a difference for a HIGHER SCORE on the test, believe it or not!

ELA TIPS:

*Practice writing in answers (short answers, graphic organizers)

*Practice essays and essay structure (turn question into thesis statement, 3 pieces of evidence, introduction, conclusion - restate thesis statement)

*HANDWRITING MATTERS! Practice using the lines and ALWAYS using legible handwriting

*INDENTING PARAGRAPHS matters! Students may also skip lines, in addition to indenting, for each new paragraph. 4th graders at this point are EXPECTED to organize their writing into paragraphs! We work on this at school A LOT!

*Spell words that are given in the text/questions CORRECTLY!

*Length matters -- try to write long, reminding kids that REPETITION IS BETTER THAN RAMBLING (without overdoing it!)

*Practice reading many SHORT passages, and keeping kids to a time frame. Build stamina by building up the number of short passages over weeks. Remember there are 5 passage on the 4th grade test! There were only 4 last year.

We are working on ALL of these in school, but our kids are asked to do more than they needed to on the 3rd grade test, so please help by using the tips above to reinforce these at home. Your participation really matters & helps tremendously.

Check out the *LINKS* section of our blog for more testing info and practice resources. Thanks in advance for your support. Let me know if you have any questions**


**Allisyn