Mrs. Armstrong's class is a fourth grade mostly self-contained class at College Hills Elementary school. Self-contained means that all basic subjects are covered in one classroom including Math, Reading, Language Arts, and Social Studies. Our students will change classes for science, PE, computer and art.  This webpage was developed for parents and students to keep up with and display assignments. There are also links (still under construction) to help students research and explore educational subjects. Dear Parents,         Fourth Grade is going strong as we prepare for the holidays. On December sixth, the fourth grade music classes will be presenting their Music Concert.  There will be several performances, one in the morning at 9:30 and a second performance in the evening.   Fourth Grade is all a buzz about the Spelling Bee that will be held on December fifteenth.  Two students from each of our six classes will compete to find our outstanding fourth grade spelling champions.  December 15th is also “Free Food Day” and some of the fourth grade classes will be celebrating by having “brunch” in the classroom. Math has been all about fractions, and dividing things up.  We have divided up circles, squares, sets, groups of students, Play-do, fraction strips and just about everything that can be put into parts.  The College Hill seniors can identify what a fraction is, and when they are given more than one fraction, they can compare and tell you which fraction is greater, or if the two fractions are equivalents.  We have also learned about improper fractions and mixed numbers.  The study of fractions, and dividing things up has led to dividing things up into units of ten, (in Latin dec means ten), and so we are now investigating decimals. Forecasting the rest of December, (which was originally the tenth month of the early calendars), fourth grade will be experiencing flurries of decimals, until we break for the holidays.  January will find us using measurement in math. Recently, the aromatic activity of classifying student shoes introduced our fourth grade scientists to classifying objects, and learning scientific classifications.  The scientists of College Hills fourth grade are creating “backbones” from macaroni and gummy Lifesavers as a way to determine the differences between invertebrates and vertebrates. Remembering the Alamo has been the main focus of social studies this month in the fourth grade.  Fourth graders have been writing biographies of the men and women who made contributions to Texas independence from Mexico, in the early nineteenth century.  After Texas independence, immigrants came in increasing numbers to settle the new land called Texas, and in January, we will be learning more about them. Students are encouraged to continue reading over the holiday break, because the best gifts that we can give ourselves are brain adventures and trips into the imagination. Angela Armstrong