Dear 4A Families,
Happy Valentine’s Day on Tuesday. I am excited to see the Valentine boxes the students have created. Be sure they bring in not only their boxes and valentines, but also the grid paper with the various views of the box plotted out and labeled. Thank you to our room parents and volunteers who will be providing some fun treats and activities for our party. On Tuesday students may have free dress with a Valentine theme–reds, pinks, purples, whites….hearts—be creative.
Be sure to return your mid-tri envelope—signed by Friday. Keep the mid tri! Thank you
This week’s newsletter will cover both this week and next, February 13-24
Language Arts: The students got a start on research for their Mini Bios last week. This week they will move forward with the poster that includes a short summary, illustrations, fun facts. The final step will be mini presentations!
Spelling: There will be a spelling test this Friday the 17th. All students received the new list last Thursday. All of the words have silent consonants. There will not be a spelling test on the 24th.
Social Studies: The students will be taking their 50 State test on Thursday February 16th. We are moving along the trail with Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea. This week the students will learn about the grueling trip over the Rocky Mountains.
Science: Students will continue to discover the mechanism by which their muscles control their bones to move their bodies. In the activity Robot Finger, students construct a model of a human finger and observe how pulling on a string (a model for tendons) causes it to bend at the joints.
Reading: Our reading topic will also support our SS work! The fourth graders will read the biography story, Sacagawea as well as Native American Poetry. Our target comprehension skill is: main ideas & details, learning to determine what is most important in a selection. Students also study text structure. As we read, students annotate notes–journal style–as did Lewis and Clark. We use diagrams, color, images and text features to list only the main ideas and most important details in the notes.Students continue to learn about figurative language: onomatopoeia. We found several examples of this in our story this week. We also discuss synonyms and the “shades of meaning” that several synonyms might have. For example, “hot, warm & blistering” mean relatively the same thing, but each would be used for varying degrees of intensity.
Math: Keep up regular multiplication and division fact practice–over the mid-winter break as well especially if those facts are not mastered. Thank you for your continued assistance helping your children work for accuracy on their homework as we master the long division algorithm. Our class lessons will remain focused on long division and interpreting remainders in story problems. We will also include some review of double digit multiplication. On Valentine’s Day we will do some math activities on area, perimeter and volume using the grid paper drawings of their boxes.
Religion: Because Ash Wednesday will be the day we return after President’s Day weekend, we will be doing a few activities to prepare for Lent this week. The students will be memorizing a new prayer during Lent, the Memorare. We will introduce the prayer in class this week and talk about its meaning. We will recite the prayer daily in class as well. Students need to have the prayer memorized by spring break. All students will receive two copies of the prayer for reference. They should keep one by their bed to say before they go to sleep each night! The students will also be introduced to our new unit on the Seven Sacraments.
Enjoy the President’s Day Weekend/ Winter Break.
