Dear 4A Families,
Happy Halloween on Monday and All Saints’ Day on Tuesday. Thank you to the student saints and families that attended any of the Masses this weekend. They looked wonderful and did a great job with their speaking parts. I know the parish community loved seeing the saints at mass with them.
Thursday, November 3rd are pictures retakes. If your student is scheduled to have their picture retaken they may come in free dress.
Monday, October 31st the students will be busy! We will have our final Mass practice before
lunch and we will enjoy a Halloween Party the last hour of the day. Students may wear Halloween themed free dress, no costumes, face paint or hair dye please. Thank you to our room parents and all those that are helping out during the party.
Tuesday, November 1st is the All Saints’ Day school Mass at 8:45.
Students should come to school completely dressed as their saint. All students should be in the classroom no later than 8:25. Thank you! Students should come a little Tuesday if they usually come in the second group. We will start heading over to the church at 8:35
Just a reminder, the School Mass has only very limited seating for parents on a first come first serve basis. The All Saints Day Mass will be live-streamed however, using the Holy Rosary Parish vimeo link for those who are unable to attend and who wish to participate. The link can be found here. Please note- we have specifically asked Mr. Barker to turn the camera onto the students in the pews at different points in the Mass so participants from home and in the school building will be able to better hear and see them participating. Most of the students should be visible at some point during the Mass. If you have any questions regarding this, please reach out.
There will be no math homework on Monday and Tuesday this week. (I always encourage Xtramath however:-) Happy Halloween and All Saints’ Day!
Conferences: As mentioned in my email last week, we will be starting our preparations for the upcoming conferences, November 21-23. Sign ups for conference times will be released on Wednesday November 2nd at 11:00 am via an email from the office. We will also be having a Scholastic Book Fair during conferences. The book fair will be in the library and open during conference hours
Picture Retakes: If your child will be doing picture retakes on Thursday, November 3rd, they may wear Free Dress. This would include 8th graders and students that were absent on the original picture day. If you received pictures from Yuen Lui, your student needs to bring them to the retakes. Please let your student’s teacher know if they are taking retakes. The teachers will dismiss only the students that they know are taking retakes. Your child MAY NOT wear free dress if they are not having picture retakes.
St. Vincent de Paul Food Drive: As we give thanks to God for the many gifts in our lives, we will once again host our November food drive to benefit our local St. Vincent de Paul food pantry. This local food pantry supports our neighbors here in the West Seattle community most in need. Please reference the eFC for the most needed items, but any non-perishable food item is welcome. Our Holy Rosary School community always goes above and beyond supporting our brothers and sisters in the community around us. Thank you in advance for your generosity! Food can be dropped off outside of the main office door or sent in with your children to leave on the table in the front hallway of the school during the month of November.
Veterans Day: On Wednesday, we will send home directions and a blank flag for the Veterans Day Flag homework project. I will go over the project in detail in class as well so that the students know what to do. The project is due no later than next Wednesday November 9th.. On Thursday, November 10th, we will have a special classroom prayer service to honor the Veterans using these flags prior to our day off of school on November 11th. If you do not know a Veteran you can honor, you can research databases online with profiles of Veterans. Here is one site we have used in the past.
Thank you for your assistance on this special project. Students should work neatly, and spell correctly. They should also practice reading their flags prior to bringing them to school.
Reading: We are moving along with Charlotte’s Web and getting to know the traits of the wonderful and quirky characters. The students enjoy partner reading the chapters and adding personality and expression as they read aloud.
Spelling: Spelling lists were sent home last Friday. The words all have long “e” sounds spelled ee, ea and ie.
Language Arts: We are wrapping up our Saint reports. Last week the students wrote prayers to their saints and this week they will work on the final section about how they can follow in their saint’s footsteps. There will be two special bulletin boards dedicated to the 4th grade saint project. The main hall bulletin board downstairs, and by each of our classrooms. You will get to enjoy these lovely projects when you come for your conference.
Religion: On Tuesday the students will be making saintly visits in their costumes to a kindergarten, third grade and preschool class to teach about their saints. Our next unit in religion will focus on the Corporal Works of Mercy which is a perfect follow-up to our saint unit.
Math: We started chapter 3 last week, which is a deep dive into understanding multiplication and division. There is a lot of thought that is going into this chapter, and it can be challenging for fourth graders! Please make sure your child is practicing their multiplication facts at least 3x per week for 10 minutes. Flash or playing cards to multiply can be a fun and effective supplement to XtraMath. Just have them pull two cards and find their product as fast as possible. Enjoy!
Science: This week the students will be finishing up the last lesson in the Birth of Rocks unit: Erosion, Natural Hazards, and Engineering. In this lesson students will learn about the types, causes, and dangers of landslides. The activity, Slide City, will consist of students being faced with an engineering problem of protecting a house from a landslide and preventing a future one. They will use a brainstorming technique to design creative solutions. The students will have an upcoming quiz that covers vocabulary and concepts learned in unit 1 on November 7th. They will receive a study guide next week.
Social Studies: Look for corrected NE State tests in your child’s filer on Monday. The students did well on this test overall. In coming tests, I will be taking off points if students are not capitalizing abbreviations or other locations (like Lake Erie). The students received a new set of states to practice last week, the SE State states. The SE State test will take place next Thursday, the 10th. We will then have a combination NE/SE test one week later on November 10th. The online practice sites that are linked on the 4A webpage under Map Study Sheets have reviews for both of these tests. On Thursday this week we will be reviewing for a latitude/longitude quiz the students will have on Friday. All students will bring home their study sheet on Thursday for this simple quiz. 
We FALL BACK this coming weekend–so an extra hour of sleep I guess?
Have a great week everyone, and thank you again for all your help at home preparing the saint costumes and bringing your children to mass, and getting them ready on Tuesday!