Dear 4A Families,
What an excellent first week of school with my wonderful new 4th grade students. It is clear to see that this will be an amazing year—with such a bright, kind, creative and fun group of students. I so enjoyed talking with you on Parent’s Night. Remember, if you have questions, suggestions, concerns, please contact me! We are partners in your child’s learning.
This Tuesday is individual class picture day. Picture day is Tuesday, September 11. Flyers to order pictures were sent home this week, or use this link to order online with our school ID# LS118072Q0. Students may wear free dress on picture day.
The Magazine Drive officially kicked off with the opening assembly last Friday.This year’s theme is “GLOW FOR IT”. The annual Magazine Drive is one of Holy Rosary School’s largest fundraisers. Approximately $120,000 is raised! Cash donations, in lieu of magazine orders, are welcome! $25.00 donation = 1 magazine order. Thank you so much for your support of this important fundraiser! Please share this link with family and friends. Check the eFC for more information.
- Please turn in all Summer Readingand Summer Math forms no later than this Friday the 14th.
- If you have not yet returned your pink student profile and blue iPad user agreement, please do so by the end of the week. Thank you.
It looks like I have most of the email addresses for our 4A email list. I will be sending one more paper copy of the newsletter this week, but I will have sent a test email to all of the families that have provided me their email addresses so far on Sunday afternoon. Please let me know if you did not receive the email, or if you would like to change any of your email choices. You can expect a weekly email from me with the “Newsletter is Up” link and occasional emails with important reminders. Thank you.
As we move into our second week of school, we will continue to practice the routines and expectations the school and 4thgrade. The time we spend on these procedures now help to set the stage for a successful year. Our regular curriculum schedule will also start to move into place.
Spelling: Each student should have the spelling words for the cardinal numbers in their filer. This list will support our upcoming math lessons as well. These words were passed out last Friday. We will also be using a site called Spelling City this year. The site has many activities that will help the students review and practice their weekly lists. Your child’s password for the site will be glued into the back cover of their assignment books. Spelling homework will occasionally be assigned from this site, but we will mostly use it at school. You can always use the site for extra practice however.
Reading: Last week Ms. Corrigan began administering an oral reading assessment to the students, which will be completed this week. We will begin our regular reading routine this week as well, starting with a wonderful tall tale in our anthology called “Stormalong”. We will focus on understanding characters and the figurative language concepts of hyperbole, simile and metaphor.
Language Arts: We will be presenting our introductory Venn Diagram getting to know you activity this week. Along with our spelling and vocabulary work, we will be reviewing cursive forms and paper headings.
Math: Our lessons this week will focus on place value and comparing/ordering numbers. The students will learn to read and write numbers correctly though the millions. Measurement work will also be included in our math/science/social studies lessons. Look for math homework each night this week.
Religion: Our religion lessons this week will focus on our Steps to Respect lessons and social skills. When our class norms clearly support SAFE, RESPECTFUL & RESPONSIBLE behavior, unkind/bullying behaviors are less likely to happen. Our lessons this week will help reinforce these norms by connecting words and actions to class rules and expectations for social and learning behavior. We will also be doing some introductory activities on the parts of the Bible, how to look up verses, as well as learn a bit about the history of the Bible. Lastly, the students will be making personalized bookmarks for their Bibles. During this Wednesday’s Mass Fr. Oakland will bless the 4thgrade Bibles.
Social Studies/Science:–Mrs. Podell and I will be switching classes for science and social studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays this year. This week we will be meeting our classes and doing some introductory lessons.
In social studies, our initial lessons will focus on map work. We will review the continents and oceans and begin a study of latitude and longitude. Next Thursday, September 20th, the 4thgraders will be tested on the 7 Continents and 5 Oceans. All students will have study sheets in their filers on Tuesday. You can also access a study sheet on the 4A webpage under the tab at the top of our page called Map Study Sheets.The students will also need to have the Continent and Ocean poem memorized by September 20th.
In science this week the students will be doing an introductory lab reviewing the engineering design process. This lab will be a great way to introduce lab procedures and expectations that we will be using all year long. It is also an excellent introduction into our first Project Lead the Way module on energy conversion that we will begin next week.
Be on the lookout for information on our “gritty” classroom in next week’s newsletter. Grit and Growth Mindset fall into the same category. This short video (Link on 4A website)is a good introduction to growth mindset and is one I will be sharing with the class. These are the traits we will be forcing on this year to become gritty!
COURAGE, TENACITY, HARD WORK, OPTIMISM, RESILIENCE, SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE, GRATITUDE, CONSCIENTIOUSNESS, PERSEVERANCE, DELAYED GRATIFICATION, PERSISTENCE, SELF-CONTROL AND OPEN-MINDEDNESS.
I wanted to remind you about the Every Kid in a Park program.Thanks to this program, every 4th grader and their family can receive a FREE annual pass to the National Parks.This offer is good for every child entering the fourth grade
