Dear 4A Families,
Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and spring vacation. We are looking forward to the Bingo Bash Friday night and the first of our Oral Biography presentations next week.
I want to thank the students for the sweet cards—I so appreciated kind words and wonderful illustrations! I love the beautiful plant that arrived at my house on my birthday as well. Thank you all!
We now are in the final stretch of the year—hard to believe. Hopefully the students are rested up and ready to go! As we head into these final weeks and the weather gets nicer, it can be easy to lose focus and dream of summer, but so much important curriculum remains which will set the stage for 5th grade. Thank you for your support in keeping your child focused and attentive to projects, test preparation and homework. Be sure you check your child’s filer regularly for corrected papers. Students are asked to put corrected work in the front pocket, but I often find it in other sections.
Lunches of Love: 4th Grade is signed up for Lunches of Love during the month of April/May. This is a cherished Holy Rosary tradition, and we are honored to continue it this month. Items that make good lunches include nuts/trail mix, fruit cups, protein bars, individually packaged chips/crackers, Vienna sausages, jerky, Ritz cheese/crackers (shelf-stable only), and a plastic spoon/fork. Water is the drink of choice. We also encourage students and families to write an encouraging and positive note with each lunch (no names, please). Students can bring in lunches whenever they are complete. Students are highly encouraged to take part in the purchasing and packing of the lunches! Thank you.
Group class pictures will be taken on Tuesday, April 25th. Students should come in perfect uniform. Red Holy Rosary sweatshirts or sweaters included. Thank you!
Oral Biographies: The oral biography presentations are fast approaching! Students will get some final class times to work on their projects this week on Monday and Tuesday. They should plan to have their books, note cards and anything else they can use to work on their projects. All students should bring in the book(s) they used as we will be working on our bibliographies.
Some important reminders:
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- Students need to have a costume and at least two other props that are used during their presentation.
- Note cards prepared and numbered. Highlight reminders like when to use a prop etc.
- Plan a brilliant beginning to catch the viewer’s attention such as a pivotal moment in their life.—No saying. “Hi my name is” or “Oh, I didn’t see you there…”
- The conclusion is in the student’s own words. They need to give specific examples of what they admire and why…how has this person made the world a better place? What can we learn from this person–how does this person inspire you to be better, etc.
- Remember to work to include elements of PVLEGS
- Do not hesitate to reach out with any questions!
Religion:This week we will be reflecting on the Easter Season and making Easter Candle Crosses to decorate our classroom and hallway as well as begin our study of the 10 Commandments followed by the Beatitudes.
Reading: Students read chapter 4 in The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Our target comprehension skills are: mood, theme, summarizing. Students use the “Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?” questions to retell main events from the chapter.
Math: This week the students will be learning to add, subtract fractions and mixed numbers. Look for homework each night. Thank you for checking over the homework with your child and having them talk to you about operations with fractions.
Science: We will be continuing the new unit on energy. Students learn that we use the energy from food to make our bodies move just like cars use the energy from gasoline to move. Students build paper models of an amusement park ride called the Twist-o-Matic. The ride stores energy in rubber bands and spins around when the energy is released. Students compare the speed of the spins when they use a thin rubber band versus a thick rubber band.
Social Studies: This week we wrap up some work with state symbols as well as learn about the features of our Washington State regions. The students will need to be able to name the 6 regions of our state from memory for a test on April 27th. Students will need to have the names of the regions memorized for this test—no word bank will be provided. All students have study sheets in their filers and they can also be accessed here.
Flat Stanley: Hopefully the flat people had a fun spring break! All students should have their journals, as well as rough draft paper, directions and interesting word lists in their filer/journal. Be sure you have your child talk with you about the directions, as well as reading the directions yourself for the homework part of the journal. Let us know if you have any questions.
Spelling: This week’s words all have final /j/ and /s/ sounds. Lists will be in your child’s filer and the test will be this Friday the 21st.
