Dear 4A Families,
I hope you all had a nice weekend! What beautiful weather. My apologies for the slow return of tests and classwork. My mom ended up in the Emergency room on Monday and has been in the hospital since. She seems to be making some progress and will most likely be moved to rehab (hopefully Mt. St. Vincent) sometime this week.
The BINGO Bash last Friday was great fun. Thank you so much for your support.
Mark your calendars! The annual 4th grade charity Bake Sale will be taking place on Thursday, May 21st. Each family will be asked to bring in some delicious baked goods for the sale. We will also be in need of some parent volunteers to price and set up, clean up and assist the students during the sale. I will send out more information as we get closer.
Language Arts:
Hopefully the students have several entries in their Flat Stanley Journals complete at this point. I will be asking the students to bring in their journals for me to look over next week. This gives me an opportunity to provide some feedback and offer suggestions as needed. If students want to bring their flat people to school for a day they are welcome to. I would be happy to take pictures—this could be one entry. Wednesdays and Thursdays are good days to “visit” because the flat people can go to music, art and PE. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions regarding this project.
In class we will be doing some work with poetry, Greek Roots, and quick writes to practice different writing styles.
Spelling Lesson 14 this week. Test on Friday as usual.
Religion/Steps to Respect:
We continue our study of the Beatitudes this week. The students discover ways to “weave” the Beatitudes into their daily lives. The Beatitudes tie in very nicely with the Steps to Respect lessons as well. Look in your child’s filer for two handouts titled Spreading Rumors is Bullying and Put Downs Hurt.
Social Studies: The rivers/mountains test will take place next Tuesday, April 28th. All students should have a study sheet in their filer. Our content will continue to focus on the early explorers and settlers of our state.
Math: Our work with fractions continues. We will work with adding and subtracting mixed numbers, problem solving with fractions and reviewing long division.
Reading: This week I will be going over the specific directions for the Mystery Book Report. Check your child’s filer and the tabs above in for directions. Mrs. Harris will be giving a special mystery book lesson in library class last week. Once the directions have been given students can select and have their mystery book approved. This should be a new book—not previously read or recently started. The mystery book report is a fun project giving the students a chance to decide how they would like to present their book.
In class we will begin a wonderful mystery novel—a classic you may have read—called From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It is a wonderful mystery with rich vocabulary and fun characters.
Update from the Art room:
4A and 4B have been using Art time to explore 3-dimensional space through the free-style manipulation of paper. Our unit kicked off with an engineering challenge, wherein students raced to build the tallest tower they could using only paper and tape/glue adhesives. Following this, students were given the task of either creating a small-scale scene or rendering a real-life 3D object in miniature form (again using paper and adhesives). While kids were given some general pointers on paper manipulation, they were largely encouraged to problem solve and brainstorm their own original techniques and solutions. Greater emphasis was placed on this process of creative problem solving and innovation than on the appearance of the actual finished project, in order to encourage risk taking and divergent thinking. I am totally in awe of the vast scope of techniques and designs that they came up with!
This project has served as a lovely segue into the study of origami that we are now beginning. Kids will be learning how to decipher the symbols used for origami folding instructions, then using these instructions to fold houses, hats, and then other increasingly complex objects. I am always amazed by how quickly they learn these new folding techniques!
That should be about all for this week. Remember, Friday is a half-day for Auction set-up. Special thanks to Heather Slee, Maria Olson and everyone that helped out with our class auction project. Here’s to a very successful auction!