Week of May 11-15

Hello 4A Families,

 I hope you got to enjoy the beautiful weather over the weekend. Happy Mother’s Day to all of our amazing 4A moms. Hopefully you were all treated like royalty!  I am so proud of all the great work the students are doing.  I know it it sometimes hard to stick with it—especially when we are not all together at school.  Thank you all for all you are doing.  I so loved the teacher appreciation video that was sent out last Friday.  It made me miss everyone even more—but was a very special way to end the week.

Thank you to everyone who came to school to pick up materials on Friday and Saturday!  Just a reminder to please keep all papers in the folder or another safe place until you are asked to complete them. On Monday during our 1:00 whole class Zoom we will talk about this a bit more.  Students should have their packets with them for the meeting.  If you were unable to pick up your packet I will be in touch about getting the materials to you.

May Crowning: Wednesday May 13th at 9:30

This Wednesday at 9:30 the May Crowing will be streamed.  We would love every family to take time to watch at 9:30 if possible, but you can also watch later in the day if that works better for you. This will be an extra special event as the 8th graders will be performing their beautiful liturgical dance.  Because of the May Crowning I will be moving my math review session to 11:00 this Wednesday only. 

Faith Family Activity:

It’s time to do our Faith Family pages for our graduating 8th graders!  This is a wonderful tradition and even though the graduation ceremonies will be different this year, we want to honor our 8th graders. This year the students will be working on their pages from home. They should work on them this week and completed pages are due to the school on May 17th, 18th, or 19th. There will be a drop-off box at school to collect the pages. View the instructions here and if you have any questions let me know.  We will go over this assignment during our Monday Zoom Meeting as well.https://holyrosaryws.org/ff-instructions-for-8th-grade-booklets/

Our theme this week is…baseball! Students are encouraged to wear any baseball gear this Wednesday, May 13th. Students may also use a baseball themed virtual background on Wednesday during the Zoom meetings.  I will be moving our “Fun Friday” Zoom to Wednesday this week so I can see all the fun outfits and backgrounds.  We will have the special Wednesday Zoom at 1:00 on the 13th.  This will be posted in Google Classroom and I will send out a link as well. Looking ahead, Friday, May 22nd will be Field Day, and 4A’s colors are blue and green.

Individual Zoom Meetings: Please feel free to sign your child up for another optional individual Zoom meeting with me. The meeting schedule has been updated.  The meetings can serve any purpose…from a simple hello and check in to some help with school work, or a time to ask questions or share. You can sign up here:
Links for all meetings are posted on Google Classroom called 4A Recurring Zoom Meetings. I will also send out reminders before the meetings.  Students should be able to independently sign in to their Zoom meetings.  Here is an overview of our Zoom Meeting days and times:
Monday: 9:30 Math Review Session (optional)  and 1:00 Whole Class (required)
Tuesday: 1:00 Whole Group (required)
Wednesday: This week only because of 9:30 May Crowning—11:00 Math Review Session (optional)  This week only 1:00 Fun Day.  Remember Wednesday is baseball theme day.
Thursday: 11:00: 1/2 Class Group One and 12:10 1/2 Class Group Two
Language Arts: The due dates for the Running Away Story have been extended. The rough draft  due by Monday, May 11th. Students will submit their rough drafts via Seesaw—after they have done some of their own editing and revising. This means reading their draft to a family member to get feedback and support with spelling.  The teachers should not work harder on editing that the students do!   Once we have edited, which from my end will mostly be suggestions for additional details, or word choice, students can start their final drafts. Some of the folders did not get the final draft paper last week.  Students are free to used any lined paper for the final drafts.  Remember, the final drafts are hand-written.  Final drafts are due no later than May 26th.
Math: Students have been doing a great job of independent math learning. In our current unit of fractions it is imperative that students are watching the videos that are posted. There are a lot of misconceptions by fourth graders when they first learn about fractions, and the videos will help guide them in the right direction.Note, students only need to submit work from their math book on Tuesdays and Fridays, which is generally the HW.  The independent practice pages are reviewed and gone over in the math videos. We will continue to have optional review sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays at 9:30. In addition, I’ve been tracking progress on Happy Numbers. Last week a few students made their 45 minute goal, but most need to dedicate more time to this important skill work.  Students should be using Happy Numbers at least 3 times a week for 15 minutes each time, for a total of at least 45 minutes.
This practice/work time will reap huge benefits if students stay focused attentive—there are plenty of supports built into this site as well.
Reading: All quizzes for reading are now on Google Classroom! Students will find the link for the quiz under the date that it is assigned. All they have to do is click on the link, take the test, and then they will see their score immediately. We will continue to use Seesaw to turn in written work. I hope you are all enjoying the book as much as I am!  Please participate in all reading videos when posted.  
Religion:  This week we will be wrapping up all of the Beatitude activities and tests. The students need to take the open book Beatitude test on Google Classroom by the end of the day on Monday (May 11th). The pictures with captions on the note pages the students completed during the Zoom meetings need to be completed and submitted by this Friday, May 15th on Seesaw.  The captions and pictures should clearly convey an example of how each Beatitude can be followed.  Each picture should have some color as well.
Social Studies:  This week the students will start reviewing the Washington State Feature Map.  The packet contained maps to use for practice and I have created an online interactive review map that I will go over on the Monday Zoom meetings. This map test will take place on June 2nd.  I am still working on the actual format of the test.  The students also have an article titled: Marcus and Narcissa Whitman in their folder.  The students should read this article.  It would be great if they read it aloud to a parent a second time.  On Tuesday there will be a test available on Google Classroom for this article.  The students should not to the test on the back of the article, only the test on Google Classroom. This test needs to be completed by the end of the day on Friday, May 15th.
I will have placed PDF’s of all of these materials on Google Classroom if you do not have your packet yet.

I hope you all have a great week ahead.  As always, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of your child’s teachers with questions.  I am also happy to Zoom with students as needed (even outside of the individual sessions) at mutually agreeable times. Just let me know.  We are here for all of you!  Do not be shy to seek support.

Mary

Extra Resources:

Below you will find some amazing and free resources that you may use at home. These are great tools to help your children continue learning outside of the daily school assignments. Please feel free to use any of them, especially if you have a child who would like more academic content.
  • BrainPOP: www.brainpop.com   Username: holyrosaryws     Password:  gators4142
  • Scholastic News access Grade 4: sn4.scholastic.com (sign in as student: password is HRSgators4142)
  • Freckle: https://student.freckle.com/#/login
    • Class code Ms. Benson Math: 89CG8V
    • Class code 4B Ms. Benson Reading (ELA): SZR3X5
  • Epic: https://www.getepic.com/sign-in
    • Download the Epic! app
    • Open Epic! and click on “Have an account? Sign in”
    • Then click on “Students and Educators”
    • Sign in with our class code:  tgc8290
    • Select your name and you’re in!
  • PLTW (Science):https://my.pltw.org/
    • Usernames and Passwords can be found here.
    • There are modules that we won’t get to, and they have a lot of great information, activities, and games.

Have a great week!

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