Dear 4A Families,
Happy Halloween on Tuesday and All Saints’ Day on Wednesday.
Tuesday, October 31st the students will be busy! We will have our final Mass practice before lunch and we will enjoy a Halloween Party from 1:00-2:00. 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 early Wednesday 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 limited seating for parents on a first come first serve basis. You will not sit with your children if you do attend. 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. Most of the students should be visible at some point during the Mass.
Weekend Saint Masses
We are also looking forward to the weekend Masses on Saturday the 4th and Sunday the 5th.
Thank you for signing up to attend one of the weekend Masses with the 4th grade saints. Students come to the mass in their costumes. The Saturday Mass begins at 5:00, Sunday at 8:30 and 10:30. There will be reserved seating for the saints and their families—look for the signs. You can sit in any of the reserved pews (one saint/family per pew) The students should gather at the back of the church in the vestibule 10 minutes prior to the start of each mass. There will be a teacher there to help them get set up to process at the start of Mass.
There will be no math homework on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. (We always encourage Xtramath however:-) Happy Halloween and All Saints’ Day!
Conferences: As mentioned in my email last week, we are starting our preparations for the upcoming conferences, November 20-22. Sign ups for conference times will be released on Wednesday November 1st 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.
Veterans Day: Just a reminder that the Veterans Day Flag homework project is due Tuesday, November 7th. I went over the project with the class last Friday, and sent home the directions and a blank flag that should be in each filer, and in the link at the top of the website. The project is due no later than next Wednesday November 8th. On Thursday, November 9th, we will have a special classroom prayer service to honor the Veterans using these flags prior to our day off of school on November 10th. 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. They are also learning to use the rich vocabulary from the book in their own writing.
Spelling: There will be no spelling test this week. There will be a test on November 8th and these words will be sent home with your children this Friday the 3rd.
Language Arts: We are well into 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 Wednesday and Thursday this week the students will be making saintly visits in their costumes to a kindergarten, third grade and preschool class to teach about their saints. I am asking the 4A students to bring their costumes on Thursday as well so we can visit one of the preschool classrooms that we were unable to schedule on Wednesday. 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!
Because of our extra Mass practices and work on our saint projects we did not meet for social studies and science last week.
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 test that covers concepts learned in unit 1 on November 9th. They will receive a study guide that we will review in class on November 2nd.
Social Studies: The students will be tested on the SE States this Friday the 3rd. Online practice links and extra study sheets can be found here.. We will then have a combination NE/SE test on November 16th. The online practice sites that are linked on the 4A webpage under Map Study Sheets have reviews for both of these tests. Our class lessons are focusing on the Coastal and Plateau People of Washington State.
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 Wednesday!