Dear 4A Families,

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Our retreat on Friday was inspirational and enjoyable–along with inspiring some great ideas for the classroom. We have some busy and exciting weeks ahead!

All Saints’ Day Preparations:

If you have not done so already, please sign up by the end of the day on Monday the 16th to attend one of the weekend masses with your 4th grader in their saint costume. Mass choices are Saturday, November 4th at 5:00pm, Sunday, November 5th at 8:30am or 10:30 am. 

Please sign up for the Mass you will attend using this link no later than end of day Monday, October 16th

Sign Up Genius Link

 

Hopefully you have started to plan your child’s saint costume. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you all for signing up to attend one of the weekend masses on the 4th and 5th with the Sign Up Genius. We will be selecting readers for the Masses this week and begin practicing in the church next week.  Even though all students will not have an individual speaking part, all students take part in the service by processing in, standing during the Litany of Saints and coming forward to recite the Prayer of St. Francis. It is a lovely service. Be sure to let us know if you have any questions about the saint project or upcoming masses.

Mid-Trimester Reports will be sent home on Friday, October 20th. These envelopes will also contain the Fall MAP test scores. I ask the students not to open the envelopes until they get home. I will have put a sticker over the flap.  Look for an envelope in your child’s filer.  Please sign and return the envelope only–keep the mid-tri and MAP scores.  Thank you. Just so you know, you will not see 4’s on the first mid-tri, the only exception being for some students on the spelling test grade.  A 4 indicates going above and beyond expectations- and it is early in year. 🙂

Religion: Continue to practice the Prayer of St. Francis.  It is a great bedtime prayer, and practicing right before you go to sleep helps with retention!  All students need to be able to recite the prayer from memory by October 26th. All students will individually recite the prayer during class. Thank you!  We will be going over the details of the All Saints Day Mass with the students this week, and those students selected to read during the Mass will come home with their readings to practice. 

Math:  We will be taking the Chapter 2 test on addition and subtraction of large numbers on Friday this week. Striving for accuracy remains an important goal in all math lessons.  The Wednesday/Thursday HW will be test review sheets that will help them prepare for the test.  Thank you for checking over their work with them. We will be moving into our units on multiplication and division of larger numbers next.  We will begin with the basics, which also means getting back to mastery/automatic recall of the facts.  I will move all students to multiplication on Xtramath next week.  I would like them to visit Xtramath at least 4 times each week (in 7 days) until mastery is reached. Students are also encouraged to use flash cards and other practice strategies. It is great to keep flash cards in the car for quick review sessions.

Reading: As mentioned the students will be finishing up their Postcards from the Barn then and we continue on our journey with Wilbur and his friends in the barn.  The students are working on vocabulary, oral reading fluency and understanding character traits.

Spelling: Our spelling words this week all have the vowel-consonant-e pattern.  The test will be on Friday, October 20th. 

Language Arts: The students are hard at work on their saint reports and their postcard from the barn! We have some creative and clever writers in 4th grade. 

Social Studies: The students will be tested on the NE State locations and abbreviations this Friday, October 20th. Students should know both the abbreviations and the locations of these 11 states along with some added regional features (listed on the study sheets).  Last week we used class time to review students and the students had a chance to use the online practice sites I have created for both locations and abbreviations. Extra study sheets and links to the online practice sites can be found on the 4A Website in the Map Study Sheets tab at the top of the webpage.

Science: This week the students will be finishing up the Weathering and Erosion lesson and both classes will be starting the Sedimentary Rock and Fossils lesson. We will go back in time and discover what life used to look like 100 million years ago!​ The students will gather evidence to describe how environments on Earth have changed over time. Students will explore the process of sedimentary rock formation preserves a record of those past environments. The activity is called Canyon Explorer where students will observe fossils found within a model canyon. The characteristics of those fossils provide evidence to support the explanation that the landscape has changed numerous times. 

Remember to check your child’s filer for corrected tests and lessons.  There will be papers coming home all week.  Thank you!