Week of October 25th

Dear 4A Families,

It is hard to believe that October is almost over, this month has flown by. It was a chilly weekend, fall is in the air!  The 4th grade students are very busy with their saint reports and preparations for the upcoming Masses. More detailed information on this topic is below.  

Students may wear orange and black Halloween themed dress on Friday.  No costumes or face paint please. 

Monday, November 1st is the All Saints’ Day Mass. Your child should come to school with their saint costume on.  There will not be time to change at school.  If you need ideas for a costume, you can look here. Scroll down to see pictures. On Mass day, students should arrive at school no later than 8:25 with their saint costumes on!  We will head over to church at 8:35 to line up for our entry.

Students are encouraged to also attend any of the weekend Masses in their Saint costumes. The wider parish community love to see the students in their saint costumes during Mass.  We are also looking for 4th grade volunteers to be interviewed by Father Oakland at the 5:00pm Saturday Mass and the 8:30am Sunday Mass.  Please let us know if your family will be attending either of these Masses and your child would be willing to come up and be interviewed (as their saint).  We will give your child the questions ahead of time and help them prepare.

Mid-Trimester Reports will be sent home this Tuesday, October 26th. Look for an envelope in your child’s filer.  Please sign and return the envelope only–-keep the mid-tri. Thank you.

Spelling: Spelling words for Lesson 4; long “e” sounds are in your child’s filer. The focus is on long e sounds, and at least one challenge word is required. The test will be on Friday, October 29th.

Reading: We are enjoying getting to know the characters and learning new vocabulary in Charlotte’s Web. The students are finishing up their own Postcards from the Barn this week. They will be sharing their postcards during conferences next month. Be sure to click on link to visit Ms. Corrigan’s site for more detailed information about 4th grade reading this week.

Math: We started our chapter on multiplication last week. Students are continuing to work hard to memorize all multiplication facts from 0-12. Please have your child practice on Xtra Math at least 3x per week for at least 10 minutes. We also encourage other types of practice including flash cards and paper and pencil tests. The memorization of math facts is crucial to learning multiplication and division algorithms as well as fractions. Ask your child to explain what multiplication means. For example, 3×4=12 can be shown with an array. Have fun with it, and don’t be afraid to push your child’s thinking and encourage them to use multiplication and division in real world situations.

Science: This week, we will return to our clay brains to model inputs and outputs of different senses. We will also be taking an open book quiz to wrap up our brain learning. Next week, we will start our final project, which includes creating a podcast or video all about concussions.

Social Studies:   Corrected NE State tests will be in your child’s filer on Monday.  The students did very well on this test! Our next set of states are the SE States and study sheets for this test will also be in your child’s filer Monday.   Study sheets and online practice links for the test are also located on the 4A page in the Map Study Sheet link at the top of the page.The SE State test will take place on Monday, November 8th. Our study of early explorers by sea to the Washington Coast will wrap up this week, and then we will begin our study of Lewis and Clark!

Veterans Day: On Monday, we will send home directions and a blank flag for the Veterans Day Flag project. I will go over the project in detail in class as well so that the students know what to do. The project is due no later than next Friday November 5th. On November 10th, we will have a special classroom prayer service to honor the Veterans using these flags prior to our day off of school on November 11th.  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.

Here’s to a great week.  Happy Halloween on Sunday!