Dear 4A Families,
Happy October everyone! I am sending out one more hard copy of the newsletter this week just to be sure everyone is getting the weekly Sunday emails from me with a link to the 4A Webpage. If you are not, please send me an email with the addresses you would like included in our class email list. Thank you!
This week the students will begin their Saint Report Projects as we prepare for the upcoming All Saints’ Day Masses. Ms. Tyler and I will be meeting with Fr. Oakland and Mrs. Horton this week to start planning for the masses. We will send out information/dates/times on the masses as soon as we have them set.
Special Saint Homework this week:
Religion/Language Arts: This Monday, October 3rd, each student will be assigned the saint that they will write their report on as well as portray at the Mass. All of the work for this report will take place at school except for one homework assignment that is due this Thursday, October 6th. Detailed directions for this homework assignment will be in your child’s filer on Monday, and will also be available on the website in PDF form in the tab at the top of the page. The students will be prepped fully with an example we complete at school. It is very important that families take time to carefully read through the directions of this assignment. We give the students three days to provide ample time to thoughtfully complete the task.. There will be no math homework Monday-Wednesday to provide extra time to complete this important work. Your assistance in helping your child read the materials and understand their saint is an integral part of the process. Please be sure the list of facts your child writes and all highlighted materials come back to school on Thursday when we will write the first drafts.
All students will have a copy of the Prayer of St. Francis that they should be practicing daily for memorization by October 26th. The students will recite this prayer at the All Saints Day Mass.
Our fall MAP testing will wrap up this week with the language arts section. I am proud of the hard work and attention the students gave to the math portion of the test last week.
Reading: Last week, students finished their figurative language project “Sailing the Seas of Hyperbole.” Each student created her/his own sail with figurative language chosen from one of the many seafaring tall tales that we read in class. This week, we will continue to read Charlotte’s Web. Already, we are under its spell. As students read each chapter, we pay attention to the story structure and demonstrate our understanding by writing complete responses to questions using text evidence. Students will be answering thought-provoking questions while restating the question, answering the question being asked, explaining thinking with evidence, and going back to check over each response for accuracy. We strive for quality work.
Spelling: This week’s words focus on short and long “i” vowel sounds. The study sheet was passed out last Friday and should be in your child’s filer. The test this week will be on Friday as usual.
Math: Corrected math tests for our Place Value chapter were sent home last Thursday. If you have not yet checked your child’s filer please do so. The students did very well on the test. We will be using the place value and rounding concepts covered in this chapter all year. Chapter 2 is all about addition and subtraction of large whole numbers. Students are continuing to work on developing good habits in math class and all subjects.The good habits of Reading carefully, following directions completely, and checking over work for accuracy in both classwork and homework are ongoing areas of focus. The students have been logging into Xtramath at school regularly. XtraMath is an excellent resource to build fact mastery.. Success with fact mastery requires regular, focused practice. Thank you for encouraging your child in this area with a goal of visiting Xtramath at home at least three times a week along with our school practice.
Science: This week, we will finish up the worksheet and discussion from the lava experiments the students did last week. Then, we will move on to Lesson 3 about Weathering and Erosion! Students will explore how solid rock breaks apart into smaller pieces through a process called weathering. The activity is called Sugar Shake where students will receive sugar cubes to model rocks. They will perform an experiment with this model to understand the process of weathering and how this process explains why rocks at the tops of mountains are jagged, while those at the bottom are rounded.
Social Studies: Your child’s corrected Continent and Ocean tests were returned last Friday and should be in the first pocket of your child’s filer. We have been learning about latitude and longitude and reading maps in Social Studies. The students will apply this knowledge as they locate places using latitude/longitude coordinates, as well as learning to read different types of maps including precipitation, population and elevation.
Thank you in advance for your assistance on the Saint Homework this week. It is a great way to get to know the saint your child will be representing on All Saints’ Day. Have a wonderful first week of October everyone!
