Dear 4A Families,
I hope everyone the beautiful sunny weekend! The students got off to a great start on their saint report rough drafts last week and seems well prepared to compose their reports. Thank you so much for the time you spent preparing them!
Thank you all for your generous support of the Magazine Drive–The MAGAZINE DRIVE ends Wednesday, October 11th and we are only half way to our goal. Won’t you help us reach 100% family participation? If each family sells at least 1 magazine or secures one $25 donation, then each child in that family receives 1 FREE DRESS PASS. It is nice on prize distribution day when each child receives something. Plus the highest selling grade wins a Shug’s Ice Cream cart party just for them. Would love for 4th Grade to win that special treat!
On Tuesday we will be gathering in the church for the Living Rosary. In class we will review how to pray the rosary. If students have a rosary they can bring it to school on Tuesday—that would be great. If not, we do have some extras to share.
All Saints’ Day Mass: Wednesday, November 1st at 8:45am
All 4th grade students will participate in the All-School Mass dressed as their Saint on Wednesday, November 1st. We will not be able to accommodate family members at this Mass due to lack of space. There will be very limited seating available, (likey a couple of dozen seats at the most) for the School Mass,–but you will not be able to sit with your child. This Mass will also be live streamed, so you will be able to enjoy the service online.
We are asking families to sign up for one of the weekend Masses on November 4th or 5th with your “saint”. There will be reserved seating at these masses for your families. Mass choices are Saturday, November 4th at 5:00pm, Sunday, November 5th at 8:30am or 10:30am. We are hoping to have a strong representation of 4th grade saints at each of the weekend masses. This is such a nice way to connect and share this wonderful event with the greater parish community.
Please sign up for the Mass you will attend using this link no later than Monday, October 16th
Sign Up Genius Link
In preparation for the upcoming Masses, please start planning a costume for your child. Costumes do not have to be fancy. Many students use robes, graduation gowns, or just material that’s laying around. Look up pictures of your child’s saint for ideas. We also encourage some type of symbol that relates to the saint, like a cross, bible, flowers, basket, etc. There are pictures of past saints in the tab above called Saint Report and Mass Info.
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! The students will be reciting this prayer at the All Saints’ Day Mass.
Reading: We are enjoying getting to know the characters in Charlotte’s Web. The students will be starting a special writing activity based on Chapter 3 The Escape and will make their own Postcards from the Barn, which they will share with you at their conference in November. Check your child’s filer for two separate assessments covering chapters one and two. The first focuses on carefully composed written responses that use text evidence to support their answers. The second is a multiple choice comprehension test.
Spelling: Spelling lists for the week were sent home last Friday. This week’s words focus on short vowel sounds. The test will be this Thursday the 12th due to our Friday Inservice Day.
The students are doing lots of writing at school! In addition to the Postcards from the Barn, we will also be creating Halloween Haikus and we are hard at work on our Saint Reports.
Math: We are working through our chapter on addition and subtraction of large numbers. Thank you for your support at home checking your child’s homework for accuracy. Regrouping with subtraction can be tricky! Look for math homework Monday-Wednesday this week. Regular practice on Xtramath should continue.
Social Studies: We will be wrapping up our work with latitude and longitude this week (but we will return to these concepts all year). We will begin our Washington State History beginning with the Native People of Washington State. The students will also be reviewing the 50 States and learning the abbreviations along with some other features of each region. We will start with the NE States. The students will be introduced on an online practice site for our tests that they can also use at home. All students were given a study sheet for the NE States last Friday. Extra study sheets and links are on the 4A Webpage in the tab called Map Study Sheets. This test will take place Thursday, October 27th.
Science: In this lesson, students will explore how solid rock breaks apart into smaller pieces through a process called weathering (including root-wedging and ice-wedging). In the activity, Sugar Shake, students use sugar cubes as a model for rocks. They 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.
Please be sure your children’s uniform sweatshirts/sweaters are labeled with their name/grade. It makes things so much easier—and reduces the pile up in the lost and found.
Have a great week everyone.