Dear 4B Families,
Happy October on Thursday (and Feast Day of St. Therese, the Little Flower)!
Saints Project
Wow! We sure have some excitement around our special saints project! I received many requests for saints last week and the children have been begging for the great reveal to come! Saints will be assigned on Monday. I did my best to honor requests, especially if the saint requested reflects the child’s first or middle name; however, there were some saints requested that were not in our 4th grade research preparation materials. I prayerfully selected saints for each child from the available selections. The children will also have the opportunity to trade out the saint assigned to them from the many available selections not being used this year if they so choose. The Saints Research Project will culminate with each child dressing up as their saint and representing the saint at the school Mass and other parish Masses. More information on the Mass times will be forthcoming.
Special Saint Homework this week
This Monday, September 28th, each student will be assigned the saint that they will write their report on as well as portray at the Mass. The majority of the work for this report will take place at school except for this week’s homework assignment that is due this Thursday, October 1st. Detailed directions for this homework assignment will be in your child’s filer on Monday. 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—not sooner— when we will write the first drafts.
All students received a copy of the Prayer of St. Francis last week. Students should be practicing daily for memorization no later than October 28th. The students will recite this prayer during the All Saints Day Mass.
Language Arts
Reading
The students have begun work on their Postcards From the Barn project. This writing focuses on using their senses to describe a scene, organizing a summary in their own words, and using interesting vocabulary to enhance their writing. We will then focus on character traits as we read chapters 4 and 5 of Charlotte’s Web.
Spelling
This week’s words focus on short and long “a” The study sheet was passed out last Friday and should be in your child’s filer. The test will be on Friday, October 2nd. The students will begin writing Halloween Haikus this week.
Math
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. 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. Since most students are doing well with basic addition, we will be moving them into subtraction practice soon. We will continue to work on adding and subtracting using the algorithm, mental math strategies, the associative property of addition and the identity property.
Science
We will be wrapping up our lessons on the slow earth changes of weathering, erosion and deposition. In our first lab we simulated the crashing of waves over rocks and the swelling of clay to notice that weathering events break down rocks and earth formations. We then observed what happens when soft earth materials are in the presence of an acid such as vinegar, and finally we simulated erosion events to notice how slope, groundcover, obstacles and water volume can erode soil and earth. We hope to take our weathering, erosion and deposition assessment on Friday, October 2nd.
Social Studies
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. The students have a study sheet in their filer for a latitude and longitude quiz that will take place on October 8th. This quiz should be very straightforward and will mirror the study sheet in most areas. I will provide a blank study sheet as well for practice. The next map skill review will be the NE States. Students received study sheets for this new test Friday and it should be in their filer. The students will be asked to learn both the locations and abbreviations along with some added features of the region. Study sheets and links for online review sites can be found here. This test is planned for October 16th
Here’s to a great week of learning ahead!