Newsletter December 2nd

Dear 4B Families,

Happy first week of Advent! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was a pleasure to meet with you all during the Celebrations of Learning.

The signs of the season are beginning to appear. As we prepare we are asked to look for ways we can serve others. As a school we are asked to participate in several outreach/service opportunities. As you know, the 4th grade students are collecting for the Pike Market Food Bank and Senior Center. We are accepting non-perishable food items for the food bank and hats, scarves, gloves, and socks for the Senior Center. We have boxes in our classroom ready to collect and you can bring in items any time. All donations need to be in by Thursday, December 5th (our field trip day). Thank you all for your generous donations.

Pike Place Market! This Thursday, December 5th we will be heading off to wonderful Pike Place Market. Students are required to wear their uniforms, but they can opt to wear their Gator Gear or their red Holy Rosary Sweatshirts to the Market. Students should also wear good shoes for walking. All students will need to bring a sack lunch and a beverage, and they may bring $5.00 to $10.00 to spend at the Market, but no more please. Students will not be allowed to buy their lunches. The money is to buy a small treat or craft item.

Please make every effort to also send in a donation or two—or three… for the Pike Market Food Bank and Senior Center if you have not already done so. This is the 4th grade Advent Outreach area of focus. We are hoping to have donations from every 4th grade student to bring with us on Thursday. Thank you so much!!!

Report cards will go home next Friday, December 13th. I am very proud of the progress the students are making. I will ask the students not to open their report card envelope until they get in their car or home. You can help by reinforcing this request as well. Grades are personal and should not be shared and compared with classmates or other families. Let me know if you have any questions regarding your child’s grades and or progress during the first trimester. Please note; the overall spelling grade is a combination of spelling tests, spelling practice work and applied spelling (spelling in written work).

We will be meeting with our Faith Families this Friday, December 6th, and receive the names of our Prayer Partners. Each student is asked to pray for his or her partner each day and make a special card for them. Directions for this project will be on a sheet of paper that will come home Friday with paper for the card and the name of your child’s prayer partner. Our hope it that the cards will be “from the heart” showing some real thought and time. This not only includes a nicely decorated/illustrated card, but a personal note and prayer of some type. The cards should be brought to school on or before Wednesday, December 18th to make sure we have them all for our card exchange. If students misplace the name of their prayer partner they should ask their Faith Family teacher. Thank you for helping remind your child to add their prayer partner to their Advent prayers!

Reading/Language Arts: Hopefully the students have a good start on their Quote Posters. If they brought home their notebooks over the weekend they should be sure to bring them back to school on Monday. The students will begin a creative writing project called “The True Story of Santa’s Reindeer” this week. This project will reinforce paragraph skills, perspective/point of view, strong leads and conclusions, along with descriptive word choice.

Social Studies: The students have a study sheet for the next map test on the Midwest States. This test will be next Tuesday the 10th. We do not have SS class this week because of the field trips, so students should be sure to include map review in their homework.

Spelling: Lists for R-Controlled Vowels will be sent home on Monday, but you can also access them online. The test will take place this Friday, December 6th.

Homework:

Charlotte’s Web Quote Poster due on Wednesday, December 18th
Multiplication math fact practice at least 4 times a week until mastered for speed recall.
Nightly math homework
Midwest State Test- Tuesday, December 10th