Dear 4B Families,
I hope you all enjoyed the President’s Day Weekend.
On the 14th, we celebrated Ash Wednesday. Students received ashes on their forehead as a symbol of repentance. During Lent we will be covering the importance of praying, fasting, and giving alms.
4B will be having their prayer service on Friday February 23rd on The Transfiguration. Parents are welcome to attend in the school hall and it starts at 8:35am. A link will be attached for those who want to watch online.
During Lent, one of the pillars we focus is on almsgiving. This means that we strive to intentionally focus on serving others in need during this Lenten time. As a school we will do two things to focus on serving those in need during Lent. First, we will take up a special collection on five Fridays during Lent to support Father Dunstan and his school in Kenya. You may remember Father Dunstan who was with us for a school Mass in January and who celebrated Christmas Masses with us. Father Dunstan has a school in Kenya and they are trying to build a kitchen in order to keep their food safe from animals to feed their students. Our students will get to learn more about this in class. On these Fridays in Lent (2/23, 3/1, 3/8, 3/15, and 3/22) students may come to school in free dress if they bring in a donation (minimum $1) to support this important need in Kenya. We strongly encourage students to earn the $1 each week doing some act of service around their home. This way they will connect their own service to their almsgiving. Students may come in uniform on these days if they choose not to participate, and please no free dress passes these Fridays.
Second, we will continue our tradition of supporting a local men’s shelter in Seattle, St. Martin de Porres. We will take up collections as follows (optional as well, but encourage participation if possible). We will deliver the donations from our school to St. Martins each of these Fridays.
Fri. February 23rd –
Last Names A-L: Brown Bag Lunches (perishable OK)
Last Names M-Z: Large and small bath towels (gently used, if clean and unstained are OK)
Fri. March 1st:
Last Names A-L: Disposable razors and shaving cream (travel size)
Last Names M-Z: Brown Bag Lunches (perishable OK)
Friday, March 8th (noon dismissal, should be able to still take a collection):
Last Names A-L: Brown Bag Lunches (perishable OK)
Last Names M-Z: Travel toothbrushes/toothpaste
Fri. March 15th:
Last Names A-L: Men’s socks
Last Names M-Z: Brown Bag Lunches (perishable OK)
Fri. March 22nd:
Last Names A-L: Men’s deodorant (regular or travel sized) or Brown Bag Lunches (perishable OK)
Last Names M-Z: Men’s deodorant (regular or travel sized) or Brown Bag Lunches (perishable OK)
Finally, though not a school collection, you may participate in Operation Rice Bowl. Each family should have received one rice bowl and those can be returned to school during Holy Week. Thank you for being a partner in serving others during this Lenten time.
LA/Spelling: There will be a spelling test on Friday this week. Students all brought home the Lesson 20 word list last Thursday and it should be in their filer. The students will be continuing to work on their mini bios and starting to fill out the posters which include a short summary, illustrations, and fun facts.
Religion: We have lots going on in religion! We continue to learn about the Sacraments as well as focusing on Lent. The students reflected on Prayer/ Fasting and Almsgiving last week. The students will be using their Bibles regularly during Lent to look up and reflect on readings related to the season. We will be practicing the Memorare daily at school. Students should also keep a copy by their bed and say it each night before they go to sleep.
Reading: We continue our biography story, Sacagawea this week, writing journal entries from Sacagawea’s point of view. We use diagrams, color, images and text features to list only the main ideas and most important details in the notes. After completing the notes/journals the students will write an entry describing the important events that occurred the summer of 1805. This entry will include figurative language, feelings and facts to paint a picture of the event. To wrap up the activity students will practice reading this entry for fluency and expression, creating a “Chatter Kid” recording on their iPads.
Math: Keep up regular multiplication and especially division fact practice. Thank you for your continued assistance helping your children work for accuracy on their homework as we work to master the long division algorithm. Our class lessons will remain focused on long division and interpreting remainders in story problems. Look for homework Tuesday through Thursday this week.
Science: In Science, we will be starting our Human Machine Unit 3! In the first lesson, students discover the mechanism by which their muscles control their bones to move their bodies. In the activity, Robot Finger, students construct a model of a human finger and observe how pulling on a string (a model for tendons) causes it to bend at the joints.
Social Studies: Look for corrected 50 State tests in your child’s filer. The students did so well! Next we will be learning the locations of some of the major rivers in the United States– We will wrap up our study of Lewis and Clark in a couple of weeks, then move into a study of the Oregon Trail.