Dear 4B Families,
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. This year we are celebrating Valentine’s Day on Mardi Gras–February 13th. I am excited to see the Valentine boxes the students have created. Be sure they bring in not only their boxes and valentines, but also the grid paper with the various views of the box plotted out and labeled. Thank you to our room parents and volunteers who will be providing some fun treats and activities for our party. On Tuesday students may have free dress with a Valentine theme–reds, pinks, purples, whites….hearts—be creative. No wigs or face paints.
This Wednesday, February 14th, we begin the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday. Lent is a time when we are compelled to ask forgiveness for our sins and change our lives for the better. The ashes we receive are a sign that we are ready to change our lives. We will be focusing on three types of sacrifice and practices during Lent that will help us grow in our faith: prayer, fasting from excess and unkind actions, and good works or almsgiving. During Lent the students will be reading special Lenten prayers and Bible readings for the season. In class on Monday the students will reflect on their plans for Lent. It is important that families are also involved so you can support one another. One way we will be incorporating prayer will be in the memorizing of the Memorare. 
We are reciting the prayer daily at school, and each student has several copies in their filer. The one with the vocabulary on the back should remain in their filer, but please take out the others to use for practice. This is a lovely prayer to keep by your bedside and recite each night. As a school we will be participating in several service related activities to share our gifts with those less fortunate. Each family will receive a rice bowl. We will also once again take part in the Brown Bag Lunch collections for St. Martin de Porres. More to come on this.
Language Arts/Spelling: There will be a spelling test this Friday the 16th. The words all have /ou/, /o/ sounds. Study sheets were passed out last Thursday. The students got a start on research for their Mini Bios last week. This week they will move forward with the poster that includes a short summary, illustrations, fun facts. The final step will be mini presentations!
Reading: Our reading topic will also support our SS work! The fourth graders will read the biography story, Sacagawea as well as Native American Poetry. Our target comprehension skill is: main ideas & details, learning to determine what is most important in a selection. Students also study text structure. As we read, students annotate notes–journal style–as did Lewis and Clark. We use diagrams, color, images and text features to list only the main ideas and most important details in the notes.Students continue to learn about figurative language: onomatopoeia. We found several examples of this in our story this week. We also discuss synonyms and the “shades of meaning” that several synonyms might have. For example, “hot, warm & blistering” mean relatively the same thing, but each would be used for varying degrees of intensity.
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. On Valentine’s Day we will do some math activities on area, perimeter and volume using the grid paper drawings of their boxes.
Social Studies: The students will be taking their 50 State test on Thursday February 15th. Along with 50 State review, we will continue our journey along the trail with Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea.
Science: The student will be taking the Waves of Sound Unit 2 test on February 15th. They have all received a study guide they can use to study from.
Enjoy the President’s Day holiday on Monday the 19th.