Dear 4B Families,

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. We are very busy in 4th grade with great projects and learning!  You will find a purple letter in your child’s filer about the Circle of Grace Safe Environment Curriculum we will be doing with the class this week.  After we teach the lesson a yellow paper will come home for you to discuss with your children–then sign and return by Tuesday, October 22.  Thank you in advance. The 4th grade lessons focus on rules and guidelines for using social media safely. 

All Saints’ Day Preparations:

Hopefully you have started to plan your child’s saint costume. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you all for signing up to attend one of the weekend masses on November 2nd or 3rd with the Sign Up Genius. We will be selecting readers for the Masses later this week and begin practicing in the church next week.  Even though all students will not have an individual speaking part, all students take part in the service by processing in, standing during the Litany of Saints and coming forward to recite the Prayer of St. Francis. It is a lovely service. Be sure to let us know if you have any questions about the saint project or upcoming masses.

Mid-Trimester Reports will be sent home this Friday, October 18th. These envelopes will also contain the Fall MAP test scores. I ask the students not to open the envelopes until they get home. I will have put a sticker over the flap.  Look for an envelope in your child’s filer.  Please sign and return the envelope only–keep the mid-tri.  Thank you.

Religion: 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!  All students need to be able to recite the prayer from memory by October 29th. All students will individually recite the prayer during class. Thank you!  We will be going over the details of the All Saints Day Mass with the students this week, and those students selected to read during the Mass will come home with their readings to practice. 

Math:  We are making good progress with our work on addition and subtraction of large numbers.  Students are striving for accurate computation and understanding story problems.  This week the students will work through multi-step story problems while making equations with variables! Chapter 2 test on addition and subtraction will take place next week.

Reading: Be sure to check your child’s filer for corrected tests from chapters one and two.  The students are learning to write quality written responses as you will see in the corrected work.  This week the students are writing Postcards From the Barn, describing the barn using their senses as well as the main event of the chapter!

Spelling: Our spelling words this week all have the Long i: i, i-C-e, y, igh, ey, uy.  The test will be on Friday, October 18th.  

Language Arts: The students are hard at work on their saint reports and their postcard from the barn! We have some creative and clever writers in 4th grade. 

Social Studies: The students will be tested on the NE State locations and abbreviations on Thursday, October 18th.  Students should know both the abbreviations and the locations of these 11 states along with some added regional features (listed on the study sheets). Check your child’s filer for corrected latitude and longitude quizzes.  Our next area of study is focusing on the Native People of Washington State, the Plateau and Coastal People.

Science: This week we will go back in time and discover what life used to look like 100 million years ago!​ The students will gather evidence to describe how environments on Earth have changed over time. Students will explore the process of sedimentary rock formation preserves a record of those past environments. The activity is called Canyon Explorer where students will observe fossils found within a model canyon. The characteristics of those fossils provide evidence to support the explanation that the landscape has changed numerous times.