September 5, 2017
Dear 4B Families,
I hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day Weekend!
What an excellent first week of school with my wonderful new 4th grade students. It is clear to see that this will be an amazing year—with such a bright, kind, creative and fun group of students. I so enjoyed talking with you all on Parent’s Night. Remember, if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please contact me! We are partners together in your child’s learning.
If you have not yet returned your yellow student profile or the green iPad User Agreement form, please be sure to do so ASAP.
This Friday the 8th is the Magazine Drive Kickoff Assembly. The theme this year is Staying on Target. Thank you for helping support this important fundraiser. Look for more information in the eFC.
As we move into our second week of school, we will continue to practice the routines and expectations of 4th grade. The time we spend on these procedures now help to set the stage for a successful year. Our regular curriculum schedule will also start to move into place.
Spelling: Each student should have the spelling words for Cardinal Numbers in their filer on Friday. We will also be using a site called Spelling City this year. The site has lots of activities that will help the students review and practice their weekly lists. Your child’s password for the site is in your Parent’s Night packet. Some spelling homework throughout the year will come from this site.
Reading: Last week Ms. Corrigan began administering an oral reading assessment to the students, which will be completed Tuesday. These assessments, along with a silent reading and vocabulary assessment we will administer this week, will help us to better understand the individual reading needs of each student, and in turn, assist us in our planning for the year. We will be reading a tall tale this week called “Stormalong”. We will focus on the comprehension strategies of cause and effect and the figurative language of hyperbole, simile and metaphor.
Language Arts: We will be finishing up some introductory Venn Diagrams and getting to know you presentations this week. Along with our spelling and vocabulary work, we will be reviewing cursive letter forms, paper headings and working with an online portfolio we will be using this year.
Math: The students will be taking a beginning of the year math assessment on Monday that will help me to better plan for upcoming lessons. Our lessons this week will focus on place value and comparing/ordering numbers. Measurement work will also be included in our math/science/social studies lessons. As a class we will visit the Mathletics site and set up some expectations for use of the site. Look for math homework on Wednesday and Thursday this week.
Religion: We will begin our formal religion lessons this week as we explore our religion texts. We will be doing some introductory activities on the parts of the Bible, how to look up verses, as well as learn a bit about the history of the Bible. Lastly, the students will be making personalized bookmarks for their Bibles. Last Friday Fr. Oakland blessed the 4th grade Bibles at our Opening Mass.
Social Studies/Science: –Ms. Simpson and I will be switching classes for science and social studies on Mondays and Tuesdays this year. This week we will be meeting our classes and doing some introductory lessons. In social studies, our initial lessons will focus on map work. We will review the continents and oceans and begin a study of latitude and longitude. Next Tuesday, September 13th, the 4th graders will be tested on the Seven Continents and Five Oceans. All students will have study sheets in their filers on Tuesday. You can also access a study sheet on the 4A webpage under the tab at the top of the page called Map Study Sheets. The students will also need to have the Continent and Ocean poem memorized by September 20th. There is a tab at the top of our web page with the continent poem.
Have a great week!