Families of 4C,
As we head into week four, I thank you all for a wonderfully strong start to the school year and I’d like to encourage your families and your scholars to continue to persevere through the demands of fourth grade!
You are cordially invited to attend our 3rd-5th grade Curriculum Night, taking place on Wednesday, August 29th. The purpose of the event is to break down a typical day that your student experiences and to provide some general information and tips to help your child in and out of the classroom. The event starts at 6:00 pm in the Arete gymnasium, with opening remarks from Mr. Gillingham, Mrs. Vaughan, and our Specialists. From 6:30 to 7:30, parents will join Mrs. LaVell and myself in 4C for review of classroom procedures and policies, demonstration lessons, and a brief Q&A session. If you have a question on your mind, feel free to send it to me in an email ahead of time. I will be compiling a list of parent questions to prepare an FAQ for Curriculum Night to ensure your pressing questions are addressed. Due to limited seating, this is a parent-only event. Overflow parking will be available at The Falls Event Center located just east of the school.
In the spirit of fostering a healthy campus environment, we would like to ensure that all our scholars are equipped with some brain food! Please send your child with a healthy snack to eat at recess (no cookies, candies, etc.), and a water bottle if they do not already have one. We also ask that you avoid sending your child with any snacks of the aforementioned sort as a birthday celebration, and consider healthy snack alternatives or a classroom book to donate instead!
Grade Reports will be sent electronically on Friday, August 31. You can expect your child to also bring home their mailbox of graded work for weeks 2-4 on the 31st as well. The first few weeks of grades have been recorded manually (not yet digitally) in our classroom thus far, as we were experiencing some technical difficulty with the online gradebook in the first few weeks. IT has since resolved the issue, so you may expect electronic grade reports to be sent regularly after this Friday.
Fourth Grade will be doing MAP Testing on Thursday, August 30. This test is simply a diagnostic measurement to gauge where students are, and it will not impact their grade in any way.
Poetry: Poetry recitations for “Humanity” by Elma Stuckey will begin on Monday! Any students who do not have time to recite Monday will be given time for their recitation on Tuesday.
Roots: Students will be quizzed on roots 1-10 on Wednesday. The will also learn roots 11-13. Roots lessons will begin with a weekly quiz from the previous week’s roots cards, and will conclude with students learning 3-4 new roots.
Grammar: Last week, students learned how to classify and diagram simple sentences identifying nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and article adjectives. On Monday, students will take an Adverbs and Adjectives Test with Classification and Diagramming. We will also be introducing prepositions and pronouns. For homework, students will be continuing paragraph edits for the article “Birthday Mail.” Edit sections Monday through Wednesday will be taken for completion and neatness (students should have around 8-10 edits per sections), and Thursday will be taken for accuracy (students will be told how many of each kind of edit in advance). These edits should be completed day-by-day, and students should not work ahead to other sections until the day it is assigned.
Literature: Students reviewed the types of narrative perspective last week, looking at first, second, and third person points of view. Students also learned the difference between third person objective, subjective, and omniscient points of view. As we continue to read The Princess and the Goblin, we will take a closer look into characterization and practice narrative perspective. We will centralize our characterization focus using STEAL, looking at a character’s Speech, Thoughts, Effects on others, Actions, and Looks. Students will continue to have regular journal entries to summarize chapters, and these will be completed for homework if class time does not permit completion. Students should be reading independently for 25 minutes every night. Any assigned reading for other subjects will fulfill this reading requirement. Reading logs will be turned in and graded at the end of each month.
Math: This week we will begin our chapter on multiples and we will be taking our chapter test on multiples on Wednesday (8/29). Toward the end of our week, we will begin working with Order of Operations.
Spalding: As we finish up our last rules pages, we will begin dictating words this week. You can expect your child to have regular Spalding homework starting this week.
Science: We are starting our new Science unit on Electricity this week, and we will continue working in this unit until we take the test in week 6. Students will be given regular quizzes throughout the unit in order to gauge understanding. They should be reviewing their notes consistently during the week to stay prepared. Students will learn about electricity usage and human impact, static electricity, currents, circuits, and engineering with safety.
History: As we continue our unit on the Middle Ages for the next few weeks, students will learn about the church’s influence in shaping nations, powerful empires and emperors, and they will be taking a closer look at the European continent. Students will continue identifying European countries on a map, and will have a quiz on this next week. Students will be tested on the first four chapters of the unit on Friday.
I hope to see many of you at Curriculum Night on Wednesday!
--Mrs. Conforti
