4C News November 12th-16th

                          

Thank you all the parents that are currently serving or have served in any of the military branches. Your service makes it possible for us to be at school daily and to live free. Thank you for all you have done for our country!
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November
    14: Parkway Board of Education Meeting, 7:00 pm, Central Middle
    20: 2nd Grade Field Trip to Arch  
 21-23: No School, Thanksgiving
    26: Safe Surf Presentations, Grades 3 - 5
          Hearing Screening
    28: Late Start, School begins at 11:05 am 
    30: Last day to drop off gifts for Adopt-A-Family

December
      5: 3rd Grade String Open House
      7: EcoBuds Meeting - 8:00 am, Upper Library
    12: Parkway Board of Education Meeting, 7:00 pm, Central Middle
    13: All Read - 3:25 pm
          PSO Meeting - 7:00 pm, Upper Library
    14: Country Western Day
    19: 3rd Grade Field Trip to Busch Stadium
    20: Winter Parties, 9:45 am
          Half Day, School dismisses at 1:00 pm                   
December 21 - January 2: No School, Winter Break

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Project Lit

This year, I am participating in an amazing book club called Project Lit with students, teachers, and parents for Highcroft and Bellerive

At its simplest form, Project LIT Community chapter leaders will work with students to organize Project LIT Book Club events and engage in service & project-based learning centered around literacy. Through the process, our students become better citizens, and of course, more enthusiastic readers.

I hope that some you (parents and students) would like to join us for our next meeting. We will be meeting in January and the book we are discussing is The Parker Inheritance. I currently have two copies that students can borrow or you are welcome to order off Amazon. We might also do a bulk order from Novel Neighbors at a discounted price. If you are interested in joining, please click the link below to fill out the google form.

https://goo.gl/forms/vODcjpCpgm9iLMMA2

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Reading:

This week in reading, we will be finishing up our unit on reading nonfiction. Students will start to create a new presentation on their new research topic. They will focus on a focus question when they research this week and will compare and contrast the two topics they have been assigned. We will have a post-test on nonfiction next Tuesday (if anyone is going out of town early for the Thanksgiving holiday, please let me know. I have your child take the test early).

Writing:

We will start to edit and revise our personal opinions pieces this week. If you would like to take a look at what your child has written, their writing can be found in Google Classroom.

Math:

This week in math, we will be interpreting remainders and dividing using partial product. In fourth grade, we use the 7 strategy to divide and not the traditional algorithm. Students will learn the traditional way to divide in fifth grade.

Science:

So far, student seem to be liking our new science unit! This unit is very hands-on and gives them opportunities to problem solve on their own or with a group. It is very student lead. This week we will be looking at how energy is converted into mechanical energy, we will observe different types of energy in stations, and lastly, students will choose one of the stations to create a presentation about what they learned about that specific energy conversion.

Vocabulary: 
potential energy, kinetic energy, energy conversions, energy, electrical energy, chemical energy, nuclear energy

Social Studies:

Our next unit in social studies will be focused around Missouri becoming a state. Students will apply their knowledge of the Louisiana Purchase to explain Missouri statehood and Missouri’s important role in Westward Expansion. First, students will outline issues of Missouri statehood and explain the significance of the Missouri Compromise in maintaining an uneasy balance of slave and free states in the Union. Students can connect attempts at compromise by the federal government with situations in their own lives where they might have had to give up something in order to get something. 

Please feel free to send me a Dojo message if you ever have any questions or concerns!

Have a wonderful week!

November Newsletter

A Look into 4th Grade-November

Here is a look at what we are working on and what is coming next.

Friday, November 9th is our Veterans Day Assembly. We ask all students to participate in the assembly by wearing red, white, or blue on this day! Kindergarten and first-grade students should wear red shirts, second and third-grade students should wear white shirts, and fourth and fifth-grade students should wear blue shirts.

Thank you all for your support in making this a great event!   

Reading:

We are continuing to work on our second unit, which is Reading the Weather, Reading the World. We will be planning for a research project, synthesizing our learning, reading various types of text, writing to grow research-based ideas, tackling complex text through small group work, and teaching one another. Please remind your students to be reading each night at home. We ask for at least 30 minutes.

Writing:

We are continuing to work on our second unit, which is Boxes and Bullets. Our focus over the next few weeks will be composing and sorting mini-stories, creating parallelism in lists, organizing for drafting, building a cohesive draft, and small group work on paragraphing, using transition words, and revising. Ask your students about their thesis statement.

Science:

In Mrs. Wright’s class, students will continue the unit, The Human Brain. In this module, students will be introduced to the analogy of the brain as a computer. In Mrs. Swanger’s class, students will continue the unit, Energy Collisions. Through the example of bumper cars, students will be introduced to energy transfer and conversions in collisions. In Mrs. Childes’ class, students will continue the unit, Energy Conversions. Students will learn about conversions of energy as well as the conversion of a variety of fuel sources from stored energy to useable electricity.

Social Studies:

We are beginning our next unit, which is titled Missouri Statehood and Westward Expansion. Students will apply their knowledge of the Louisiana Purchase to explain Missouri statehood and Missouri’s important role in Westward Expansion. Students will also outline issues of Missouri statehood and explain the significance of the Missouri Compromise in maintaining an uneasy balance of slave and free states in the Union.

Math:

We are continuing our unit on Multiplication and Division. Students will be using basic division facts and patterns to solve larger problems, breaking the dividend into easier parts, multiplying groups to reach the dividend, and using partial products or partial quotients. Please take any extra time to help your student practice their basic multiplication facts!

Orchestra: Remember to follow Strings on Twitter @HR_Strings