Lynn Leighton's Newsletter 12.16.11
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- Category: Fourth
- Published on Sunday, 01 January 2012 21:53
- Written by Lynn_Leighton
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4th Grade News
Lynn Leighton’s Class
December 16th, 2011
I will not be sending home a newsletter next week so I want to wish you and your family a joyous holiday and a happy New Year. Again I want to thank you for sharing your child with me and let you know how much I love having him/her in my classroom this year!
I hope everyone was surprised and enjoying the beautiful holiday wreaths your child made in school yesterday. They worked extremely hard on making them and were very proud to bring them home. The pizza circles we used to make them on were donated from Brattleboro’s Village Pizza on Putney Road.
Upcoming events:
- Friday, December 23rd – Early Release @ 11:30: Winter Break
- Winter Break: December 23rd – January 2nd
Project Feed the Thousands:
Wow! The boxes of food are really piling up in the front hallway of Green Street School. We will be continuing to collect non- perishable & personal care products from now until December 22nd.
Social Curriculum:
Green Street School is placing a special focus on the concept: SHARING during this holiday season. The staff is looking for examples of sharing as well as safe, respectful, and responsible behaviors to award with Bug-gets. Come see Green Street School’s sharing tree in the main lobby!
Today Melissa Johnson and Tamara Evanson, School Counselors, will be visiting our classroom to work with us on social skills. Today’s session will focus on getting to know each other and hearing what social skills the children would like to focus on during our 4-6 week unit with them.
First Grade Buddies:
Again meeting with our First Grade Buddies in Ms. O’Neill’s class was one of the highlights of the week. This week we taught our buddies how to play the Hanukkah dreidle game!
Literacy:
During Shared Literacy time I continue using the Good Habits Great Readers curriculum to teach your child reading & comprehension strategies. This week the children learned about making inferences while reading. The focus of this week’s lessons were to recognizing that there is more to text than the literal meaning and to begin practicing using clues from the text along with background knowledge to make inferences. The children have been really enjoying learning these skills and have been doing a great job applying them as we practice.
This week we continued both Word Study Lessons & Guided Reading Groups! During our Word Study Lessons and Guided Reading Groups your child is working in a small group with one of the 4th Grade teachers. Teachers include: Lynn Leighton, Ms. Shifflette, Ms. Superchi, and Ms. Fremeth/Ms. Broom/Raquel Moreno. Ask your child who they are working with and what they are learning and reading.
In Writers Workshop we are working on completing a unit on writing Personal Narratives. A personal narrative is a story about a personal memory. This week your child worked on completing their final copy of their Personal Narrative. They are fantastic and we are looking forward to sharing them with you!
Everyone continues to be mesmerized by our read aloud story, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fantasy novel for children by C.S Lewis. Published in 1950 and set circa 1940, it is the first-published book of The Chronicles of Narnia and is the best-known book of the series.
Math:
This week we continued working in Unit 3: Multiple Towers and Division Stories. This week students worked on a fun and challenging activity called Multiple Towers. During this activity the children built a strip of paper as tall as they are using a 2-digit multiple that helped them grasp the concept of multiplying by tens. As they built this tower they examined patterns and relationships in their list of multiples, such as the 10th and 20th multiple of a number. Throughout the week students also solved and represented problems that involved multiples of ten like 6 X 4 and 6 X 40.
Please continue helping your child learn the basic multiplication facts 1 – 12.
Science Unit: Force & Motion:
Two weeks ago we began a science unit on Force & Motion. During this unit your child will be learning about the physical science concepts of force, motion, friction, and gravity. A special emphasis will be placed on using Scientific Process Skills as children are involved in a series of experiments. Everyone loved last week’s lesson where we learned about force (a push or pull) and experiment using a spring scale to measure the amount of force applied to different objects. The children had a lot of fun using the spring scales to measure the amount of Newton it took to lift an object and compared it to the amount of force needed to pull.
Today we will learning about friction and experimenting with what surface will create the most friction; the rug, the table, tin foil, or sandpaper. Children will be using a spring scale to measure a block with a brick on top as they pull them along these different surfaces. Special emphasis will be placed on science process skills as your child makes a hypothesis, follows procedures, records their data on a self generated table, and states a conclusion by reflecting back on their hypothesis and what they learned about the force of friction.
Health Unit: Immune System:
In health this week your child participated in a germ simulation called Epidemic Outbreak where they observed how communicable diseases are spread. In this simulation some children are affected with the flu. No one knew who the germ carriers are. Each child got a cup with liquid in it (which represented their germs) and cards of two different ways germs spread. Students took eyedroppers and shared their liquid germs with two other classmates. At the end we tested to see which students had been infected by putting baking soda in each cup. Those infected (passed vinegar instead of water) cups fizzed!
Woods Time:
Just a reminder that we will be continuing going to the woods each Friday for a special recess where children have the opportunity to play creatively in a natural setting. It is important that your child comes prepared to school on Fridays to hike and play in the woods. Once there is snow, each child must bring a warm coat, snow pants, boots, hats & gloves in order to participate.
Homework Schedule:
Monday Night- Literacy
Tuesday Night- Math
Wednesday Night - Math
Thursday Night - Writing
Friday Night- Newsletter & Parent Communication Page
* Each Night: 15 Minutes Personal Reading
5-10 Minutes Practicing Multiplication Facts
Special’s Schedule:
Monday- Art, Library (return books), & Band (instruments needed)
Tuesday- PE (sneakers needed)
Wednesday- Music
Thursday- Sing
Instrument Lessons (instruments needed)
Friday- Woods Time (dress for hiking & being in the woods)
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. I can be reached at Green Street School: 254- 3737 ext. 120.