Lynn Leighton's Newsletter 12.09.11
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- Category: Fourth
- Published on Friday, 09 December 2011 13:27
- Written by Lynn_Leighton
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4th Grade News
Lynn Leighton’s Class
December 9th, 2011
The highlight of this week was visiting Ms. O’Neil’s class and meeting our First Grade Buddies! We had a great time getting to know one another by asking some interviewing questions & made a card with our names on it to exchange with each other. Ask your child the name of their First Grade Buddy.
Upcoming events:
- Friday, December 23rd – Early Release @ 11:30: Winter Break
- Winter Break: December 23rd – January 2nd
Project Feed the Thousands:
We are continuing collecting non- perishable & personal care products from now until December 22nd. I hope your family can help contribute to this important community food drive.
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!
The children enjoyed watching the animated movie of The Trumpet of the Swan
to celebrate the passing of BILL # 2. I have seen a huge improvement with our hallway behavior!
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 used the text Chocolate Farm, a story about two children who begin their own chocolate company. With this informational text we learned how good readers make meaningful text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections during reading and how these connections deepen their understanding of a text. Today we are going to read about the life of Gloria Estefan as we practice making relevant text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections. 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 we continued listening to some of the fabulous personal narratives written by our classmates and helped these student improve their stories by giving specific feedback and asking questions about what we wanted to hear more about. Your child also participated in lessons this week that focused on editing skills, worked on editing their own story, and began writing the final copy of their Personal Narrative.
This week we began our second read aloud of the year, 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 continued to solve division problems and practiced the strategy of using multiplication, the inverse operation to division, to break apart larger numbers. Students also looked at and discussed division problems with remainders, focusing on how the remainder affects the solution in each problem situation. The children learned a new Math game called Missing Factor where they needed to find the missing dimension on an array when given the number of squares in the array and one of the dimensions.
Please continue helping your child learn the basic multiplication facts 1 – 12.
Science Unit: Force & Motion:
Last Friday 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 made a hypothesis and observed what happened when we rolled a marble down a ramp. During this experiment we learned the scientific importance of setting up a “fair test” where we only change one variable at a time. In this experiment we first changed the steepness of the ramp and later looked at how the floor surface changed the results. Today we will be learning about force (a push or pull) and experiment using a spring scale to measure the amount of force applied to different objects.
Health Unit: Immune System:
In health this week your child participated in a germ experiment called Seeing Germs where they observed how germs travel from one person to the next. In this experiment 2 students on opposite ends of the circle were picked and they put a few drops of oil on one of their hands. Then we sprinkled cinnamon on their oily hand. These classmates were directed to shake the hand of the person sitting next to them, then that person shakes the next persons hand….around the circle until everyone has shook someone’s hand. We observed how many people were “infected” and discussed how even if a person does not have direct contact to the original person, they can still get the germs. We also discussed ways germs can travel in school (door knobs, tables, pencils). We concluded our lesson by reading about communicable diseases, microbes, how germs get passed & enter the body, and non- communicable diseases.
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.