Homework:
Mme Shelli’s Class: There will be two nights of homework this week. Students should complete it each night and bring it to class daily for correction & discussion.
Mme Jana’s Class: We begin French homework again next week. It will be words that are helpful when we’re writing. Formal copies will come home next week, but here you go if you really need it now! 8 à 12 jan 2018 Vocab
Important Dates:
Monday, January 15 No School- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Friday, February 2 No School – Grading day
Friday, February 9 Mardi Gras celebration!
Mme Jana’s News
Thanks so much for the lovely gifts and notes and cookies and candies, etc. I haven’t written my thank you notes yet, but MERCI!!! I hope you all had a relaxing and renewing winter break.
FLA (French Language Arts): We will conquer the last of the four primary irregular verbs aller (to go), in January. We’ll also work on vouloir (to want) and pouvoir (to be able). These two verbs, in addition to avoir, être, faire, and aller will allow students to write and say most of what they want. We’ve done verbs that end in -er, and we’ll conjugate verbs that end in -ir and -re. We’ll also likely conjugate devoir (to have to) again, as well as mettre (to put or place), prendre (to take), boire (to drink) and voir (to see). These are all in present tense. We do, of course, use past tense, but they really begin to study it in 5th grade.
We did a “J’observe” together on the last days of school. I showed a cartoon drawing of Julia Child at her stove, and we did full, interesting sentences together. We’ll continue to observe drawings and photos and write about them. My goal is that the students can lead up to writing a three-paragraph work in French.
We’ll begin reading our non-fiction book next week as well.
Over the next few months, we’re going to begin a few Reader’s theater fairy tales (La lecture théâtrale) which really get kids talking. No promises, but we’ll try to get to the point that you can come and watch. We’ll also be memorizing some poems (les poèmes) and tongue-twisters (les virelangues) which the kids always enjoy.
When you look at your student’s homework, when they write sentences, please remember to correct sentence basics, like the sentence must begin with a capital letter and end with punctuation. If you notice either of these things when you are signing the homework Wednesday evenings, please ask your child to correct them so that Mathilde and I don’t have to ask 59 children to do so at school. Merci!
We will rebegin Tap’Touche with a different focus on structure and using the correct fingers for the correct keys! I also ask students to sit up straight while typing. I know this isn’t always the case at home, but they only get the one back!!
Sciences: This month, we’ll begin a new unit, La terre, les pierres, et les formes du relief, aka Soils, Rocks and Landforms. We will begin it close to the end of January. It takes the warehouse a bit of time to receive, restock and resend the kits.
Mme Shelli’s News
ELA: In reading, most students completed a three week novel study of the books Sing Down the Moon or Soft Rain. A few students will need this week to wrap up their novel study. Students’ work on these novels will be coming home in the next week or two.
For this short week, students will be choosing independent study novels to read & journal about. This self-selected reading will be a weekly part of our reading rotations this month. This dedicated time allows all students to choose books of interest and books at their reading level to read. Students participating in OBOB after school can choose to read their OBOB books during this time, if they would like.
Next week, we will begin another unit from our Journeys textbook. We will focus on 4th grade standards of summarizing, describing character, setting, & plot and determining theme of a text.
Math: In the next week, we will wrap up Unit 2 Multiplication & Division Strategies in which students solve for area & perimeter using multiplication and division strategies. Students use area models and partial quotients to solve division problems, discovering how the context of the problem determines the interpretation of the remainder. (See a quick video of partial quotients division here.) Learn more about this unit at this link.
Dreambox/ Sum Dog for additional math practice
If you have time, encourage your child to do a little extra math online using their DreamBox or SumDog subscriptions. Students should be able to login using their school login & passwords. (You will need updated Flash on your internet browser for either game.) Both programs are computer adaptive based on your child’s specific understanding of topics. The more they play, the more adaptive the program is. If your child plays SumDog, please encourage them to watch the videos that the program suggests for missed concepts. This allows your child to learn new concepts for future games. If your child plays DreamBox, the videos are an integral part of the games.
Other school News
Growth Mindset –
As a staff, we are committed to encouraging a Growth Mindset in our students and in our classrooms. Here is some information so you can know more about it:
Music –
Our temporary music teacher, Marty VanWormer, is retiring. M. Chappell will be our music teacher starting in January! Mme Marty wanted to let you know that your kids have been doing the following with her over the last few months:
John Kanaka – sing, circle game
Sansa Kroma (4th gr. Spotlight on Music) – sing, play stone passing game
Draw a Bucket of Water (workshop material) – sing, xylo bordun, 4-person movement game
Whacky Ogre (Music K – 8) – use Boom-whackers to play a melody, perform with CD
Weevily Wheat (4th gr. Music Connection) – sing pentatonic melody, 4-person movement
Old Joe Clark (Music K – 8) – sing, discussion about autoharp, bluegrass music
Old Brass Wagon (Music K – 8) – sing, circle activity
Yearbook club
You may wish to monitor your child for head lice over the next few weeks. We are going into our winter break times and when students return from breaks, lice cases tend to flare. This is attributed to the fact that lice are most often transmitted in the community and identified at school (evidence shows lice are rarely transmitted at school—so that is the good news! It is much less ‘contagious’ in a school setting than the common cold.) If you want more information about head lice, contact our Nurse Laurie Morgan.
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