le 18 au 20 janvier 2022

No school on Monday or Friday! It’s a three-day week!

Upcoming Dates

Monday, January 17, 2022 – NO SCHOOL, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Friday, January 21, 2022 – NO SCHOOL, Grading day

Wednesday, January 26, 2022 – Canoe Island virtual Parent meeting (see below)

Friday, January 28, 2022 – NO SCHOOL, Staff workday

Le français:

Mme Jana, French & Science kincaid_j@4j.lane.edu

•We speak only French in the French classroom.

•We speak and write in complete sentences.

•We have a positive attitude and growth mindset.

•We are respectful to ourselves and to our community.

We have completed the STAMP assessments, and I’ll soon have data to help inform the rest of the year. You will eventually receive your child’s scores. If you’re surprised or confounded, please remember that this assessment relies on technology, and we did have technology problems. Overall, I think your children are doing pretty well, considering all the school we’ve missed. On average, the fourth-grade class is scoring just about a four (4) in each category, which is exactly where we want to be.

We began reading groups this past week. In the morning, Jeanne and I can only do one group each, so students only get one reading group when they have French in the morning. When they have French in the afternoon, I have enough help to do all four groups, so they get two reading instruction sessions per week. It all works out since we switch morning/afternoon weekly. Also, students have comprehension questions to answer after each session.

We began a new “J’observe…” writing project wherein students now have to write a cohesive, six-sentence paragraph. The title of the photo is “La libellule rayée.” The photo is of a banded demoiselle fly sitting on a partially blown dandelion.

Students should have brought home their vocabulary quiz from last week with words containing the word “jour.” There will be no French homework this short week of school. The next French homework will be the first week of February.

Last week, we learned the format for -er verbs, so this week we’ll conjugate both the verb aller (to go) and faire (to make or do). 

Les sciences:

We did our little rock museum to finish up our Soils, Rocks, and Landforms unit on Wednesday. Those kids who forgot were so disappointed that I let them bring in rocks on Thursday as well. It was very interesting, and the students enjoyed it.

The Energy (l’Énergie) science kits have arrived, but we’ll likely begin it in a couple of weeks.

Canoe Island meeting

Dear 4th Grade Parents
We are please to announce that your child, as a member of next year’s 5th grade class, will be attending the Canoe Island French Outdoor School this fall. Parents who have previously attended Canoe Island and are planning this year’s class trip would like to invite you to a virtual information session about the trip on Wednesday, January 26 at 6:30 p.m. (Look in your email for the Zoom link.)
 

For many years our 5th graders have enjoyed the incredible outdoor learning adventures facilitated by the French speaking staff at Canoe Island French Camp. This year’s fifth graders will be going this May and we are happy to announce that we have received state funding for next year’s 5th grade class to go September 12-16. 

 
Canoe Island is an immersive French language and cultural experience, with French-language outdoor learning, art, environmental science, cooking, theater, fencing, archery, music, kayaking and more.
You can also learn more by watching this 2019 video of the trip and visit www.canoeisland.org
           Sincerely,
           Principal Tom and the 2022 – 2023 Canoe Island Planning Committee.

Personal Safety & Erin’s law Lessons

As mentioned in Principal Tom’s weekly email, this week and next we’ll be doing some lessons on personal safety in Mme Shelli’s English class. Some of lessons are:

  •  Staying safe when you’re alone or with others
  •  Ask your trusted adult first before going or doing anything
  • Unsafe & unwanted touch
  • Your body belongs to you

There are six lessons and only three days of school this week, so some of the discussions will be next week. Each of the lesson comes with a parent letter which you can read here: second steps family-letter-cpu

If you have questions, please contact Mme Shelli or Principal Tom.

Mme Shelli, English & Math
hopper_s@4j.lane.edu

Fractions

•We can make equivalent fractions with models and other strategies.

•We can explain our thinking with words, numbers and pictures.

In class:  The Unit 4 quiz will be sent home with a parent signature page on Tuesday. Please sign it to let me know you received it. Also, by the end of the week, two exit tickets from our current unit should come home in home folders. Exit tickets are scored on a 1-3 scale.

1 – Does not show understanding.

2- Partial understanding

3- Demonstrates understanding.

These short mini quizzes (exit tickets) help assess whether students are understanding what we are learning. When a student gets a 1 or 2, I meet with them individually or in a very small group to revisit concepts.

We continue Unit 5: Understanding Fraction Equivalence & Comparison this week. Students will look at different ways to compare fractions with unlike denominators by using models, comparing numerators and comparing denominators. We will play fraction war and do other activities to get students exploring and discussing their thinking with others.

One strategy that helps students reason mathematically is  comparing to a “benchmark” such as 1/2 to compare fractions. For example, 5/8 > 2/6 because 5/8 is more than half and 2/6 is less than half.  Here’s a video showing some of the concepts we’ll explore.

Math Homework: Math spiral review each night- bring back to school each day for discussion

English Writing

•We explore poetry and what inspires writers.

•We will study the grammar of sentences.

Reading: As part of our the Expeditionary Learning Curriculum we are piloting, we started Unit 1: Poetry, Poets, and Becoming Writers and began reading a short novel called Love that Dog last week. The novel follows the story of Jack who is learning about poetry in school and learning to write poetry, too. Last week, we as we asked, What makes a poem?”, we read “The Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams and “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Students began to analyze poetry and learned about key poetry vocabulary: stanzas, lines, rhyme scheme and descriptive language.

Wordstudy & Grammar: We will wrap up a mini grammar unit as we look at several uses of quotation marks.