le 8 au 12 janvier 2024

Upcoming Dates

  • Monday, January 15 – NO SCHOOL, Celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday
  • Thursday and Friday, February 1-2 – NO SCHOOL, Teacher grading days 
  • Wednesday, February 14 – Valentine’s Day (We will make our own cards at school. Please do not send children to school with individual cards.)
  • Monday, February 19 – NO SCHOOL, Presidents Day

What’s up! Quoi de neuf? 

Please send your child to school in proper footwear and a WARM water-repellent jacket with a hood or a hat when the weather is rainy. It’s getting cold, too, so please have your child wear warmer layers and weather-appropriate shoes. Thank you!

If your child is ill or has had a fever or vomited within the previous 24 hours, please keep your child home. If your child will be absent, please email both teachers (kincaid_j@4j.lane.edu and hopper_s@4j.lane.edu) and please call in and leave a message on the school attendance line (541) 790-7080 or email Eliza at drummond_e@4j.lane.edu.

Please ensure that you email BOTH TEACHERS when you communicate with us.

Le français:

I hope everyone had a glorious winter break and had a chance to relax. I was sick for ten of the fourteen days, but now I am feeling very well, almost back to my “normal” self. Thank you so much for the generous teacher gifts and notes, and if your child gave me a gift, he/she/they should have received a postcard thank-you note in the mail from me. If your child gave me a gift and did not receive a note, please let me know and I will correct the oversight!

I was planning to do French homework this week, but I will be absent from school on Monday, January 8 because my 91-yr-old mom had hernia surgery on January 5 (She is doing well.), and I’m missing January 11 & 12 because of a major dental procedure for me. My guest teacher on January 5 & 8 is Mya Keartes, who is not a francophone, but is a lovely person, and Ludivine will do all of the French with the kids. My guest teacher on January 11 & 12 will be Elisha Hocking, who does speak French. I’m sorry for the absences, that’s just how things worked out, and I didn’t want to do homework during a week that I would be predominantly absent!

We continue to correct two horrible sentences on all full days, and alphabetize on our short day. The alphabetizing includes vocabulary words, and we’re also sorting by vowel sounds. We’ll begin our next new “J’observe…” writing project next week. Most students have completed several versions of tracing their first and last names, and now everyone should be on the culminating project of writing all the uppercase letters and names, including their name, their family names, their addresses, and their city, state and country in cursive. That is a yellow packet and will come home once completed. Students will rewrite their first and last names for the third time in January, and there is generally much hilarity as we (with the child’s permission) look back at our September signatures. 

We will also watch a short video in French about Martin Luther King Jr. and why he is so significant in American and world history that we celebrate his birth. We will use some new vocabulary in French like civil rights (les droits civiques), the civil rights movement (le mouvement des droits civiques), equality (l’égalité), “I Have A Dream” (“J’ai un rêve”), dignity (la dignité), a leader (un chef /un leader), discrimination (la discrimnation), human rights (les droits de l’homme) which in French is directly translated as “the rights of man.” (Things are a little different in countries where all nouns are masculine or feminine.) etc., some of which we will also learn for our vocabulary words next week so we can talk about the topics intelligently.

A retired French immersion teacher from Roosevelt, Rebecca Harlan, has volunteered to come and work in the classroom, so she will help with French reading once a week, starting in two weeks. I have one other French-speaking volunteer who may also be helping us with reading.

We have begun a winter art project, where we painted with liquid watercolors to create a snowy background with white crayons to make wax-resist wind, blue watercolor in various densities to create a snowy background, and we sprinkled salt to create a falling snow effect. We also painted a small piece of watercolor paper with gradations of blue and green and will be cutting those into trees that we will work into our landscapes. We’ll be adding a bit more, then writing a winter story about our scene. After that, we’ll begin our next big art project which is filling in the other half of a photo from a magazine. I have a lot of variety, and the kids get to choose their own photo to complete.

Many students got industrious and completed their “Tubes” art over winter break. If your child’s art is not up on the wall, feel free to ask your child where he/she/they is/are in the project.

Student goal:  I am applying myself to my school work. I am actively seeking learning.

Student goal:  I can correct grammatical and punctuation errors in sentences in French.

Student goal:  I can form and connect all the lowercase and uppercase letters correctly in cursive.

Student goal:  I am expanding my vocabulary by incorporating new words into my speaking and writing.

Buddies!

This past week, we got together with our buddies and they talked about new year resolutions (and what in the world those are), and they set goals for both at school and at home.

 

 

Les sciences:

We have nearly completed the rocks and soils portion of sciences, and we’re moving into the landforms portion. We still have one thing to complete with chemical weathering, but we’ve already moved into naming landforms, and we’re also working on a landforms packet that will go into students Oregon state studies project. The week of Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday celebration, we’ll move into some experiments with erosion and deposition, which involves lots of soil and running water.  Hopefully, we will work in our rock collections in the next two weeks. I had my guest teacher work on reading about erosion and deposition in the district science book with the kids, which is only in English, during my absence. In February, we’ll begin a new science unit, Energy!

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

Math

This week’s Key Concepts:

  • We can add and subtract fractions with like denominators.
  • Mixed numbers are a form of numbers greater than 1 that have a whole that can be decomposed in many different ways.

There is MATH review HOMEWORK this week.

Included in the homework, is practice of the months of the year in English. Please check with your child this week. Do they know the months of the year in order? Can they spell them correctly?

We will wrap up the unit Addition and Subtraction of Fractions this week. This week’s problem solving will involve problem solving with adding and subtraction fractions using models and equations.

It is challenging for many students to clearly communicate their thinking about fractions using illustrations. Students are tasked to make number lines that feature equally proportioned fractions and to clearly label their drawings with labels, color, and words to communicate their thinking. This goes beyond simply writing an equation or the final answer to a task.

English

We have started our next English unit, Extreme Settings. This Wit and Wisdom unit has a lot of fun activities involving descriptive writing of narrative fiction, analyzing poetry for figurative language and reading of complex non-fiction and a short adventure novel.

This week, students are analyzing the short story, All Summer in A Day by Ray Bradbury, for plot, setting, figurative language, and descriptive figurative language.

Here is more information for parents about the Wit and Wisdom unit, Extreme Settings. The unit will continue through the beginning of March.