Charlemagne 4th Grade

Your students will receive lavender French homework on Monday. It needs to go back and forth every day from home to school. Barring absence, it must be turned in on Friday to get full credit. Your parental job is to initial each day, once you have seen that your child has done the work. This time, we’re working on the months of the year. Like the days of the week, the months are not capitalized unless they are at the beginning of a sentence. Here is a pdf of the homework:  les mois oct Vocab

Here I am just reading the words with time afterward for students to write them. Good to use for the Thursday night quiz: 

Here I am reading and spelling the words:

Student goal:  I can name, write, and order the months of the year in French.

We continue our cursive writing instruction, and this past week, we went back and wrote a lot of letter combinations in nonsense order so we can concentrate on the forming of the letters. We work on alphabetizing up to the fifth letter on Wednesdays, and although most students are becoming skilled, some students don’t seem to know their alphabet yet. If you know that applies to your student, please work on fun alphabetizing activities at home to help support your child. We conjugated the verb aller (to go) this past week, and this week, we’ll move on to verbs that end in -er, which is account for 90% of French verbs. We still have dictionary use activities we’re working on.

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

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

Student goal:  I can alphabetize words up to and beyond the fifth letter.

Student goal:  I am learning to quickly and efficiently use a translating dictionary.

We continued our French writing curriculum this week, called “J’observe…” and this time, they had sentence starters, but were asked to do the rest of the writing themselves. We did the photo at right, which in English means, “The Bug-Eyed Dog.”

We continue the “Moi!” project which is all about them… in French.

Les sciences

This past week, we performed our first experiment (une expérience) by exploring the components (les composants) of soil (le sol ou la terre). Students added water to each of the four soil combinations, we’ve left them to settle, so this week we’ll draw the layers then discuss what is in each layer. We’ll draw the different sizes of components, then we’ll move into physical and chemical weathering (l’usure physique et chimique) with some fun experiments.  

We finished The Circulatory Story last week, so this week, we’ll be reading a similar text by the same author, The Quest to Digest. As a class, we’ll  read this complex text as we study the vocabulary and workings of the digestive system. Students will then get to explore another book of their choice as they learn more about human body systems. Optional books include The Brain, Bones, The Digestive System, From Head to Toe, and Usborne Encyclopedia of the Human Body.

 

Is your child a budding writer? There’s an optional Fiction Fantastic writing short story contest for youth open to all Lane County students in grades K-12. We wont have time to do this in class, but families are welcome to encourage this at home. Last year, one of our Charlemagne students won second place! Find out more here: fictionfantastic.org.

 

Cooler weather and rain is starting this week. At recess, students will be outside even in drizzle. So please have your child wear layers and a jacket or hat during rainy, cool weather.

Also, please help your child wear clothes and shoes appropriate for running and jumping on their PE days. Closed toed shoes such as tennis shoes would be great; sandals or boots do not work well for PE.

Blue Class PE & Library days: Monday & Thursday   Red Class PE & Library days: Tuesday & Friday

 

Building and Field Trip Volunteers

The school will be requiring that folks who would like to volunteer at the building or on field trips complete a Volunteer Orientation before beginning their support of the classrooms and our students. In 4th grade there are opportunities to volunteer at recess, in the library, and on field trips. Our first field trip will be in December. Later in the year, there may be classroom volunteer opportunities, too.

Once you have completed the video orientation and District  Volunteer Background Check,  we will ask that you sign a Charlemagne Confidentiality Agreement at the front office on your first day. Please contact the office if you would like to attend the next training.