Grade 4 Weekly Newsletter
December 10 - 14
Curriculum
Reading:
This week students will be using all the narrative and expository nonfiction reading skills they have learned to become experts on a topic. They will practice summarizing, asking questions to grow ideas, and synthesizing information across different texts to build their understanding of a topic. Next week, they will take all their notes and create something similar to a podcast. They will make audio recordings to show what they have learned and how their thinking became more complex as they read more.
This week’s lessons:
Lesson 1: Narrowing the topic
Lesson 2: Summarizing to understand what learned
Lesson 3: Steps to synthesizing
Lesson 4: Asking questions to grow ideas
Lesson 5: Organizing notes to help synthesize
Essential Questions
- How do readers know what is important in nonfiction texts?
- How can I become more complex in my thinking as I read?
Writing:
This week, writers will be going through the writing process one more time to independently plan, draft, revise and edit a new nonfiction text. Their goal is to finish writing their second nonfiction book by Thursday. Students will be encouraged to use their writing checklists and mentor texts to help them write effectively. They will always be thinking of ways that they can improve their work. Below is an example of a 4th-grade nonfiction book.
This week’s lessons:
Lesson 1: Revising by elaborating with text features
Lesson 2: Putting it all together - Writing a new information piece
Lesson 3: Teach toward independence
Lesson 4: Showing text features using mentor texts
Lesson 5: Revising
Essential Questions
- How do writers teach readers about a topic?
- How do the text structures and features in a book help readers?
Mathematics:
This week we will be beginning Module 4 - Angle Measure and Plane Figures
This module introduces points, lines, line segments, rays, and angles, as well as the relationships between them. Students construct, recognize, and define these geometric objects before using their new knowledge and understanding to classify figures and solve problems. With angle measure playing a key role in the work throughout the module, students learn how to create and measure angles, as well as how to create and solve equations to find unknown angle measures.
Essential Questions:
- What strategies and tools can help determine the measurement of unknown angles?
- What important information can be determined from the attributes present in two-dimensional figures?
- How do we use geometry to help us make sense of the world?
The lessons for this week are:
Lesson 1: Identify and draw points, lines, segments, rays, and angles and recognize them in various contexts and familiar figures.
Lesson 2: Use right angles to determine whether angles are equal to, greater than, or less than right angles. Draw right, obtuse, and acute angles.
Lesson 3: Identify, define, and draw perpendicular and parallel lines.
Lesson 4: Use a circular protractor to understand a 1-degree angle as 1/360 of a turn.
Lesson 5: Measure and draw angles. Sketch given angle measures and verify with a protractor.
Here is the LINK to the Growth Mindset video we began to watch at Back To School Night. We suggest you watch it with your child and discuss what might create a positive math classroom at school. How can you build a positive math relationship with your child?
Social Studies: Connections with History
Students will continue working on their tribal projects. They will collect information about their tribe’s region, food, homes, games/leisure activities, and clothing. This project will run for several weeks.
Students are reminded to paraphrase the information that they get (online sources or in texts). They are also writing down the sources that they use for any information.
Each class is preparing for a debate, where tribes will advocate for their tribe and tell why their tribe used their resources the best way. Students should show where they got their information. Each student will speak about information that they collected on behalf of their tribe. (1-3 minutes).
Essential Question:
- How do geography and people connect to build a nation?
Homework
Daily homework tasks will be written into student planners each day. Tasks may include reading for 20-30 minutes per night, writing for 10 minutes per night along with additional mathematics work. Homework may differ according to teachers and students. Any mathematics homework that students find challenging please advise their homeroom teacher so they can progress accordingly. Homework is not meant to be impossible, challenging for students to grow their brains, but not impossible!
Guidance News - Repeated
How to Be a Helpful Bystander – Acts of Compassion
Students are hearing stories about courageous, helpful bystanders and practicing various ways to be a helpful bystander in real-life scenarios. A helpful bystander takes action when they witness someone being hurt by others. It only takes ONE helpful bystander to stop teasing and there are several direct and indirect ways a person can help. We will have lots of discussions about the role of the bystander and the power of this role in either:
- Ignoring the mean behavior and allowing it to continue, or
- taking action, speaking up and stopping the mean behavior.
They will role-play various scenarios in which they will use their words and/or actions in a way that is helpful and compassionate. Students will learn 3 ways to help someone else, which include:
Report – tell a trusted adult
Refuse – say something (using assertive words and body language)
Support – go to the person who was hurt, sit by him or her and ask if they are okay
Upcoming Events
- Sunday - Thursday, Dec. 10 - 14 - Christmas Book Fair (Middle School Atrium)
- 4M - Monday, Dec. 11th from 11:00 - 11:30
- 4F - Wednesday, Dec. 13th from 9:00-9:30
- 4D - Wednesday, Dec. 13th from 1:00-1:30
- Tuesday, Dec. 19th - Thursday Schedule
- Thursday, Dec. 21th - Winter Assembly
- Friday - Dec. 22 - Jan. 13th Winter Holiday
Announcements
Winter Celebrations
As we are planning for the last day of school which includes a house event, winter parties and culminating in a winter assembly at the end of the day, we hope you will all be here to join in the fun! If you can’t, we would appreciate knowing if you are planning to take your child/ren away at an earlier date. Please inform your classroom teacher.
This is the song that the grade 4 students will be singing at our winter concert if you would like to practice at home: Six White Boomers
Christmas Book Fair
This year's Christmas Book Fair begins on Sunday, December 10th in the Middle School Back Courtyard! Your child will be passing by the book fair with their class between Sunday the 10th and Thursday the 14th - the schedule will be available. If you would like your child to shop during this time, please send cash (suggested: 300 LE) with them. Otherwise, the fair will stay open Sunday-Thursday after school from 3-5 so you can accompany your child or purchase for yourself. The book fair will feature 5 local book vendors with English and Arabic books for all age groups. Keep an eye out for posters about our after school book signing events ('Happy Belly' author Yasmine Nazmy on Wednesday!!) On Thursday the 14th, a Mini Christmas Bazaar will open up alongside the book fair and the Booster Club will join us with hot chili from the snack restaurant and CAC gear on Sale!
Repeat Announcements
Core Value of the Month
During the months of December and January, we will focus on Integrity.
International Festival
The International Festival is one of our main fundraising events of the year. It is scheduled to take place on March 16, 2018. If you’d like to volunteer and help us make this year's International Festival a success, please send an email to Kourtney LaGesse at cacinternationalfestival@gmail.com
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