Week of September 24-28

Grade 4 Weekly Newsletter

September 24-28

Curriculum

Reading:

Our first reading unit, Building a Reading Life, ends on Thursday. Students will be reviewing what they have learned to create a Glogster poster. Glogster provides students with a platform to create an interactive poster. Students will reflect on their reading habits by adding images, audios and maybe even short videos. Below are the 5 categories students will be exploring.

1. Thinking About Reading
1. Discuss why stopping and jotting is important
2. Share a post-it
2. Growing Ideas About Books
1. Discuss why we write long about jots
2. Share a write long.
3. Reading Logs
1. What conclusions can you make about your reading?
4. Reading Goal
1. What can you do to become a stronger reader?
5. Book Buzz
1. Make a book recommendation.  

We look forward to sharing our final project with parents next week.

Essential Questions

• How can I take charge of my reading life?
• What strategies best support and strengthen reading comprehension?
  

Writing:

This week, we will be wrapping up our realistic fiction unit of study. Students will be spending most of the week going through the entire writing cycle on their own. Most students by now have chosen a new story idea and are working on planning it out. They are creating their story arcs and developing their characters into realistic people. Soon students will be drafting and revising their news stories using their narrative checklists and the help of their writing partner. On Thursday, students will be asked to use all that they have learned about writing fiction to plan, draft, revise, and edit a narrative story in forty-five minutes. This will be the final assessment for this unit.

This week’s lessons:
Lesson 17: Planning and Drafting Stories with Agency
Lesson 18: Mining the Connections between Reading and Writing Fiction (revising)
Lesson 19: Focusing the Reader’s Gaze (revising)
Lesson 20: Choosing Punctuation for Effect
Lesson 21: End of Unit On-Demand

Essential Questions

• How can I write long and strong and with independence?
• How can I write a fiction story that is similar to published short stories and picture books?

Mathematics:

We are completing our Module 1 in Math this week.

End-of-Module Assessment: Tuesday and Wednesday

Reflection on Module: Thursday

This is a time that you can sit down with your child and reflect upon their math learning journey so far this year. Highlighting their success on this assessment is very important as is identifying areas of challenge. Through setting goals and exploring accomplishments students continue with a growth mindset. “They believe that their qualities can be cultivated through their efforts.” (Carol Dweck, Mindset, 2006)

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?

Mathematics Essential Questions:

• What strategies can be used to compare multi-digit whole

                         numbers?

• How do patterns in our number system help in understanding

                         mathematics?

• How can strategies be used to solve multistep word problems?
• How can the reasonableness of a solution be determined?

The lessons are as follows for this week:

Topic F: Solving multi-step addition and subtraction word problems.

Parent Tip Sheet

Lesson 1: Solve multi-step word problems modeled with tape diagrams, and assess the reasonableness of answers using rounding.

Lesson 2: Create and solve multi-step word problems from given tape diagrams and equations.

Lesson 3 & 4: End-of-Module Assessment.

Lesson 5: Reflection on assessment and module.

Science:

This week in Science we will continue in the last portion of our electricity unit. We will make some larger parallel circuits using several light bulbs. We will also look at the power of electromagnets. Students will try to make their electromagnets stronger by adding more coils of wire or by adding more batteries. We will also have more in-depth discussions on  our upcoming inquiry project. We will look at the interests of the students in this area, and try to narrow down our project. Students then will make a plan on how they will complete their project.

Essential Questions:

• What is magnetism?
• What is electricity?
• What do scientists do when working in a lab?
• How are magnetism and electricity related?

Grade 4 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: Digital Safety Update - It’s Okay to Tell

This week we will discuss ways in which the digital world can be harmful, such as seeing a shocking picture or receiving a message from a stranger, and what to do when this happens. Students will learn that it is not their fault if this happens and the importance of telling an adult when it does. They will learn the 3 Steps for handling harmful information:   

It’s Okay To Tell!

1.     Ignore it (don’t respond back or click on any image/link)

2.    Save it (don’t close the window or delete it before showing it to your parent so they can help make sure it doesn’t happen again)

3.    Tell an Adult

Students will bring home a copy of the 3 Steps – It’s Okay to Tell! for you to review together at home. Sometimes children feel embarrassed or worried when shocking images or messages pop up on their digital devices. The 3 Steps can be posted in your home as a tool for your child to point to if they have a problem online they want you to know about.  

Upcoming Events

Monday, Sept. 25: Early release day. Students are dismissed at 11:30 AM.

No after school activities on Monday.

Tuesday, Sept. 26: ES House Event at 8:00 AM.

Tuesday, Sept. 26: Announced Fire Drill 10:50 AM.

Thursday, Sept. 28: - Student health records due. If records have not been received students cannot attend school on Sept. 28.

Announcements

From the ES Library

Thank you! A big thank you to Ms. Nan Miller who substituted for me when I had to travel for a family emergency. Ms. Miller stayed in the ES library for three weeks, and completed a couple of projects I had had to put on the back burner for a while. We now have a better organization of all of our folk tales, and we have lots of new DVDs ready to be checked out. In addition to those projects, Ms. Miller filled in for me with classes and individual students who came in for research or book recommendations. Thanks, Ms. Miller! We appreciate your experience and cheerfulness.

21st Century Libraries for Parents: Overdrive

The CAC libraries offer sessions on library and information literacy topics throughout the year. We call these sessions the 21st Century Libraries for Parents series and we hold them on the 3rd Wednesday of every month.

Our first parent session will be on Overdrive and our ebook collection. Join us to see how to access our ebook and digital audiobook collection. Please make sure that you have registered your mobile device with the Tech Office and that you have downloaded the Overdrive app. It is available in all of the mobile device app stores.

Library Closure Times for Early Release Days

We have our first early release day on Monday, September 25. The ES library will be open until 12:30 and then we will close because the staff will be attending meetings. This will be the case for all early release days.

Saturday openings for the months of September and October

Both CAC libraries open most Saturdays in the year. We will NOT be open this weekend because of the holiday. We WILL be OPEN on:

September 30

October  14, 21 and 28

Stay up-to-date with the ES Library

Like us on Facebook/CACESlibrary  

Follow us on Instagram/CACEgyptLibrary

Subscribe to the ES Library blog:  caceslib.blogspot.com

Peace Day Bake Sale

The bake sale made 3935 L.E in the elementary school this week. Thank you to all parents who supported by baking, selling and buying! Proceeds go to the National Cancer Institute. Thank you to the students who helped out at the bake sale!

Tuesday Swim School

A reminder that swim school is now starting at 3:15pm. Dismissal time will be 4:00pm for the learn to swim classes. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Coach Matt at mlautenbach@cacegypt.org.

PE Swimming

The ES swimming unit has come to an end. We will start again in May. Please check the PE blog for more information.

Matt Lautenbach

Aquatics Director

After School Activities (Sept.24 - 28) No ASA on Monday Sep.25 (ERD)

Thank you to the parents who e-mailed us about cancelling activities or not attending a certain day. It is very important that we know ahead of time so we can inform necessary teachers and staff.

Please e-mail Ms.Ereeny 24 hours in advance in case of any ASA class cancellation. Students who miss two unexcused ASA classes without notification, may risk being removed from that activity and parents will be notified. They may not join other activities in the same session.

Looking forward to a great session,

Check ASA Website for updates.Click this link ASA Web.site

Ereeny Gawdat Gergess ( egergess@cacegypt.org)

ES Activities Coordinator

Tortoise Enclosure

You will now see the names of some of our Tortoises under their assigned grade level. More to come soon!

Lost and Found

Part of educating students at CAC is encouraging independence through increasing responsible behaviors. We constantly encourage students to label their items so that they are easily identified and returned back to the owner. It is also important that students know what to do when they lose any of their items.

Here is what we advise students to do when they report a lost item:

1- Look everywhere (lost & found table/class/playground/inside backpacks/home ,etc,...)

2- Ask Others (friends/teachers/parents/siblings,etc,..)

3-Ask parents to report to the lost and found link. Upper grade students can do this too.

4- Use the same link to report when item is found.

In order to support our students and community members with the above process, we created the below Lost and Found link to help us track of lost and found items.

Click here for the LOST AND FOUND Report LINK

FOUND & Available now! at the Head of Security office:

A valuable Watch & a gold  Chain

Please contact Moataz ElDeeb :meldeeb@cacegypt.org

Repeated Announcements

Announced Fire Drill

Throughout the year, we do talk to students about what to do in case of fire, earthquake, or intruder, with the subject matter and terminology adjusted for the grade level. The safety and security of our students is our highest priority, and through preparations in advance, we can ensure that students and staff know what to do in the case of an emergency. Our first drill for the year will be September 26 at 10:50 AM. If you are on campus at that time please follow instructions from Ms.Ereeny.