Grade 4 Weekly Newsletter
October 15-19
Curriculum
Reading:
This week students will be focusing on how to grow their ideas about characters. Readers will notice how complicated their characters are. For example, they might think about how the character is different on the outside than the inside or how they act differently in one part of the story versus another part. Readers will be encouraged to think about what really drives their character to make decisions or take actions. REading intensely and paying close attention to small details will be essential to develop this skill.
This week’s lessons:
Lesson 8: Developing Significant Ideas - Using the story arc to notice important details about characters.
Lesson 9: Growing Grounded, Significant Ideas by Noticing the Author’s Craft: Finding Meaning in Repeated Details
Lesson 10: Improving Theories by Reaching for Precise Academic Language
Essential Questions
- How do story events affect characters?
- How and why do readers track how their characters change over time?
- How do readers share and grow ideas with others?
Writing:
This week students will look back at their persuasive on-demands and the Opinion Writing Checklist below to help them set some writing goals for this unit. Students will work on drafting their first persuasive essay. Writers will work on establishing evidence based on facts. To develop their argument further, writers will be encouraged to share mini-stories from their personal life to support their facts.
This week’s lessons:
Lesson 7: Return to Boot Camp
Lesson 8: Composing and Sorting Mini-Stories
Lesson 9: Creating Parallelism in Lists
Lesson 10: Organizing for Drafting
Essential Questions
- How can I use my ideas to develop an essay which is well-organized and persuasive?
- How can I become more independent?
Mathematics:
It’s a global phenomenon happening now, across the entire globe. The joyous uplifting mathematics of Exploding Dots is being enjoyed by one million – YES! One Million! – students and teachers across the entire globe this very week!
Each class this week will be working on Exploding dots during a math lesson. Outside in the playground are a number of fun learning opportunities for you and your child to grow your mindset with Mathematics. There are problems of the day, math trials, filming of ‘Math Is…’, and books to read.
Here are some photos of Grade 4 students exploring the math problems:
This week we will be starting our Module 3: Multi-Digit Multiplication and Division
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?
- How are multiplication and division related?
The lessons are as follows for this week:
Lesson 1: ‘Math Is…’ video and Math Survey
Lesson 2: Exploding Dots Activity
Lesson 3: Investigate and use the formulas for area and perimeter of rectangles.
Lesson 4: Solve multiplicative comparison word problems by applying the area and perimeter formulas.
Lesson 5: Demonstrate understanding of area and perimeter formulas by solving multi-step real world problems.
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?
Science:
Thank you all so very much for attending our Science Celebration last week. It was a wonderful time sharing our learning and growth as scientists in Grade 4. Here are some photos of our day:
The students were highly motivated to share their science learning with us on Thursday. Here are a couple of students doing a final check before sharing their work.
Social Studies:
We are starting our first Social Studies unit of the year. It is titled, Connections with History. During this unit students will look at how events and geography connect to build a nation.
Essential Question:
- How do geography and people connect to build a nation?
Lesson 1: Setting the scene for defining the task
Lesson 2: Watch video, what do I notice, wonder? Reflect
Lesson 3: Language and vocabulary development
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!
Upcoming Events
- Monday, Oct 16: CAT4 testing 8am.
- Tuesday, Oct 17: 3C assembly. Parents welcome.
- Tuesday, Oct 17: Global Math Week Parent Workshop 8:30-9:30 AM.
- Wednesday, Oct 18: CAT4 testing 12:50pm
- Thursday, Oct 26: Halloween Parade at 2:30 PM. Parents are welcome.
- Friday, Oct 27: Halloween Carnival from 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM.
News
Core Value
The Core Value for October is Responsibility. Your children will be hearing about and practicing responsibility in the classroom, out at recess and during their guidance lessons. The ES Core Value Poster defines responsibility as “being reliable”. You can help support your child’s’ understanding of what responsibility means to you by having conversations about responsibility. Ask questions and share.
Example questions/conversation starters:
1. How do you show responsibility for yourself when you are at school?
2. I showed responsibility at work/home today by….
Carey Harris Dana Purpura
Guidance Counselor School Counselor
ES Library:
21st Century Libraries for Parent series: Digital Citizenship, October 25
Our new Information Services Director, Santha Kumar, has a strong vision for digital citizenship for CAC. Join us on October 25, 8:30 am in the MHS library, for a talk on digital citizenship and how parents can help their children grow up safely and knowledgeably in today’s online world.
Library notices.
The ES library sends out two types of notices.
-WEEKLY notices: Parents of ES students receive weekly notices from our library catalog system with a list of materials that are checked out to the child. These go out the day before the child’s library checkout session to help families pack the books for school the following day.
-OVERDUE notices: Once a month, the library system sends out overdue notices to all about library materials that are overdue. If you feel that there is an error in the notice, please be sure to contact us. We do not charge overdue fines, but we do access a replacement fee if a book is lost or irreparably damaged. That fine needs to be paid at the CAC cashier in the Welcome Center, and a copy of the paid invoice must be returned to the ES library for us to remove a book from the child’s account.
Thank you for your help in returning library materials on time so that others can enjoy them.
Announcements
Don’t forget! It’s Global Math Week this week!
There are a number of different mathematical activities going on for students and families to enjoy this week. These include:
- During their math class that week, students will participate in the Global Math Week focus activity - Exploding Dots!
- A Math Trail will be set up around the elementary school grounds. Students and families can complete the tasks during recess or after school and submit their responses each day. At the end of the week a display will showcase the most creative solutions.
- A Problem of the Day will be posed to challenge our most dedicated mathematicians. Parents are allowed (and encouraged) to help!
- A Parent Workshop will provide an opportunity for parents to share in the joy and fun of Exploding Dots alongside their children, and will share some tips for keeping the math fun going at home.
The ultimate goal of Global Math Week is to change the way the world sees math. We want to help our students appreciate math as joyful, relevant, meaningful and creative. Join us in celebrating the wonder of math!
Global Math Week Parent Workshop
Tuesday October 17th, 8:30 - 9:30 AM
Challenge Series (CCS) - Grade 2 - 5 Students
This year, the ES is offering a new lunchtime sports program called the Cairo Challenge Series. The CCS is a series of 5 events throughout the year for Grade 2-5 students. The five events are: 40m sprint (October), Cross Country race (December), Badminton (grade 3-5 in January), Long Jump (March) and 25m swim (May). All events are designed to recognize participation as well as excellence.
The first event is the 40m sprint, occurring the week of October 8. The first and second rounds will be done by grade with top finishers in each heat progressing to subsequent rounds.
October 9 - Grade 2
October 10 - Grade 3
October 11 - Grade 4
October 12 - Grade 5
October 16 - Semi-finals for Grade 2-5
October 17 - Finals for Grade 2-5
We hope that we have 100% participation! No sign up is necessary, students should just come to the track and we will be marking who is there at this time. On the day of your child’s races, please pack a lunch for them as there will be limited time to get hot lunch on these days. There will be an area for students to eat when they are not racing.
We are very excited to get this program started. If you have any questions, there is additional information on our website or you can email Matt Lautenbach @ mlautenbach@caceygpt.org.
Age Group and Tuesday Swim School
Reminder to make sure that you have paid the fees to the school cashier. Swimmers will be held out of practice until payment has been received. The payment sheet can be found here if needed.
Time Trials - On October 20, the first meet of the year, Time Trials will start with 1:00 pm warm ups. The Sunday/Wednesday ES group warms up from 1:00 pm-1:20 pm, the Monday/Thursday ES group from 1:20 pm - 1:40 pm and the MS/HS group from 1:40 pm - 2:00 pm. The meet will start at 2:15 pm and should take 2-3 hours. All swimmers will compete in group appropriate events to get some practice in before our Invitational November 10 & 11. Please contact Coach Matt at mlautenbach@cacegypt.org with any questions.
PTO News
Halloween Carnival
The Halloween Carnival will be on October 27th, from 2:00 - 6:00 PM!
The PTO gladly accepts all donations of cash, candy and baked goods (bake sales from 3:00 - 4:00 PM on Tuesday afternoons) for this event.
P.E. Uniforms Ready
Good news! The new stock of PE uniforms will be available for sale at the Spirit Store starting Thursday, October 5th.
Store hours are 7:45 - 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM and 2:30 - 4:00 PM. Elementary parents who pre-ordered sizes will have a separate area to collect their orders.
Important: We will hold pre-ordered sizes for two weeks only, until Thursday, October 19th. After the deadline, we will return the reserved sizes with the rest of the stocks for sale.
Shirts: $10.90 or 193 EGP
Shorts: $7.45 or 132 EGP
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