Grade 4 Weekly Newsletter
January 21 - 24
Curriculum
Reading:
This week we start off with students joining their historical fiction book clubs. Students will be reading the same novel and discussing it with each other. Our mini-lessons will help students study characters more closely and when appropriate, students will be encouraged to apply what they learn to their own text.
The lessons for this week are:
Lesson 1: Character’s Perspectives Are Shaped by Their Roles
Bend 2: Interpreting Complex Texts
Lesson 2: Making Significance
Lesson 3: Seeing Big Ideas in Small Details
Essential Questions
- How does history influence the characters, setting, and events in a story?
- Who has power in the story?
- How are the books we read in our groups related?
- What makes our book club discussions meaningful?
Writing:
Most students have now finished planning and researching their historical informational texts and will start drafting their first chapter or two. This week our mini-lessons will support students in writing a small moment story involving the time in history that is the subject of their research. They will write a short story that might have taken place.
In this historical nonfiction writing unit, students learn that information texts are often conglomerates, containing a lot of other kinds of texts. These might include an all about chapter, a how-to chapter, a diary, and/or an essay.
The lessons for this week are:
Lesson 1: Elaboration: The details that let people picture what happened long ago and far away
Lesson 2: Bringing information alive: stories inside nonfiction texts
Lesson 3: Essays within information texts
Essential Questions
- How can historical events be incorporated into our nonfiction writing?
- How can research help me write historical nonfiction?
Mathematics:
This week we will be wrapping up Module 4 - Angle Measure and Plane Figures. Students will be taking their end of unit assessments and then reflecting on them.
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: Review
Lesson 2: End of Module 4 Assessment part 1
Lesson 3: End of Module 4 Assessment part 2
Lesson 4: Module 4 Reflection
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: Where the Wind Blows
Essential Question:
This is the start of a new unit on weather and weather forecasting. Students are placed in working groups, and each group has been given a city in a climatic zone. Students have started to track the weather data of their city in a computer spreadsheet. In the coming weeks, the students will use the data that they have collected and have informed discussions on their climatic zone. At the end of the unit, students will use their city’s weather data to make a weather forecast that will be filmed.
- Can weather be predicted accurately?
- How do the temperature and precipitation determine the climate?
Week 2 Focus: Temperature
- Lesson 2: Students will set up their own computer spreadsheet to collect data.
- Lesson 2: Students will discuss high and low temperatures.
- Lesson 2-3: Students will watch a video on temperature and discuss their learning.
- Lesson 3: Students will do an experiment related to temperature and discuss their results.
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
· Wednesday, Jan. 24th - Early Release Day
· Thursday, Jan. 25th - Holiday
· Sunday, Jan. 31st - Spelling Bee Written Exam (12:10pm)
· Tuesday, Feb. 6th - 4M Assembly
Announcements
Spelling Bee
It's Spelling Bee time for grades 3, 4, and 5!
What: Spelling Bee preliminary try-out written test
When: Grade 5 - Monday, Jan. 29
Grade 3 - Tuesday, Jan. 30
Grade 4 - Wednesday, Jan. 31
Time: 12:10-12:30
Where: Library classroom
Need anything: No, just courage to "go for it" and give it a try!
Top results from each grade level in the preliminary written test will be selected to join the SEMI-FINALS. This will then result in the ES FINALS (done at a later assembly), which will determine the top 3 finalists who will represent the CAC ES team at the city-wide Spelling Bee, being held on the 6th of March at BCCIS.
Student Leaders
The second team of student leaders will start their first meeting this Monday Jan.22 in room 42 during lunch recess.
The second team of student leaders will start their first meeting this Monday Jan.22 in room 42 during lunch recess.
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4D
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Logan
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Paul
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4F
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Pauline
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Katherine
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4M
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Jameela
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Dec/Jan Birthday Lunch with the Principals’
Monday, January 22. Please let your students know we are excited to celebrate Dec/Jan birthdays at lunchtime.
Repeat Announcements
Core Value of the Month
During the months of December and January, we will focus on Integrity.
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