Grade 4 Newsletter Feb 25 - March 1

Grade 4 Weekly Newsletter

February 25 - March 1

Curriculum

Reading:

This week we will begin our social issues book club unit. Students will be doing the following when they stop and think about the texts they read. They will be sharing their ideas with their book club members and building upon each other’s ideas.

The lessons for this week are:

Lesson 1: Students will be investigating articles, short films, texts etc on Blendspace. They stop, think, and ask themselves this question as they read: What is the big message you are learning from this?
Students will Stop and Jot what they think they are learning.

Lesson 2: Students will find their own articles, books etc that contain social issues.
Discussion Questions:

• Who has the power?
• How is the power shown?
• What seems fair/unfair?
• Whose voices/perspectives are heard/not heard?
• What does the author want you to feel when reading this text? Why?
• What connections can you make with the place where you live? Do you see any of these social issues in your community?

Lesson 3: Connecting to their own lives - reading with empathy

Lesson 4: Character struggles and how they deal with them, leads to reveal the social issue(s) so that we can jot and be ready to discuss

Lesson 5: First we read for the story, NOW we read asking questions.

Essential Questions

• How can I determine and reflect on the social issues in texts?

Writing:

This week students will begin our Literary Essay unit.

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: Pre-Assessment - On Demand Literary Essay

Lesson 2: Students will look at examples of literary essays, anchor charts, and graphic organizers before beginning the unit.

Lesson 3: Close Reading to Generate Ideas about a Text

Lesson 4: Gathering Writing by Studying Characters

Lesson 5: Elaborating on Written Ideas Using Prompts


Essential Questions

• How do writers select a claim to write a literary essay?
• How can I show evidence that supports the idea or claim I am making about a text?
• How do writers analyze text for reasoning?

Mathematics:

This week we have our MID-Module Assessment

Sunday, 25th and Monday, 26th

This week we will be continuing Module 5 - Fraction Equivalence, Ordering, and Operations.

This module builds on students’ grade 3 work with unit fractions as they explore fraction equivalence and extend this understanding to mixed numbers. This leads to comparison of fractions and mixed numbers and the representation of both in a variety of models. Benchmark fractions (ie. ½) play an important role when students reason about fraction and mixed number sizes. Students have the opportunity to apply what they know to be true to new situations and problems.

Essential Questions:

• Why express quantities, measurements and fraction number relationships in different ways?
• How can fraction number relationships be expressed in different ways?

The lessons for this week are:

Lesson 1: Mid-Module Assessment

Lesson 2: Mid-Module Assessment

Lesson 3: Reflection on Assessment

Lesson 4: Add and multiply unit fractions greater than 1 using visual models.

Lesson 5: Decompose and compose fractions greater than 1 to express them in various forms.


Parent Tip Sheets: Topic A, Topic B, Topic C, Topic D, Topic E, Topic F, Topic G, Topic H.

Here is the LINK to the Growth Mindset video (Jo Boaler). 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? What type of dialogue will you use? You might like the following sentence starters to help you!

Social Studies: The Road to Independence

In this unit we will be looking at the causes of the American Revolution and discussing the issues of the day from multiple perspectives. In the culminating project the students will be selecting a famous person from the time (American or British) and created a ‘Facebook’ page for them on Glogster. This poster will include famous quotes, pictures, and some oral recordings that the students make as they attempt to become their character.

Essential Questions:

• How do people, government and key events connect to build a nation?

Week 2 Focus: Stamp Act and Glogster

Lesson 4: Focus: The Stamp Act. Look at pictures from the stamp act. Have students move around the room and add comments on post-it notes. (I see, I think, I wonder). Do class simulations of the pictures. Discuss perspective.

Lesson 5: Review the Big6 and Set up Glogster.

Lesson 6: Research and use Glogster.

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!

Grade 4 Guidance Update

In Guidance students are learning ways to manage peer conflicts and prevent/respond to bullying. We began with a focus on healthy versus unhealthy friendship groups and the difference between normal peer conflict and bullying. This unit is designed to prevent all forms of bullying, including physical/verbal, relational and cyber-bullying. Through the use of the Second Step curriculum, various read-aloud books, videos, discussions and role-plays, students will:

- Recognize the difference between a group of friends and exclusive cliques

- Learn and practice specific assertiveness skills to refuse the exclusion of peers

- Recognize the difference between normal peer conflict and bullying

- Learn strategies for dealing with bullying

- Understand and practice helpful bystander responses to bullying

- Recognize the similarities and differences between cyber bullying and other forms of bullying

- Demonstrate ways to prevent cyber bullying.

Shelter Drill

We will be having a drill on March 12 to practice shelter procedures. Teachers will discuss this as “shelter practice” with students in age-appropriate ways, but you may also want to also talk to your child about the subject. Last year, we shared this article with helpful suggestions for talking to children about safety procedures and practices. One of the things addressed is the impact of the terminology we use. Staff members will be going over this in advance, as we work together to ensure that students feel safe, protected, and aware of what to do in different situations.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-simon-prager-phd/talking-to-kids-about-a-lockdown_b_4117330.html

The drill will be held at 12:00 pm, so if you are on campus, we ask that you follow instructions when asked to go to a safe place. Everyone who is outside will be moved to the ES Hall.

Upcoming Events

Mid-Module Math Assessment, Sunday and Monday 25th & 26th Feb

Wednesday, Mar. 7th - Early Release Day

Thursday, Mar. 8th - CAC Holiday

March 12th - Shelter Drill 12pm.

Repeat Announcements

Core Value of the Month

During the month of February we will focus on the Core Value of Creativity.









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