Grade 4 Newsletter March 25th - 29th

Grade 4 Weekly Newsletter

March 25th - 29th

Curriculum

Reading:

This week students will be finishing up bend two of our social issues book club unit. Students will continue to be using nonfiction texts from our Social Issues LibGuide to help them better understand the social issues in their texts. Students will be studying the different perspectives and thinking about how that understanding could help them grow their ideas during book club meetings. Students will be encourage to take risks and disagree with different perspectives and question the text or the author to help them better understand the social issues.


The lessons for this week are:

Lesson 1: Different Perspectives

Lesson 2: Disagreeing with Different Perspectives is Ok.

Lesson 3: Asking Questions

Lesson 4: Synthesizing to Grow Understanding

Essential Questions

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

Writing:

Bend two of our Literary Essays unit will be coming to an end this week. Students will focus on how they can use transition words to help them connect their evidence to their thesis. They will also be encouraged to add complete sentences to clearly show the reader why this quote or list supports their thesis. Students will be introduced to sentence starters such as the ones below to help them make that connection between evidence and thesis more clear.

This proves… 

All this evidence shows… 

This is important because 

Here are some examples of how students are revising their work to support their thesis statements.

The Lessons for this week are:

Lesson 1: Unpacking Evidence part 1

Lesson 2: Using Descriptions of an Author's Craft as Evidence

Lesson 3: Unpacking Evidence part 2

Lesson 4: Editing

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 will be completing 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.

Math End-Module - Module 5 Assessment: Tuesday 27th and 28th of March

Trial Assessment Reflection Feedback: Please give your student’s teacher any feedback you have on the “I can” Student Reflection students will bring home to help them reflect on their end-module assessment. Do you feel it helps your child identify strengths and areas of growth? How could we improve it?

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: Representing fraction data on Line Plots with word problems involving fractions.

Lesson 2: Fraction patterns.

Lesson 3: End of Module Assessment

Lesson 4: End of Module Assessment

Lesson 5: Assessment and Module Feedback

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 6 Focus: The students will be working to prepare their Glogster/Facebook page. They should be completed by the end of the week. Students will share their work with their classmates.

Lesson 15 Focus: Time for presentation preparation (Facebook/Glogster and speech)

Lesson 16 Focus: Time for presentation preparation (Facebook/Glogster and speech)

Lesson 17 Focus: Students can share their final Facebook/Glogster projects with their classmates.

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

Guidance Update – Thursday Puberty Talk (Part 2)

Dear Grade 4 Families,

As part of the health and social education your child receives, we will be providing puberty classes for all 4th and 5th grade students this month. This program revolves around the belief that if children are better informed they will be more comfortable with the changes they are going through and more willing to seek support from their parents and other trusted adults.

The dates for the Grade 4 puberty lessons are Thursday, March 22nd and Thursday, March 29th.

Please click on this Puberty - Letter for Parents link for important information regarding the topics that will be addressed and the video that will be showed.

All the best,

Carey Harris

charris@g-cacegypt.org


Guidance Update Gr. 4– Responding to Cyber Bullying

There are many ways to socialize with friends, such as talking to them in person or using technology to send emails or texts. Using technology to communicate can be really fun and useful, but technology can also be used to hurt or cyber bully other people. Cyber bullying is using electronic technology to purposefully hurt someone else. It is immediate, long lasting and can spread further and faster than people are usually aware. Students will learn that everything they say or do online can be tracked, nothing electronic is private and there is a lasting digital footprint.

Students will:

Discuss the importance of keeping their personal information (Y.A.P.P.Y your name, address, phone number, passwords or your plans) safe.

Review the 3 steps for handling hurtful messages:

1. Do not respond

2. Save it

3. Tell an Adult;


· Demonstrate ways to support and/or stand up for someone being hurt online (such as reporting to an adult or leaving a chat group).


From the Library…

Mark your calendars! The annual ES Book Parade Assembly is on April 10, the day we get back from the April break. This year, the ES Library Council has declared the theme to be GRAPHIC NOVELS! Stay tuned for more details.

Typing Program

Our grades 3, 4, and 5 students learn touch typing in their classes to prepare for the work they do on computers in upper elementary and in middle school. The program we use is called ‘Typing Club’ and is an online program from Google. Link here. Students can access the program from home.

Upcoming Events

Mark your calendars! The annual ES Book Parade Assembly is on April 10, the day we get back from the April break. This year, the ES Library Council has declared the theme to be GRAPHIC NOVELS! Stay tuned for more details.



Egypt Festival is coming……….

April 19

Repeat Announcements

Core Value of the Month
During the month of March we will focus on the Core Value of Perseverance.