Grade 4 Weekly Newsletter

April 15th - 19th

Curriculum

Reading:

This week we will be wrapping up our social issues book club unit. Students will be working on an end of unit project that will present a social issue they are interested in. Students will teach us about the different perspectives on that issue and share a possible solution they might have.

The lessons for this week are:

Lesson 1: Big Themes
Lesson 2: Making Connections
Lesson 3: End of Unit Project
Lesson 4: End of Unit Project
Lesson 5: In class Celebration

Essential Questions:

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

Writing:

Our Literary Essays unit ends this week. Students will be spending the next couple of days working on a rough draft for a comparing and contrasting essay. Towards the end of the week students will be taking 2 on-demand assessments. These assessments will help us evaluate student growth this year. Students may bring a single sheet of paper with some brief notes to help them with their essays.

The lessons for this week are:

Lesson 1: Developing Distinct Lines of Thought
Lesson 2: Exploring Commas
Lesson 3: Persuasive On-demand
Lesson 4: Informational On-demand

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 continuing Module 6 - Decimal Fractions. 

This module gives Grade 4 students their first opportunity to work with and explore decimal numbers and their relationship to our previous module on decimal fractions. They will express a given quantity in both fraction and decimal forms. During this module students will build a solid foundation for working with decimal numbers in Grade 5.

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:

• How can place value be used to create equivalent fractions?
• How can place value be used to add fractions?
• Why do we express quantities, measurements, and number relationships in different ways?
• How can place value be used to compare and order decimals?

The lessons for this week are:

Lesson 1: Model the equivalence of tenths and hundredths using the area model and number disks.
Lesson 2: Use the area model and number line to represent mixed numbers with units of ones, tenths, and hundredths in fraction and decimal forms.
Lesson 3: Model mixed numbers with units of hundreds, tens, ones, tenths, and hundredths in expanded form and on the place value chart.
Lesson 4: Use understanding of fraction equivalence to investigate decimal numbers on the place value chart expressed in different units.

Parent Tip Sheets: Overall Module Tip Sheet, Topic A, Topic B, Topic C, Topic D.

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!

Science: The Circle of Life
In this unit we will take a look at heredity and the traits that we have inherited. We will be using scientific methods to observe, collect, record, and analyze data. We will also discuss and compare the life cycle of plants, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and animals - from birth to adult. Students will explain that every organism requires a set of instructions that specify their traits.

Essential Questions:

• Why do we look the way we do?
• Do all living things have the same life cycle? Why?

Week 2 Focus: Delve into inherited traits, and data collection. Discuss our inherited traits.

Lesson 2 Focus: Introduce inherited traits. Look at a website that describes several inherited traits. Complete a survey on our personal inherited traits. Make a class graph.
Lesson 3 Focus: Explain the inherited traits. Look at the graph that we created. Explain what we have learned.

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, differentiated 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 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).

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...

EGYPT FESTIVAL 2018

Dear Parents,

Mark your calendar for our annual Egypt Festival on Thursday, April 19, 2018. Parents are invited to join us as we celebrate our host country, Egypt through music, dancing, food and grade level activities connected to the Egyptian Culture themes.

To add to the spirit of the day we invite you to wear a galabeya or perhaps clothes that reflect Egypt. You can purchase a galabeya on the 17th from 2:00 - 5:00 and on the 18th and 19th from 7:30-5:00 p.m. Our morning assembly will open the festivities for the day in the theatre and you are welcome to join us from 7:55 AM - 8:45 AM.

Our Egyptian lunch is for all elementary students, parents, teachers and staff and will be held during lunch/recess times between 11:00 - 11:30 for PreK, 12:00 - 12:30 for Kg, Grade 1 & 2, 12:30 - 1:00 for Grade 3,4 & 5 in the ES Hall. You will sample a variety of Egyptian dishes including freshly baked baladi bread (from our very own mud brick oven).

The bread will be on sale for PreK - 12 students during their recess. A loaf costs two pounds and last year our students loved the fresh bread for morning snack.

The school will be covering the cost of the lunch and all entertainment. Students have pre paid 40 LE for their grade-level activity at the beginning of the year.

Parents are an important part of our Egypt Festival. We would love you to come and enjoy the Hassaballa morning welcome, opening ceremony, learn crafts from our vendors, the Tanoura closing ceremony, and we would appreciate your support by volunteering at either lunchtime or bread selling. Please sign up to help us if you can.

Parent helpers

We are looking forward to you joining us to celebrate our host country, Egypt and thank you for your support.

Elementary Egyptian Culture/Arabic Team

Egypt Festival Schedule 

2017 -2018

Egypt Festival Schedule   2017 -2018
Time/Day	Activity/Grade	Where	Who
April 17 2:00 - 5:00 pm	Ghalabaya	ES Lawn	CAC Community
April 18 7:30pm-5:00pm	Ghalabaya Sale Vendors Sales - (Ceramics - Mashrabiya - Egyptian Toys)	ES Lawn	Classes during the day - CAC Community - after school
April 19 7:30am - 5:00pm	Ghalabaya Sale Vendors Sales - Ceramics - Mashrabiya - Egyptian Toys	Outside ES Cafeteria      ES Lawn	CAC Community Classes during the day - CAC Community - after school
7:00 - 7:50	Hassabala Musicians	Gate and ES Lawn	Everyone is welcome
7:55 - 8:45	Opening Egypt Culture Assembly	Theater	All elementary students, parents, teachers and staff
8:55 - 9:30	Population in Egypt Nubian Craft	Cafeteria	Grade 2 students Parents welcome
8:55 - 9:30	I Live in Egypt Palm Tree Scene	Cafeteria	KG students Parents welcome
10:00-10:30	Look What Comes From Egypt Grassman	Cafeteria	Pre K students Parents welcome
10:00- 10:35	Myths & Beliefs Mosaic Necklace	Cafeteria	Grade 4 students Parents welcome
11:00 - 11:35	Arabic Calligraphy Calligraphy project	Cafeteria	Grade 3 students Parents welcome
11:00 - 11:35	Capital Cities Fatimid Ceramics	Back of ES Building	Grade 5 students Parents welcome
11:00 - 11:30	PreK, Egyptian Festival Lunch	ES Hall	Pre-K, Students, parents, teachers, aides
12:00 - 12:30	Gr Kg & Gr. 1 & 2 Egyptian Festival Lunch Gr. 3/4/5 Outside Recess	ES Hall	Kg & Gr. 1 and Gr. 2 Students, parents, teachers,
12:30 - 1:00	Gr. 3/4/5  Egyptian Festival Lunch Kg & Gr. 1 & 2 Outside Recess	ES Hall	Gr.3, 4 & Gr. 5 Students, parents, teachers, aides
12:55 - 1:30	Famous Buildings Clay Pyramids	Back of ES Building	Grade 1 students Parents welcome
2:25  - 3:00	Closing Ceremony  Tanoura	Theater	Everyone is welcome

Talent Show

Talent Show Update:

Our ES Talent Show date has been moved to April 30th. We are supporting our wonderful PTO with this change of date. Thank you all for your flexibility.

Please find below important dates and information regarding this year’s ES Talent Show:

April 15th and 16th Acts will perform for the ES Talent Show team. They will come during their lunch/recess time to the Drama Room. Any Act that is not performance-ready will not participate in this year’s Talent Show.

Sunday, April 29th is the mandatory rehearsal in the CAC Theatre from 3:15 - 5:15. All students must have a way to go home; the late bus service is not available. Students will be dismissed from the CAC Theatre at 5:15.

All Choir students will attend the Choir rehearsal on Sunday, April 29th, then come directly to the CAC Theatre for the remainder of the rehearsal.

The Talent Show will be for ALL ACTS beginning at 5:30 - 7:30 on April 30th. The Show will end by 8pm. ALL ACTS must come to the Theatre at 5pm, performance ready.

ES Talent Show

April 30th, 2018

Tickets - 30LE per seat

Performances: 5:30-6:15

Intermission: 6:15-6:30

Performances: 6:30-7:15

Show ends 7:30pm.

Thank you for your continued support. Please contact Ms. Dolly for any further clarifications or questions.


ES Talent Show Team