Week 1

Classroom Updates:

1. BREAKFAST: 

Each morning your child will have the opportunity to take a FREE breakfast from the school district. We will be bringing ALL students into the building at 8:05.  At this point the students will be able to eat breakfast, as well as work on any home learning that they would like to (should they need my help). Breakfast will be done BY 8:15 and any remaining food students will be able to save for their snack. 

2. SNACK:

Students may bring in snacks from home to eat at snack time (10:05) each day.  Snacks may not be shared with others. It must be a healthy snack such as crackers, yogurt, string cheese, fruit, etc…

3. WATER BOTTLES:

Water bottles are HIGHLY recommended to bring each day. Please have your student bring their water bottle home to wash frequently (a minimum of once  a week). At E’tude we recognize the science behind drinking water and how it enhances brain function and alertness throughout the day. We do have a bottle filling fountain at school to fill bottles with nice, cold water. 

4. FIELD TRIP SLIPS:

At the open house there was a field trip permission slip at the front table. Those of you who have filled one out, signed, and returned them, Thank You. If you have not, I will be sending one home with your student as we will be going on many field trips to the Mead Public Library often, throughout the year. 

5. MEAD PUBLIC LIBRARY

We will be heading to the Mead Public Library frequently throughout the school year. Our class will ride the city bus from E’tude to downtown, and back. Masks MUST be worn on all city buses.  At the library students will have the opportunity to check out books of their choice or that might go along with our units of study. 

6. HOMEWORK

I will send their student planner/binder home with them every night. As time management and organization are of greater importance as kids get older, I feel it is a great way to start those good habits.  They will be asked to read 20-30 minutes  each night, and every couple of days they will be asked to complete a page or 2 in their “Home Connections” math notebook. If there is something in the math homework that they don’t understand, or is difficult to understand, they may bring that with them to school to complete during breakfast. 

Learning:

1.  ELA-

This trimester will focus on journaling and using historic events in their writing. Students will also participate in book clubs in which they will work on reading strategies such as summarizing, predicting, connecting, and questioning. Then we will move into more complex reading strategies such as story elements, story mapping, conflict, theme, author’s purpose, visualization, and dialogue.  We will have a whole class book that they practice their reading strategies with. They will also be sent home with their reading notebook to practice their reading strategies for their book club. Each week the groups will meet with each other and should have their reading notebook FINISHED and AT SCHOOL on the day of their book club meeting. 

2. PBL-

This trimester our essential question is: “How can we work together for a common purpose?”  We will look at things that happened in Early American history. We will use these events to look at how people came together for a common purpose. Some topics covered will be: the push/pull to come to America, early settlers, slavery, Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre, and other events leading up to The Revolutionary War.  

3. 4th grade math:

The first 2 weeks of school 4th graders will be learning about number lines,  methods and models for multiplication, and modeling division.