August/September News

• August 23, 2023 - Meet & Greet (10:30-12:00) 

• August 24, 2023 - First Day of School!

• August 30, 2023 - Wednesday Early Dismissals (1:25) begin

• September 4, 2023  - Labor Day (No School)

• September 14, 2023 - Parent Open House (Gr. 4: 6:30-6:55pm)

• September 25, 2023 - Yom Kippur (No School)

This month...

We begin our fourth grade adventure in learning! I am SO excited!

Please review these pages to see what your child will be doing/studying and how you can support him or her. I look forward to working with you to help your child reach their learning potential!

Please feel free to contact me at any time regarding your child's academic or social progress.  You may wish to send an email (martoccib@glastonburyus.org), a note, or give the school a call (860-652-7897).

Families:

• Your child will have reading and math homework most nights M-TH (these assignments will be written in your child's planner).

• We will begin with 15 min of reading each night in Aug/Sept, 20 min in Oct, and continue working our way up to 30 min each night (feel free to have you child chunk it into smaller time blocks if that is easier).

• Ask your child how he/she has recorded his/her thinking about reading. (A reading log with short responses for each night will be due on Friday of each week.)

Students:

• Please bring a healthy nut-free snack and a water bottle to school each day.

• Please bring your HOMEWORK FOLDER, PLANNER, and (charged) iPad to and from school EVERY DAY.

• Be sure to use your planner and Homework Folder to organize your homework assignments.

• Have fun learning this year!

This month we will all be learning the routines and getting to know one another.  I am looking forward to a great year!  Here are some highlights of the curriculum in each subject.

Math

This month we begin a long unit in which we will explore how the relationships between addition, subtraction, multiplication and division help us become more flexible and comfortable with numbers.  During September,  we will investigate place value to understand the value each digit represents.  We will be discussing and learning about how it works as well as the “real world” applications.   As a class,  we will discover how we can solve the same problem in a variety of ways.   We are working to establish a safe and comfortable learning community where each and every student feels comfortable to take risks, share their thinking, make mistakes and persevere. Our math norms are a vital part of daily lessons. They include:

• Errors are a gift that promote discussion.

• Talk about each other's thinking.

• Answers are important, but they are not the math!

• Ask questions until ideas make sense.

• Use multiple strategies and multiple representations.

Science:  

In September we begin our science unit, "Energy is Everywhere." Students will explore the concepts of energy and motion. This includes:

• types of energy

• energy transfer

• Newton's Three Laws of Motion

• gravity and force

• factors that affect motion

• force and angle

• a catapult engineering task

Reading:  

The beginning of school is when we establish the routines of Reading Workshop.  We are discussing how and why we choose books, the type of environment necessary for reading, as well as some general ways to share our thinking about books through conversations and writing.   We will also dive into our first Unit of Study: Interpreting Characters. We will study characters closely in fictional texts. Students will build big ideas about themes and character journeys across the story, including character change.

Writing:  

As in reading, we are building a Writing Community.  This month we will learn how writers generate ideas, and build an understanding of how writing tools and the writing environment impact a writer's ability to work and grow.  We will examine both the role of the teacher and the role of the student in Writing Workshop. Our first Unit of Study: The Arc of Story invites students to explore the art of writing realistic fiction.  They will create characters that struggle, deal with setbacks, and finally come to a resolution. Students will also work to revise their pieces carefully, in order to make their stories believable.