Aug/Sept News

• August 23, 2023 - Meet & Greet (10:30-12:00) Stop on by and check out our classroom! We are room 28!

• 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 3-4; 6:00pm)

• 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 son/daughter 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 (stones@glastonburyus.org), a note, or give the school a call (860-652-7897). 

Parents:

• 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 two healthy snacks 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 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 place value works, as well as “real world” applications.   As a class,  we will discover how we can solve the same problem in a variety of ways.   We will be working to establish a safe and comfortable learning community where each and every student feels willing to take risks, share their thinking, embrace mistakes, and persevere! 

Science:  

We will begin our first of three science units, Energy is Everywhere.  In this physical science unit we will study energy and motion with numerous hands-on activities. The unit culminates with a catapult challenge in late October!

Reading:  

The beginning of school is when we establish the routines of Reader’s Workshop.  We will be 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.  Our first unit will focus on fiction stories, and we will study character traits as well as how characters change, from the start of a story to the end.

Writing:  

As in Reading, we will be building a Writing Community.  This month we will learn how writers generate ideas, as well as learn about the tools and the environment that a writer needs to work and grow as a writer.  We will examine both the role of the teacher and the role of the student in Writing Workshop. Our first official unit will be a unit on Narrative Writing where your child will continue their work from previous years and learn to improve their ability to write a story.