Weekly Update 9/29

Happy birthday tomorrow, MACY!  We hope you have a magical time in DC!

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This week's quote-of-the-week was "Be somebody who makes everybody feel like somebody!"  We observed our friends all week for demonstrations of this quality.  Our class nominated GENEVIEVE!

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Swimming wrapped up on Thursday!  The girls had a BLAST on free swim Thursday yesterday!

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I have set up a sign-up for fall conferences!  

I tried to incorporate other days and times to help with scheduling.  

Please reach out if none of the offered days/times work for you.  

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Curriculum Updates    (Papers came home today in the white folder.)

Reading: We continue reading James and the Giant Peach.  We are learning the literature roles of discussion director, connector, vocabulary enricher, and investigator.  These roles will be used for small group discussions about the book.  We used the site "Wonderopolis" to investigate the Glowworm mentioned in the story. 

Math: We wrapped up our geometry unit.  This will be a set of skills that we will work on the rest of the year. We will spiral review the measuring and labeling as we move on to new topics. We reviewed all concepts and assessed the unit today.  Our new unit is on bog numbers and place value.  We continue to spiral review, work on word problems, and complete engaging enrichment activities.

Language Arts: We learned about hyperboles in music to add to our figurative language collection. This week we reviewed vivid adjectives and adverbs by typing a descriptive story from the basic sentence, "The street light flickered."  

Social Studies:We are continuing our branches of government unit.  We're reading various resources to dig deeper into the roles and leaders of the branches.  This unit will culminate with a Pixton comic to describe one of the branches. 

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Check out our collaborative slide writing assignment. We used more descriptive sentences to 

show "The street light flickered."

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Please remember to sign up for your daughter's SPECIAL WEEK this year.  

A tab on the top of the home page explains what that week means for your daughter. 

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Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Nancy Gray
• Special Week Student next week: 
• Carpool helper sign up form
• Check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teachers
• Friday, October 6 - Blessing of the Animals Chapel on the green
• No school Monday, October 9 - Fall Break
• Thursday, October 12 - BBQ Bash 6:30-8:30
• Our class-led chapel will be on Friday, October 13 in the assembly room at 8:15.
• Be sure to check our our photo link for photos from the month.

Weekly Update 9/22

This week's quote was "Life is tough, but so are you!" 

 Students observed their classmates all week and nominated someone for demonstrating this quote. 

 This week's recipient was VIVIENNE!

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Swimming will continue next week and end on Thursday. 

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Curriculum Updates: 

Reading:  We previewed our class novel that we will use for reading comprehension work.  James and the Giant Peach will be read aloud in class and students will work to dig into creating comprehension questions, analyzing vocabulary, making connections, and illustrating important plot details.  Since this is our first novel study, I will guide and model the process.  

Language Arts: We reviewed nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.  We have enjoyed analyzing song lyrics for various types of figurative language.  I am encouraging them to notice these in their reading and use them in the their writing to make their stories interesting!

Students typed a descriptive "Who am I?" paragraph about themselves using clues to help lower school students guess.  They also took a picture of themselves and pixelated it to add to the mystery!  These are hanging in the hallway and will come home in paper folders soon. 

Math: Students continue to practice using a protractor to measure and create angles.  We are sorting triangles by sides and angels to identify equilateral, scalene, and isosceles triangles.  We continue to work on word problems and spiral review of various concepts.  

Social Studies: We began our government unit on Thursday.  We will learn about the three branches of government and how the "checks and balances" system operates.  As of now, we are exploring and learning the functions of the three branches.

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Check out our collaborative slide writing assignment sharing about someone we admire!  

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Please remember to sign up for your daughter's SPECIAL WEEK this year.  

A tab on the top of the home page explains what that week means for your daughter.  

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Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Hazel
• Carpool helper sign up form
• Check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teachers
• Friday, October 6 - Blessing of the Animals Chapel on the green
• Our class-led chapel will be on Friday, October 13 in the assembly room at 8:15.
• Be sure to check our our photo link for photos from the month.

Weekly Update 9/15

 Happy birthday, ALEXANDRA!

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Swimming starts Monday! 

Please review the letter that came home today in the white folder to help make sure 

we are on time and ready for water fun starting next week (Monday-Thursday 8:00-8:45)! 

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Please remember to sign up for a special week this year. Your daughter will have a special week to share about themselves, make a poster, and have an adult visit them for lunch.  Let me know if you have any questions!

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Papers came home today for the first time.  Please review the papers and keep them at home.  Sign the front to let me know you reviewed them, and have your daughter return the folder by Tuesday. 

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Curriculum Updates:

Reading - We finished The Hundred Dresses and created unique, beautiful dresses on large paper.  Each dress had a special quote of inspiration.  If you get a chance to stop by, they are all over the lower school hallway! 

As a culminating activity for the summer reading of Because of Winn-Dixie, we made "I AM" posters.  We imagined we were a character from the book and described ourselves with vivid adjectives.  These are also hanging in the hall and will come home soon!

Language Arts - We finished our first Wordly-Wise unit.  We took the quiz today together so that I could model the process and answer questions.  We have also worked with the three sounds of "gh", word part matrices, similes/metaphors, and nouns/verbs. 

Math - We are continuing to practice measuring angles with protractors.  We are working on identifying the types of angles and different types of lines.  The students have enjoyed our enrichment math activities: esti-mysteries, slow reveal graph, and musical math.  Ask them to tell you about them!

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This week's "Quote-of-the-Week" was "If it doesn't make the world better, don't do it!" Students observed their peers all week and tried to see who was showing the qualities of this quote.  Today, student's nominated KATELYN!

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Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Catalina
• Carpool helper sign up form
• Check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teachers
• ERB Milestone Testing will take place next week. 
• Picture Day - September 20 at 12:30
• October 6 - Blessing of the Animals Chapel on the green
• Be sure to check our our photo link for photos from the month.

Weekly Update 9/8

 Thank you for coming to Parents' Night last night. It was great to see so many people and talk about our wonderful school year. The partnership between parents and teachers is so important so I am excited to work with you this year.

Don't forget to review, sign, return the Technology Use Agreement that came home with the girls on Thursday.  

This post will be brief since we just spent time together last night. I want to include the special week sign up for you here. 

Today was a special day because the girls officially became Fourthies. As a grade level, we discussed what it means to be the leaders of the Lower School, they signed a contract, and received their hats. We will keep the hats here so they may use them when they are a carpool helper. They may bring the caps home at the end of the year! It was a fun day.

For girls not in band, they learned about club opportunities this afternoon. After the club introduction, they completed a form with their top three choices. We will make sure they get into one of their three choices and begin next Friday, September 15.

Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Mary Linwood
• Carpool helper sign up form
  
• Parents' Night slideshow 
  
• Remember to check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teachers

First Week!

Welcome to fourth grade! Your Fourthies have had an awesome first week of school. We have worked on getting to know each other and establishing routines and expectations. 

I will update this class blog each week with important reminders and curriculum updates. There are helpful links on the side of the page as well as pages with information along the top. One of the pages explains what it means to be a carpool helper. This is a leadership opportunity offered to all Fourthies. Please complete this form so we know who is able to participate and who cannot. We will start carpool helpers the week of September 11.

I look forward to seeing you at Parents' Night next Thursday night, September 7.  This is the schedule for the evening:

• 5:00 PM - Parent Reception in Endeavour Hall (Lower School faculty and staff will be in attendance)

• 5:30 PM - welcome remarks by Cindy Trask, Head of School, and Annie Kapetanis, Head of Lower School and Early Childhood

• 6:15 PM - classroom visits and presentations

Fourthies lead the Pledge of Allegiance each morning to the Lower School and raise the flag for the school and these are both leadership opportunities. We rotate through the girls so everyone will have chances to do these jobs. 

I am excited for this year ahead and love this sweet group of girls already. Here are the 2023-2024 Brittingham Fourthies! (Remember to check out our pictures in our class Google Drive folder.)