Classroom Update - Week of September 3rd

Upcoming Events / Reminders:

• Quarter 1 Interims went home on last Friday, August 30th. Please sign/initial their interim and return it back to school with your child. If you would like a copy of this interim, please let me know and I will make a copy for you.

• Field trip permission slips were sent home in Tuesday Folders last week. Please return as soon as possible.

• We will be eating lunch in the classroom this Friday, September 6th due to meetings throughout the school. As a result, there will be no room for any lunch visitors this day.

• Guest Illustrator, Christopher Eliopoulos, the illustrator of the Ordinary People Change the World series, will be visiting MES on September 12th for 3rd and 4th grade students! If you would like to order one of his books, orders are due by tomorrow (Wednesday).

• Track Out Day for Quarter One is Friday, September 27th.

• Mark your calendars for Fall Festival. It will be held on Friday, September 27th from 6-9PM. A flyer with more information will be sent home in Tuesday Folders, tomorrow.

E.L. Education:

This week the students will be choosing and focusing on one of the three following authors: Valerie Worth, Robert Frost, and Walter Dean Myers. The students will research the background of their expert poet and read more of their poems to answer the guiding question: "What inspires writers to write poetry?" After collecting their research, the students will work on constructing an essay that focuses on that guiding question. Later this week, they will work on revising and editing their literary essay with a partner and then publishing it, as they take it to final copy.

How to Help Your Child at Home:

• Which poet did you choose to research?

• Tell me more about some of the background information that you learned about your poet.

• What do you think inspired your poet to write? What evidence of this do you find in his/her poems?

Math:

This week in math, the students will finish working on solving word problems involving area and perimeter. They will spend today and tomorrow reviewing and using strategies to solve word problems and on Thursday they will take their area and perimeter assessment. On Friday, the students will start their next unit, which will focus on place value.

How to Help Your Child at Home: ​

Here are some word problems that you can ask your child at home to further support their learning in school:

• A rectangle is 5 times as long as it is wide. It is 6 inches wide. What is the area of the rectangle. Draw a sketch to show this.

• A rectangle has a length of 24 inches. That is 6 times longer than its width. What is the width? What is the area?

• A rectangle has an area of 48 square inches. It length is 3 times its width. What are its dimensions?

Science:

This quarter we will be learning about landforms and how the earth changes through slow and rapid processes. This week, the class will be learning about different landforms. They will study the formation of rivers and learn how they change the earth. The students will create a class flow map showing these steps. Also, both Track 4 classes are recording the phases of the moon each night. These should be drawn on the September calendar in the agenda. If the moon is not visible, the student may use moongiant.com.

• Tell me about the Revolutionary War. Who fought in it? What were they fighting for? Who won?