Classroom Update - Week of December 9th
Upcoming Events / Reminders:
The Scholastic Book Fair will be at MES from December 2nd - 13th. Each student will have the opportunity to create a wish list during their media special (ours is this Friday). Their wishes are examples of books they saw at the fair and would like to add to their personal libraries at home. We highly encourage parents to come with or without their children to browse what is available at this year's fair. In addition to being open for sales during the school day, there will be an opportunity for parents and families to shop the fair on December 10th from 6:00-8:00 pm.
The MES Annual Science Fair scheduled for Tuesday, December 10th from 6-8 pm! If you would like to volunteer, please contact Bonani Langan (bonani.langan@gmail.com) or Janis Gould (jgould@wcpss.net).
Congratulations to Dhairya and Colin for being the top two spellers in our classroom spelling bee. They will move onto our school-wide spelling bee on Friday, December 13th.
Bus Driver Holiday Appreciation: We are celebrating our awesome bus drivers this holiday season. We will be collecting cards and treats to give to them before the winter break. I have attached a "favorites list" for each of our bus drivers to email. If you would like to contribute, students can bring in their cards/gifts to class next week and I will bring them up to the office to be given to our bus drivers. Thank you for your support!
This Friday, December 13th from 2-3PM fourth grade will be hosting a few members of our state and local government. This coincides with our government unit in Social Studies. The students will have the opportunity to learn from a member of our North Carolina General Assembly, our local mayor, and a member of the judicial branch.
Track Out Day is Friday, December 20th. Enjoy your long five week break and I will see everyone back at school on Monday, January 27th.
We will be going on our next field trip to the North Carolina Legislative Building and North Carolina History Museum on Thursday, January 30th. This field trip costs $6.00. Please pay for it online (https://osp.osmsinc.com/WakeNC/Default.aspx) or send in cash or a check with your child before Friday, December 20th. I am also in need of 5 chaperones for this trip. If you are interested in chaperoning, please send me an email. We will be leaving school around 9:30 that morning and returning back to school by 1:30.
E.L. Education:
This week the students will be continuing their performance task for the quarter. They are constructing a choose-your-own-adventure style narrative where the animal that they conducted research on will be their main character and be forced to use their defense mechanisms to help them survive. They will be working on putting this all together in an interactive slide show presentation that we hope to share with parents the last week of school. A strong emphasis will be placed upon using descriptive language and elaborated details to describe their scenes and action. They will also learn some neat technology tools to enhance their slideshow both in class and in their technology special.
How to Help Your Child at Home:
Have your child share with you the details of their choose-your-own-adventure.
Who is their predator?
What defense mechanisms do they plan on using?
What outcome do they want each use of their defense mechanism to have?
Math:
In math this week the students will be working on finding equivalent fractions. They will start by learning what a unit fraction is and how a fraction such as 2/5 can be decomposed into the unit fractions 1/5 + 1/5 = 2/5. Then, later in the week, they will be using models and multiplying fractions by one (ex. 3/3) to find equivalencies. The students will take the equivalent fractions common assessment on Thursday. The last unit of the quarter will focus on comparing fractions. The students will learn about different strategies for comparing fractions. Some of the helpful techniques that we will be focusing on this week are creating visual representations (fraction bars), ordering the fractions on a number line, and by finding common numerators and denominators. The students will take a common assessment on this skill next Thursday, December 19th.
How to Help Your Child at Home:
Have your child share with you all of the different ways that they have learned to find equivalent fractions and compare fractions.
Have them explain to you how they can use benchmark fractions, like 1/2 to compare fractions.
Discuss with your child the method of finding equivalent fractions and comparing fractions that they feel the most comfortable with.
Social Studies:
This week in Social Studies the students will continue to learn about the state government in North Carolina. They are learning about each of the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), the roles and responsibilities of these branches, and how they work together. The students will also learn more about how a bill becomes a law in state government and checks and balances. The students will be putting all of their notes into a flipbook that they should bring home each night this week to study They will be taking a quiz on state government on Friday of this week and they will not be allowed to use their notes on this quiz, so it is very important that they study a little bit each night. After this, the students will move on to learning about local government.
Questions you can ask your child at home:
*Who are the members of the Legislative Branch? How long do they serve? How many members are there? What are their roles and responsibilities?
*Who are the members of the Executive Branch? How long do they serve? What are their roles and responsibilities?
*Who are the members of the Judicial Branch? What are the three levels of the Judicial Branch? What are their roles and responsibilities?
*How does a bill become a law?
*Why are checks and balances important in government?
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