Classroom Update - Week of February 10th

Upcoming Events / Reminders:

• There will be no student make up day for the weather related school cancelation on Friday, February 7th.

• Last week in Tuesday folders, your child brought home their field trip packet for our last field trip to the NC Aquarium and Masonboro Island. Fees and forms are due by Thursday, March 5th. If you would like to chaperone this field trip, please make sure that you sign up to be a volunteer with the front office several weeks before this field trip. This field trip is scheduled for Monday, March 30th. The field trip packet is very detailed, but please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

• Our class will be celebrating Valentine's Day on Friday, February 14th. If you would like for your child to participate, they are welcome to bring in valentines to share with all students in our classroom. We have 24 students and their names are listed below for the students who wish to personalize their valentines.

Molly, Selden, Cooper, Joanna, Peter, Jeremiah, Connor, Greg, Cate, Izaya, Sandhya, Alex, Geethika, Nicoletta, Owen, Colin, Aaditi, Kara, Eun, Dallin, Eli, Valentina, Ella, Brady

• The Leadership Team at Morrisville Elementary will be collecting gently used books for the Wake Up and Read Book Drive from January 6th - February 15th. Books may be dropped off in the shopping carts located in the front of the school building. They are collecting books from birth to 12 years of age.

• There will be no school on Monday, February 17th, as it is one of the previously scheduled teacher workdays.

• Spring Pictures (both class and individual) will be held on Thursday, February 20th. Picture envelopes will be going home in Tuesday Folders tomorrow.

• Fourth graders will be taking an NC Performance Task on Tuesday, March 3rd. More information regarding this assessment will follow soon.

• There will be no school on Monday, March 9th, as it is one of the previously scheduled teacher workdays.

• Our last fourth grade field trip to the North Carolina Aquarium and Masonboro Island will be held on Monday, March 30th. Paperwork for this field trip will be going home in Tuesday Folders on February 4th.

E.L. Education:

This week the students continued to read nonfiction texts about the Revolutionary War, and especially focused on the role of African Americans and American Indians. As they read, they worked to determine the gist of each paragraph and then wrote a summary for the article. The students also looked at the organizational structure of the text and determined whether it was description, chronology, comparison, cause & effect, or problem and solution. The students will have their mid of unit test assessment tomorrow and take their end of unit assessment on Friday. On the mid-unit the students will have to write a paragraph explaining who the Patriots were and what they believed in, along with some comprehension and text structure questions. On Friday, they will work on summarizing and determining the meaning of unfamiliar words. Next week, the students will start reading the anchor text for this unit, a drama called "Divided Loyalties."

How to Help Your Child at Home:

• Read stories and informational books about the American Revolution.

• Encourage your student to tell you the main idea and to provide supporting details of informational texts you read together.

• Encourage your child to summarize informational texts you read together.

• Watch documentaries about the American Revolution.

• Visit museums or exhibitions about the American Revolution.

• Read a play together with your child and talk about how the stage directions help the story.

Math:

In math, we will be finishing our decimals unit with finding equivalent decimals of tenths and hundredths, ordering decimals on a number line, comparing decimals and adding tenths and hundredths. The students will take their decimals assessment on Thursday this week. The next unit has the students working on fractions again. In this unit, the students will work on decomposing unit fractions and then adding fractions with common denominators.

How to Help Your Child at Home: ​

• Discuss the following questions at home with your child:

• What would be an equivalent decimal to 0.6? Why is it equivalent?

• Can you write the following decimal (0.34) as a fraction? In words?

• How would the decimal 0.7 change if you added two tenths? What if you subtracted 3 hundredths?

• Order the following decimals from least to greatest: 0.4, 1.2, 0.38, 0.04. What strategy did you use to help you?

• What is a unit fraction?

• How could you decompose 5/6 into a unit fraction chain?

• Show me some strategies that you use to add fractions?

Social Studies:

This week, the students will continue to learn about economics in North Carolina. They will learn about famous entrepreneurs from North Carolina (the inventors of Krispy Kreme, Cheerwine, and Mount Olive Pickles) and the struggles and successes that they faced as they made their companies into strong businesses. They will also learn about supply and demand by participating in a lemonade taste test and by playing a lemonade stand game. They will end the week by focusing on scarcity and why it happens. The students were given a list of important economics terms last week to help them study and learn for an upcoming vocabulary test that is scheduled for Wednesday, February 12th.

How to Help Your Child at Home:

• Help them study the economics vocabulary words with them.

• Have them share with you what they learned about the entrepreneurs from North Carolina.