Weekly Update 1-28-20

Hello Fourth Grade Families,

I hope to see you on Friday at Family Movie Night. I previously told you the wrong start time. The movie will begin at 6 pm! The run time of the movie is nearly 2 hours. Concessions will be available for purchase. Bring something cozy to sit on or snuggle, you can even wear your pj's! The whole family is invited!

Valentine's Day party is Feb 14th at 2:20 pm. Sign up to help with the party HERE.

(the note with the list of names came home on Friday but I have noticed a few on the floor/in the hallway so I'm sending digitally as well)

Valentine’s Day 2020

Our class will celebrate Valentine’s Day with a party on February 14^th at 2:20 pm. If your child decides to bring valentine cards, please make sure they have one for each student in the class. It is also fun to bring an extra for their reading buddy.

Each student should bring a decorated box or bag to collect their cards. It must fit on a desk and have a way to easily put them in and take them out. Have fun and be creative!

Fiona Bockheim

Patrick Brew

Sophia Brown

Emily Callahan

Emmett Chesla

Ella Collins

Mylee Hayes

Rasha Haykal

Sophie Hicks

Brynn Leestma

Jack Leestma

Cai Lewis

Eleanor Lowry

Julia Lueck

Donovan Lummen

John Murphy

Porter Newsom

Grant Oakes

Austin Paskvan

Greyson Spiegel

Tallulah Stares

Ethan Telling

Mimi Tjoelker

Asadbek Urmonjonov

Spelling Bee and Happy Friday!

A HUGE congratulations goes out to our spelling bee contestants. Julia came in at an amazing 3rd place and Sophie WON the whole thing! Sophie will represent our school in the district bee. Congratulations on your hard work, ladies!

We completed the "heart challenge" with Mrs. Miller's 5th graders. Students had 5 minutes to make a giant heart WITHOUT talking. It was an exercise in teamwork, cooperation, and problem solving. These amazing kids completed the challenge with 2 minutes to spare!  Have a fantastic weekend!

Weekly Update 1-23-20

Hello Fourth Grade Families,
We have had a week filled with hard work and learning. Tomorrow is the deadline to send in your chaperone form for the Mackinac Island field trip. We will let parents know if they are chosen as soon as the lottery is complete.

We are deep into our unit studying the American Revolution and various subtopics related to the content. Students are working with their groups to create a presentation to share with their class. Next week on Wednesday we will conclude our equivalent fractions unit with the assessment. Look for a study guide to come home tomorrow. The biggest thing most students need practice with is converting fractions to a common denominator. We can do this by finding the smallest multiple that the numbers have in common. Look for a chart explaining how to do this near the bottom of the blog post.

Next Friday is Family Movie Night! I hope to see you in the gym for the live action Aladdin. The movie will begin at 7 pm. 

I can't wait to see all of our fantastic fourth graders who are participating in Frozen Jr! We will attend the school show on February 5th in the afternoon. 

Our class will celebrate Valentine's Day with a party on February 14th. Our party will begin at 2:20 following last recess and go until the end of the school day. Look for more information about this to come home soon!

Silent March Pictures

Weekly Update 1-16-20

Hello Fourth Grade Families,
I hope you have had a nice week! We have had a lot of fun things going on here at Wealthy. This afternoon we held our class spelling bee. Congratulations to our winner Julia and runner up Sophie H. Both girls will represent our class in the whole school spelling bee next Friday. Students will spend their lunch hour participating... good luck girls!

Today we got to learn about the legendary Jackie Robinson with a production from Brightstar Theater. They were talented performers who were very informative. Ask your student to tell you about the show!

Tomorrow I will submit our January Scholastic Book Club order. If you would like to place an order online, please use the code HB4N7 at https://clubs.scholastic.com/ All books ordered online are 50 cents cheaper than the books in the catalog. 

Tomorrow we will have a full day of celebration of the life and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the morning we will attend an assembly that will be followed with a silent march. We will spend our afternoon in mixed grade level groupings participating in a fun project. To ensure your child's comfort, please have them dress warmly and wear shoes/boots that will be safe on the march. The sidewalks are a bit slippery and we want everyone to be safe.  There will be no school on Monday to observe the holiday. 

Last week you received the sign up form to be a chaperone on the Mackinac Island field trip. If you are interested in entering the lottery for this field trip that is like no other, please have your form to me by January 24th. As noted on the form, this is a physically demanding trip that requires you to be able to hike several miles, bike around the island (8 miles), and take full responsibility of 3 students for approximately 40 hours. As you can imagine, many unpredictable situations have occurred in the past.  Flexibility, responsiveness, and firm expectations are important traits for a chaperone to have. I attended this trip last year for the first time and while it was memorable, educational, and fun...it was EXHAUSTING!! I am telling you this so you are prepared when you make the decision to send in the form. 

This week in fourth grade:

This week in math we began our unit on equivalent fractions. Please continue to work on homework each night as a way to check in on your child's understanding of the content. We are working hard in class but this is complicated work! We have learned how to find equivalence in fractions (multiply by a common factor), how to reduce fractions to their simplest form, and can find common denominators (look for a shared multiple). If homework is a struggle for your child, please jot me a note and I am ready to help! 

In reading we have been learning about the American Revolution. Students are working in new research teams and each group has a different subtopic they're researching. We are building on the skills from our previous nonfiction unit and learning so much!

In science we have been working to understand the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources. We are wrapping up our Earth Science unit and will be preparing for the unit assessment in the next few weeks. 

Weekly Update 1-7-20

Happy 2020!

I hope you all enjoyed a restful break with your families. I have enjoyed hearing about all of the fun things you did during the time off. We are easing our way back into the school routine this week. I'm sure your family is feeling like mine in regards to getting back into an earlier bedtime and school day routine... we can do this! Lucky for us, we have swimming to look forward to on Thursday.  We are all set on a chaperone for the female locker room. If you know of someone who would be available to help in the male locker room, please let me know! You can access the sign up HERE. It is helpful to send an extra snack on swim day. Students use more energy than usual and are HUNGRY when finished. We will swim from 2:15-3:15. Parent volunteers, please meet us outside of the locker rooms at 2 pm. Thank you!

Look for review material for Chapter 10 math to come home this week. We will be taking the unit assessment for this brief unit on Thursday.

We are launching a new reading unit on the American Revolution this week. We will be reading history and learning about events that shaped our country.

In science we are researching animals that are native to Michigan to use in the legends they'll be writing in social studies. We will share these legends on our field trip to Mackinac Island in June!

Upcoming Dates:
January 20- There will be no school for students  in observance of Dr. King's birthday.
January 31- Family Movie Night at 7 pm
February 17&18- Mid Winter Break

Have a wonderful week!
SG