Week of September 12 to 16

 What We Learned This Week

Bible: This week, we talked about how we know that the Bible truly is God's Word. We as Christians need to believe by our faith that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. Look up Hebrews 11:6. 

Math: The students were introduced to Nearpod this week. Nearpod is a wonderful technology tool that we can use during the class on the Ipads. It is like a virtual whiteboard that allows me to watch in real time as the students write and perform tasks on their whiteboards. The students compared and added numbers up to 6 digits long. They also showed me how to correctly align numbers with different numbers of digits and successfully added them. We ended the week talking about how we can use estimations to check the reasonableness of addition problems. 

 

Reading: To kick off our reading unit, we talked about good reading habits and what it looks like / feels like to have chosen an appropriate book and to be immersed in it. Perhaps your student can show you their strong reading habits as they complete their daily reading log homework! They have read for 30 minute stretches in the class which is something to be celebrated! 

Writing: We are about to start our realistic fiction writing unit. In order to gain a better understanding of what realistic fiction is, we read a handful of realistic fiction pieces and broke down their structures. Good authors are good readers too!

Science: We are studying how the internal and external structures of living organisms allow them to survive. This week, we shifted our focus on the human body. We measured our resting and post-exercise heart rate and compared them. Ask the students about it! I am sure they would be more than happy to tell you which heart rate was slower and faster. Also, feel free to ask them where they can feel their pulse and how to calculate their beats per minute. 

Grammar: This week, we talked about the Spanish past tense and the unique conjugation endings for verbs ending in "-ar" and "-ir / -er." 

From the Office

MUSIC NOTE FROM MRS. BOER - Let me introduce myself. My name is Rochelle Boer and I am your child's music teacher this year. I'm not new to teaching music. Before this year, I had been teaching music at the Pine Ridge and South Side buildings for 15 years.

   Part of the music curriculum for fourth grade is learning how to play the recorder and read music. We would like to begin playing recorder the second week of October. If your child has a soprano recorder at home, they are welcome to use it. If you need to purchase one, your child may purchase one from me for $5. Some families may want to think about having two recorders, one at school to play and one at home to practice. The music classroom has recorders to borrow that are disinfected in case a student forgets their recorder on the day of music class but some don't feel comfortable with that. More information will follow later about recorder homework/practice expectations. I am excited about adding to our abilities to be Beauty Creators (one of our Discipleship Practices)!

3rd -5th grade Boys TTQ -  We are pushing back the season start date to 9/27 to give us more time to find another  coach. We are so close to having it ready to go, but are not at the finish line yet!  We have a great group of boys signed up, ready to run!  We have one coach willing to guide these runners, but are in need of one more coach.  TTQ will meet after school on Tuesday and Thursdays.  Please let us know if you are willing to help with this wonderful program!