Holy Birthdays Batman!!! October is packed with birthdays! We have 5 in our fourth grade class and 2 more in fifth, so we'll be eating LOTS of cupcakes this month (we're just fattening up for winter?) I might need to start scheduling extra Mariners on the Move meetings to work all of these extra treats off!!!
The end of the 1st quarter, and mandatory Parent-Teacher conferences are coming up quickly. Mrs. Hudson and I do our conferences together so that you only need to attend one. Please keep in mind that we have 34 sets of parents to meet with, so we have to limit our conferences to 20 minutes. You can click on the following link to sign up for a conference time: Parent/Teacher Conference Sign Up
This week in...
Bible: Our memory verse this week is - Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. Acts 5:42
Last week we talked about how Peter and John were jailed, and then brought before the Jewish officials for healing a man in Jesus' name. They were told to stop doing anything in the name of Jesus, but chose to listen to God rather than man.
This week we'll learn that the apostles were again put in jail for teaching about Jesus. This time, an angel of the Lord opens the jail doors during the night freeing the men, and telling them to go into the temple courts to continue teaching. The Jewish officials are at a loss and don't know what to do when they find the apostles, who are supposed to be locked up in jail, in the temple courts. One of the Pharisees tells them not to do anything, that if this "Jesus thing" is of men it will fail, but that if it's of God, it's a fight they can't win.
Literacy: In Language, both 4th and 5th graders will be learning about abbreviations this week. Most of them know the months of the year and days of the week, but there are many others that they need to be aware of. We'll add these to our Language Arts notebooks so we have them to refer to when needed.
In Reading Skills, 4th grade will continue their unit on Text Structures. We'll look at cause/effect, problem/solution, and description this week. Fifth grade will be working on making connections.
Why is it important to make connections with what we're reading? Think of our brains as a filing cabinet. It's easier to add new information to an existing file than it is to have to make a brand new file and find a spot for it in the filing cabinet. In much the same way, when we read something new, if we can connect it to something we already know, it's easier to make meaning and understand what we read. We'll be talking about making Text to Self, Text to Text, and Text to World connections.
When we make Text to Self connections we think about what we can connect to personally. It may be a character that reminds us of ourselves or someone we know, a situation that is similar to something we've experienced, or a setting that's familiar to us. When we make Text to Text connections, we think about how we can connect what we're reading with something we've read before. Text to World connections are connections that we make with things we've seen or heard about, but that we haven't experienced personally. For example, when reading the book Wonder to the 5th grade, I made a text to world connection when I found out that the main character, Auggie, has Treacher Collins Syndrome. I remembered having seen a documentary about a little girl named Julianna Wetmore who has the same diagnosis. This allowed me to understand more deeply what Auggie may look like, and what his medical issues are.
Social Studies: In 4th grade we're continuing to talk about the causes of the Revolutionary War, and will be moving on to the early events of the war by the end of the week. We'll read a book called "Let it Begin Here" about the battles at Lexington and Concord.
In 5th grade we're learning about the culture of the Maya this week, including where they lived, their political structure, religion, social classes, agriculture, and inventions. We'll learn about the Mayan alphabet and will write our names using these symbols! Speaking of symbols, we'll also begin our mask project in which we create masks that we'll paint and cover with symbols that represent each culture that we study.
Have a great week!
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