Special Announcements CROSS COUNTRY MEET MONDAY SEPTEMBER 19 BUTLER PARK. If your children are coming please email Coach Ben-Sira at [email protected] We need to know how many children are riding the bus. Thank you! HEADMASTER'S SOCIAL WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 5:30-7:30. Meet Clark Dagget, our Interim Headmaster! We hope you all will come. ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES: All activities are going except Language Maker Movement, which has been canceled. If you registered your child in all others, he/she is in the club. ROSH HASHANAH EDP CAMP, OCTOBER 3 We are closed in observance of the Jewish Holiday, Rosh Hashanah. We will be running an EDP camp for those of you who need child care. YOM KIPPUR EDP CAMP, OCTOBER 12. We are closed in observance of the Jewish Holiday, Yom Kippur. We will be running an EDP camp for those of you who need child care. LA Students are reading about a region of Illinois and preparing their entry in a group Google Tour. They are plugging away and learning to read nonfiction, use the text features to prepare them for comprehension and summarize what they have read. We will be sharing the Google Tours next week! The first Roots test has been taken. We took the test altogether this week. Next week, I will let them use their books to take the test. Multiple choice test taking skills are taught along with the language skills. Math Both groups reviewed placed value, comparing numbers and rounding last week. They will be working on adding and subtraction and estimation in word problems this week. Knowing multiplication facts becomes increasingly important at this level of math. 4th grade begins with addition number sense and strategies and will end with division. However, it is the multiplication that really needs to be mastered. I encourage you to engage your student in fun ways to practice the facts. This should not be a nightly fight, but a fun way to spend time together. Here are some fun ways to practice together: 1. Play with dice. Really. Toss the dice and practice adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing using the numbers you roll on dice. 2. Flashlight Math. Use the flashcards and flip two cards at a time. Kids shine a flashlight on the one they know and answer that one. Simple. Don’t have a flashlight? Make a math wand. Use a stick or a light saber. Anything that works for your kid. 3. Use electronics. My Math Flash Cards App on the iPad and Math Practice Flashcards on my android phone. There are a gazillion flash card apps out there. I’m sure any would do the trick, and if you have five minutes and your kid says, ‘Can I play a game on your phoooooone?’ Say ‘Why yes you may! I’m so very glad you asked. . . ‘ 4. Write the answer. Or paint the answer. Water on cement or chalk on sidewalk or window crayon on window. One person flashes the cards and the other guy writes. 5. Math War. Played like the traditional, except whoever says the fact first wins and keeps the cards. Social Studies The Studies Weekly newspaper is an interesting addition to the social studies curriculum this year. We are practicing reading nonfiction and learning some super facts about Illinois. Ask them about the Piasa bird! The students have created accounts and work on puzzles and quizzes after reading the paper.
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Dates you need to know: Picture Day is Tuesday, September 13. No school on Monday, October 3, for Rosh Hashana. No school on Wednesday, October 12, for Yom Kippur. This week was great week! Keira and Harry led their first Monday Morning Meeting for the entire lower school. Ani, Jack and Esteve performed a short skit showing how to be respectful toward friends. LA/Social Studies The students learned how to identify and use text features for preparing them to read a nonfiction selection. They used Illinois: Regions and Resources to help me build a Google Tour to introduce Illinois as a unit of study. They also used the strategy of text mapping to identify and summarize their own region of Illinois. This week they will create their own Google Tour to present their assigned region to the rest of the class. Math Fact fluency and number sense is essential to understanding so many mathematical concepts. That has been the focus the last two weeks. This week will be starting the addition and subtraction units for both math groups. Welcome back! Whew. We had a very busy and productive first week. It was so busy, I totally forgot to take pictures most of the week. There a few below of the students getting acquainted with code.org during Computer Science class. More to come next week. I promise! We had a wonderful first week of school in 4th Grade! Students were introduced to the routines and schedule. Snack: Please help your child remember to bring in a snack each day. We eat snack around 10:00 am. If your child's snack requires a spoon or fork, please send that with them as well. Thank you! Dates you need to know: Miniature School Night: I am looking forward to seeing many of you for Miniature School Night on Thursday, September 8th. It is a great way to learn more about the 4th grade curriculum and how our classroom community works. You are also introduced to teachers from the Art, Music, Spanish, and Physical Education programs. The presentation begins at 5:45pm in the Multi-Purpose Room. Picture Day is Tuesday, September 13. No school on Monday, October 3, for Rosh Hashana. No school on Wednesday, October 12, for Yom Kippur. First and foremost, I would like to thank you for sharing your student with me this year. They have taught me so much and I enjoyed working with them every day. I am so proud of their progress and accomplishments. Have a wonderful summer! I am excited for Culmination Night tonight. You may arrive at 5:00 pm and it ends at 6:00 pm. It is open house style. We do not have presentations. Just come and enjoy what your student has worked on this year, and leave when you are ready. Please send your student with their Roycemore T Shirt and a lunch for the trip to the park on Wednesday. It should all be disposable. Thank you! The SPRING SHOW "Newies" is Thursday, May 26 7:00 p.m. for students in Grades 3-12. It is looking like quite a show! Everyone is invited to come and see it. CULMINATION NIGHT for Kindergarten-Fourth Grade, Monday, June 6 5:00-6:00 p.m. END OF THE YEAR OUTING: SUNSET PARK, HIGHLAND PARK Wednesday, June 8 10:00-2:30 Everyone send good thoughts for good weather! There is still room in both DISCOVERY UNLIMITED AND CAMP. Because the NU Center For Talent Development will be using our building this summer, Discovery will take place the first two weeks after school is out, June 13-24. Everyone took the fractions math test and we are moving on to geometry this week. We learned about algorithms today. They are like instructions. They can help you and teach you to do something. We wrote algorithms and gave it to someone else. Then, they had to figure out how to draw the pattern. It was so fun! Fractured fairy tales are almost complete and everyone is doing a great job! You will be receiving a link to your child's book. You may purchase a copy via lulu.com. Some of the kids are interested in putting their book up for sale on the site as well. A fun summer adventure! The class practiced using the Cornell system of note-taking, learning about the Revolutionary War and the fur trade in Illinois. Then they were part of a fur trade rendezvous simulation. Wow! Centennial Weekend was a lot of fun! It was great to see so many familiar faces at the picnic and the Party of the Century. Thank you for making Roycemore such a wonderful community. YOUNG EVANSTON ARTISTS YEA SATURDAY, MAY 21 SPRING DANCE SHOW, THURSDAY, MAY 26, Culmination Night and the PK and JK Breakfasts Monday June 6 END OF THE YEAR OUTING, WEDNESDAY, June 8 LA The students are half way through their Fractured Fairy Tale for literature groups. They are having the most wonderful discussions. I love hearing comments like, "Jack's mom had to be injured and his sister had to stay in the "real" world to protect her, otherwise you would be reading about one world (the giant world) the whole time and it would get boring." Yay for understanding the importance of plot and characters! They are also writing their own fractured fairy tales. The first couple have been completed and we are moving into the editing and revision process. Math Mrs. Hecht came down to show the students how to use fractions in art by creating a tesselation. Then they colored it to match a color wheel. We are finishing up the fraction unit and testing this week. Social Studies We will be reviewing note-taking and nonfiction reading skills this week in social studies. Then the class will choose a section of Illinois history to plan and teach their classmates. The kids did an outstanding presenting to the Shark Tank this week. Mrs. Orzoff, Mr. Wright, Mrs. Dreiling, Mr. Tane, Mrs Shutters and Mr. Smith asked great questions and they were very impressed by how well prepared the students were with their answers. I am so proud of the students' hard work and dedication to this process. It was amazing. Guest Bloggers - Simon, Maddie and Madeleine I think that the Shark Tank was super cool. I felt nervous when I did my presentation. I loved seeing the other presentations. I really liked Shark Tank. It was fun to present our inventions that we worked really hard on. The Sharks came up with great questions like, "Where would you sell it?" All on all, it was awesome. During my Shark Tank presentation I felt nervous and excited. I memorized all of my presentation. I finished my invention and I did my best. And I had fun! We will continue the Illinois history unit this week. Math Both groups are getting close to the end of this fractions unit. Tests will be given this week or the beginning of next week. LA Listening to the students discuss their novels in Literature Circles is absolutely amazing. All the comprehension and analysis strategies we have been practicing this year are being used by them independently. It is really exciting to see how much they have grown this year! Roots work will resume this week. Roycemore Reads The 4th grade has been invited by the MS to join them in Roycemore Reads on Friday. They will have the opportunity to spend lunch and recess with them and then participate in this fun MS tradition. Wow! What a full week! LOWER SCHOOL MUSICAL THURSDAY, APRIL 28TH. It is Willy Wonka! I know you will all enjoy it. CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION WEEKEND IS MAY 13, 14 AND 15TH. This is going to be a fabulous weekend. You will be supporting the school while having a wonderful time. Science For the most part, everyone finished up with their inventions. Next week will focus on preparing a presentation for the Sharks. Social Studies We participated in a Mystery Skype on Tuesday with a school in Michigan. The students asked yes and no questions to narrow down where the other school was located. They were close! After reflecting on the experience, the students found that they liked using maps and found how important is it to ask specific questions. Math 4th grade math focused on finding equivalent fractions, using various methods. 5th grade math focused on simplifying fractions and multiplying a mixed number and a fraction. LA Students spent some time organizing their ideas for writing their fractured fairy tale. They started with the original and then changed the setting. After that, they made choices for the other characteristics based on the setting. They are so excited to start writing next week. So many fairy tales were read this week. The students read as many different fairy tales as they could and recorded the characteristics each possess. They had a lot fun comparing and sharing different versions. LOWER SCHOOL MUSICAL THURSDAY, APRIL 28TH. It is Willy Wonka! I know you will all enjoy it. CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION WEEKEND IS MAY 13, 14 AND 15TH. This is going to be a fabulous weekend. You will be supporting the school while having a wonderful time. Guest bloggers this week are; Macy, Youngnim, Ella, Jahnavi, Maya, Josie and Mahir. Last week we went outside with our first grade reading buddies to take all the dead plants out of the raised planters. It was surprisingly fun to watch my reading buddy have a good time. We even found a quarter! This week I finished my invention. I like that I could help other people with my invention. It is very fun to make products that help other people. I feel like I am doing a huge favor for the world. It feels good to help people. Making inventions is really fun. I like when we did the Cahokia activity. It was like a scavenger hunt. You had to read about the ancient Mississippian group and look for the answers. Reading about the Mississippians and their way of life was fun. In art we are making props for the LS musical "Willy Wonka". We are working in pairs and I get to paint Willy Wonka's Nut Room. In the past, fourth graders have not made the set and props. Mrs. Herrick probably took a risk, because she doesn't know how it will turn out. If she did take a risk, I am really glad. I love art and I love Willy Wonka, so this is really fun! We practiced for a Mystery Skype this week. To have a successful Mystery Skype you need to work as a team. Second, you have to follow the directions. Third, you should always have fun. We are going to meet a class whose teacher is one of Mrs. A's friends. I am really excited. We started a new unit on fractions with both math groups. They are also working on their Bakery Project together. It shows how fractions are used in a bakery business. Our fairytale unit is now under way. We have identified the genre characteristics and talked about how a fairytale is fractured. |