Report Card Reminders

Today was an exciting day of meeting many future OES students in admissions day. When the dust settled, families had left and discussions were finished, I sat down to finish editing and submitting my report cards.

I wanted to let you now how proud I am of the class. They are working very hard in class on how to work together, show compassion, work independently without distraction and controlling their impulses. They are also working on building fluency and complexity to their mathematical computations, read deeper into the text, analyze author's craft, write full sentences correctly, write proper paragraphs, and think of new perspectives and ideas with an open and analytical mind. This is a lot to accomplish!

We are halfway through the year and your child's report card will reflect that we still have a half a year to work on some concepts and skills. I encourage you to sign up for a conference if you have not already. I am excited to talk about each student and our plans for the rest of the year.

Potters For Peace

This morning Michael, the US ceramics teacher, talked to us about an organization he belongs to called Potters for Peace. This organization helps 3rd world countries create businesses make water filter systems that last 7 years and cost about $20. The class was respectful listeners and asked great questions.

Margaret Haddix Vistis

Today Margaret Haddix visited and talked about her books. Many of us, including myself, had never read her books before and it was a wonderful opportunity to learn about a new series. Everyone in the class left the talk with at least one book we wanted to read. The library has many of her books and will be ordering more!

Spelling Bee

We gathered today to cheer on Lahna during the 4-8 grade Spelling Bee. She did a wonderful job. We were so proud of her. 4th grader Yuankai Gao was the OES winner.

Happy birthday Willa

Unicycling Schedule

The PE teachers have requested that students listed below bring in a helmet for a unicycle opportunity. The helmet would be needed on the dates below. I can make room in the class for helmets if you want to just leave them at school for the whole time period.

1/20, 1/21, & 1/26 

Gregory, Porter, Kaan, Renee, Owen, Sophia

1/27, 1/28, & 2/2

Ari, Julian, Lahna, Ria, Solomon, Tatum

2/3, 2/4, & 2/10

Alex, Anna, Arthur, Linnea, Lou, Willa

Please contact me or the PE teachers with any questions.

MLK Assembly

For the past two weeks, the whole 4th grade has been working on a common vision for our Martin Luther King Assembly. Today, we presented our assembly. Here is some of the feedback we have received from our audience:

2nd graders thanked us for reminding everyone that..

• We can always remember him.
• His words still travel through the wind and our world.
• Martin Luther King Jr. died, but his ideas didn’t.

Mrs. Rheingans said,
The children's words, art, and music touched me deeply. Truly magical, wonderful work!!

Mrs. Johnson Mounsey said, 

Beautiful assembly.  I was inspired and proud of all the children.  Many thanks for all the hard work and time that went into this.

Mo Copeland said, 

Absolutely. A wonderful, moving, genuine and heartfelt program. A ton of work--thank you. Mo

Update: January 10th

Important Dates this Week:
Geography Bee: Still working on day and time but it should happen this week.
January 15: 4th Grade presents the MLK Assembly 8:10-8:40
January 15: Math Test: focused on decimal usage and add/subtracting decimals
No School: January 18, 22, 29


Dear Parents,
Happy New Year!
It is hard to believe we are at the halfway mark and it is coming upon assessment and report card writing season. The class is jumping back into the flow of 4th grade and we are all happy to be together again!

Reading:
Students have their OBOB teams and book assignments. We will learn more from Ms. I in library about the "Battle" rules and what to expect. She will also give us some practice questions so we can start practicing in the classroom. I have been encouraging students again to take notes while reading or after. A couple well written notes about characters and events can help spark your memory when reviewing a book. I hope some practice time next week will help students get a better idea of what to expect.

Writing:
We had hoped to be done with our Honoring the Rivers work but discovered most of us needed a little more time organizing our thoughts and polishing our work. We will give these a couple more days of attention and work before starting a Literary Essay. Students will reflect upon the last OBOB book they read and write an essay exploring big ideas within the text.

Math:
Our decimal assessment will be at the end of next week. Our focus this unit has been on understanding decimal notation for fractions, and compare decimal fractions.
Students are asked to:

• Use decimal notation for fractions with denominators 10 or 100. For example, rewrite 0.62 as 62/100; describe a length as 0.62 meters; locate 0.62 on a number line diagram.
• Compare two decimals to hundredths by reasoning about their size. 
• Recognize that comparisons are valid only when the two decimals refer to the same whole. 
• Record the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, or <, and justify the conclusions, e.g., by using a visual model.

Inquiry:
Taken a break from our water studies in order to focus on the Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly that 4th grade is leading. The assembly will help kick on Black History month.
Students have been learning more about MLK's life and his powerful words. As a result we have been having some pretty intense conversations in the classroom about justice, equity and fairness. Recently, we were talking about how everyone is not the same. We are all different people with different experiences and different likes and ideas. So everyone shouldn't be treated the same, however, everyone deserves to be treated with respect. Then the conversation shifted to but what about people like the KKK or ISIS or people who are in jail, do these people also deserve respect? As you can imagine, it was a lively conversation as ideas were battled and thought about. In the end, we all agreed that big ideas, important ideas, are hard because they are not always straightforward. There is a lot of "what ifs" and "how abouts" that make it complex.
I am encouraged and enjoy listening to their ideas and disagreements while they also work to respect everyone's ideas and voice in the classroom. The process of constructive dialogue is increasingly important as we work on these increasingly complex ideas and concepts.

Spelling Bee

Today, we participated in the OES Spelling Bee. Today's round was the in-class round where everyone in the class bravely and with determination spelled the words Mr. Sternberg gave us. Through 5 rounds, slowly the spellers were eliminated to the last 2. 

Lahna and Owen then battled for 5 rounds before Lahna took first place.

Congratulations to all of the spellers and Good Luck to Lahna who will move up the the OES contest, date TBD. Lahna will spell with 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders to determine the OES speller!

Interviewing Buddies

Today, we returned to our buddy class to interview our buddies about MLK for the assembly next Friday! We will be using these interview snippets to make a movie!

We are Famous!

Here we are on TV!!
Today's field trip was a pretty amazing one!
http://www.kptv.com/story/30904522/oregon-episcopal-school-partners-with-google-expeditions-pioneer-program

Community MLK Talk with Buddies

Today, we visited our buddies to talk about Martin Luther King Jr. We read a book, reviewed what we knew about MLK's life, and then drew pictures of what Martin Luther King's messages mean to us.