Friday Highlights

Despite recorder practice in the hallway, we successfully had some silent reading time.

4th grade visited the lego show in the library.

Kaan proudly shared his lego creations.

2 hours of Makey Makey with Mrs. Thomas

Peace Games

Royaland working on country maps and their written history.

Ria reading her application speech for the role of President of the Enduween Empire.

Recess

Anna made a H2O molecule 

Friday highlights

Ari helps tell the story of Passover

Lahna sketches out Japonica's country flag 

Mrs. Griffin reminds 4h graders of their Hero Speeches and outlines the feedback 2nd graders are looking for.

2nd graders take turn telling their speeches to 2nd and 4th grade buddies. 4th grade buddies are responsible for writing specific feedback.

Thursday Highlights

Kaan and Solomon work to solve a fractions addition problem when the fractions have different denominators. Teamwork and showing their work on the board help students to review what they know and where confusion lies.

4th grade met with the Winterim Laos team for a follow up meeting.

Notes from Chaplain Jennie

Passover Chapel, Friday, April 22, 2016

We will be having a chapel focused on sharing the story and traditions around the Jewish holiday of Passover. There will be a rehearsal on Wed., April 20 from 3:00pm-4:00pm in the OES Chapel. There will also be follow-up activities during classroom visits the following week. Passover begins the evening of 4/22 and ends the evening of 4/30.

Pet Blessing in Chapel

During our LS Chapel on Friday, April 29, we will have a pet blessing. Chaplain Jennie is asking families to let her know in advance if a child would like to bring in a pet and what kind. We will also be celebrating April birthdays in chapel this day.

Getting Ready for Camp Grey

On Thursday, May 12th at 8am, parents are invited to join the teachers and camp chaperones for a meeting about our visit to OMSI's Camp Gray in June. The meeting will be held in Scott House in the music room. At the meeting, the chaperones will give an outline of the trip and answer any questions you may have. OMSI booklets with important details will be given to parents at the meeting, but if you are unable to attend, those booklets can be emailed directly to you or sent home in your child's homework binder.

Camp Grey is June 1-3

Update April 18th

Sorry for the late post, I was utterly exhausted after our big International Fair: Stories of Water and our energy charged fun day in the woods. This weekend, I also helped my brother sand and stain all the floors in his new house! Busy, exciting times!

First a giant THANK YOU to all the parents who helped us get ready for the fair. The gym looked great and the day flowed seamlessly. I was incredibly proud of all the 4th graders as they presented to the Lower School student body and faculty. Many colleagues stopped me to tell me about how focused, articulate, and knowledgable the students were about their topic.

On Friday, we celebrated with a "Day in the Woods." We had about 6 students miss our "Day in the Woods" and we had so much fun we decided we needed to do it again, maybe a couple more times before the end of the year! So, if your child was sick, on a trip, or at choir, no worries, we will do it again!

This week:
Reading: We are going to start the week with some Book Talks, sharing some of the books we read while working on our fair projects. I hope to start some book clubs next week. Right now, we are getting back in the habit of reading with intension and awareness.

Writing: A couple students are putting some final details, revising, and edits on their fair research paper. We will also be writing a reflection of the fair for our blog.

Spelling/Word Study and Writing Mechanics: This week, we have a class focus on suffixes but will also play with some words sorts based on individual needs in the class. We also will be collecting interesting sentences to study parts of speech and figurative language. My plan is to write some short poems in this time as well.

Math: We are midway through Unit 7: Fractions and Their Uses; Chance and Probability. We will finish our review of equal parts making a whole and start to add and subtract fractions. I have updated the Khan recommendations for each student. When students finish my recommendations, I would love for them to focus on the fractions section. We will have some intense math time this week and next due to the Peace Games just beginning and we need to build our base fraction knowledge before we jump into multiplying and dividing fractions.

Peace Games: Peace Games will start next week. This week, we will start talking about what the games will look like and start to do some country building. This is my first experience with Peace Games and I am excited to see how this plays out! I will share more about the Games as I learn!

A Day in the Woods

Lou telling scary stories

Frogs! A lot of frogs!

Reading and Journal writing outside 

We found a beaver dam!

A few pictures from the International Fair

Performance Dress Rehearsal

Here we go!!!

Last rehearsal before the big day!!

Buddies

Our buddies came today and we practiced our "spiel" for the fair. Mrs. Griffin and I watched proudly as 4th graders became visible more confident in themselves and their presentations as they practiced. We have been working so hard, it was fun to finally put it all together for a "real" audience.

What to Wear for the Fair!

On Thursday morning students are encouraged to arrive at school any time from 8:15. Arriving a little earlier will allow them to visit the gym, explore their space, and arrange their materials. If students take the bus or are dropped off with siblings and cannot arrive early, that's ok. Once students arrive at school, they will have some time before the start of the fair to get organized. 

Students are also encouraged to dress appropriately for the day. This might mean wearing an item of clothing that connects to their project in some way, or they may simply wear something a little formal and appropriate for a day of presenting (and a little bit of dancing). 

Did you know? Free Parks Passes.

Our national lands and waters belong to everyone. That includes you! Use this pass to visit any of them for free. You can bring your family and friends with you for free, too!

Official rules

• The pass is for U.S. fourth-grade (or home-school equivalent) students.
• The pass is for the 2015 to 2016 school year. It expires August 31, 2016.
• Students can't transfer the pass to anyone else.
• We can’t accept electronic versions of this paper for access or to exchange for a pass.
• There’s no way to request a refund later if you forget the pass when you visit.
• If you lose your pass, get a new one by visiting the website and signing up again.
• Educators can get one paper pass for each of their fourth-grade students.
• This program only provides passes for fourth graders.

How it works

• Show your pass to a ranger when you enter. If there is no ranger, leave it on the dashboard of your car.
• If you visit a site that charges entrance fees per person— The pass admits all children under 16 and up to three adults for free.
• If your group visits a site that charges vehicle fees - The pass admits all children under 16 and all adults in up to one passenger vehicle. Commercial vehicles can't use a pass to get in.
• If you arrive at a site on bicycle— The pass admits all children under 16 and up to three adults on bicycles.
• The pass doesn't cover things like camping, boats, and special tours. Also, some sites are managed by private operators. They may not honor the pass. Check with the site ahead of time to find out.
• The pass doesn’t cover fees for local, city, or state parks and recreation areas unless they say that they accept this pass.
• Paper passes can be exchanged for plastic passes at certain sites.

Update April 4th

We are in the final stretch!
It is going to be a busy short week and I hope everyone had a nice restful Spring Break to help prepare!

Important Dates:
April 14: International Fair: Stories of Water. Parent presentation and fair welcome will begin at 8am.
If you are interested in helping with preparations, please contact Brandi.

Curriculum Update:
Our focus has become the fair, all about the fair!

Reports: This week, we hope to review our rough drafts and polish them into finely crafted final drafts. We will read reports as mentor texts and examine structure, language usage, and grammar. We will review mechanics and do some peer editing.

Posters: The posters are almost finished. Our quest was to make them engaging, creative, and display our topic visually. We hope people can see what our topic is without having to read the title! We tried to summarize and synthesis our information to the most important facts so our writing is minimal to make a greater impact.

Hands-on: We are working with Debra Thomas, Jeffrey Sprague, Margaret Synan-Russel, and Jane Kenny-Norberg for hands on inspiration. Thinking of our audience from 4 year olds to adults, we want to have a hands on piece that is engaging and helps that audience understand our topic even better. We have some models, some games, a small experiment, and more.

Performance: For the parents, we are preparing a performance for the fair day. We have been working with Peter and will be joined by Habiba this week to create a poem and dance to welcome parents. Putting all of these pieces together is the focus of our mornings this week.

And then we have...
Math: Since our chances for integrating math within fair prep is limited, we will continue with our math lessons. We are starting Unit 7: Fractions. A parent letter will be sent home with the homework packet. This week should be a review of basic fraction concepts, pieces of a whole, and probability.