A Note From Your Fourth  Grade Teachers

Fourth Grade Connections November 17th, 2016

Dear Fourth Grade Families, We’ve been thinking a lot about our classrooms. The classroom is a world in itself, with the ability to start fresh each September. We begin the first weeks of school by reflecting on our hopes and dreams for the year. We get to know each other and figure out how we want to be together as a community. We are so grateful to be able to “hit refresh” every year and try again. We wish everyone in America had this opportunity. We wonder how things might be different if they had the space to come together as a diverse group and negotiate their values and goals. And now it is the day before a break; a time when we celebrate what we are grateful for and the beginnings of the country we know today. We see the beautiful dreamcatchers still hanging on the clothesline in our rooms. How do we do right by these young people who have hopes and dreams of their own? What we want most for our students is that they feel joy often and remain curious always. We want all of our students to know that they have the power to create change in their lives and the initiative to do so. Posting our poetry about the events of last week around school was a step in the right direction. Letting our students share their voices and know that their perspectives are valued is an investment in the future of our democracy. We wish you peace this Thanksgiving.

Sincerely,  Your Fourth Grade Team Lucinda Druck and Tyler Elliott

Conversation Starters

PowerSchool Learning

Math/Science  Where in the house are there lights in a series? What are some different strategies to solve single-digit x double-digit multiplication problems? Humanities What are the 5 things every complete sentence needs?  What are the different regions of California? How have you taken charge of your own learning this trimester?

What We Have Been Up To

Reading

We finished Love That Dog, an inspiring read for everyone. We learned how "not just girls" write poetry and that writers can be heroes. We hope to write to some of our own writer-heroes this year. We will begin Island of the Blue Dolphins, our next read aloud, in December to complement our next California study on immigration.

Writing

We are getting down to the nuts and bolts of writing; sentence and paragraph structure! We have learned that every complete sentence has a subject and a verb, beginning capitalization and ending punctuation...and makes sense! We will put our powerful paragraphing skills to the test by writing to inform and engage our readers about the four major geographic regions of California for our Natural History display.

Social Studies

We are putting the reading and writing skills we've honed this Fall into research on the geographic regions of our unique state. Working in teams, we have researched the Central Valley, the northern and southern Coasts, the desert, and the mountain ranges of California. We will be making relief maps of California featuring the different geographic regions for an interactive Natural History Museum display. We plan to present these displays and all that we have learned about California's geography in December at our Winter Academic Celebration.

Math

We have been investigating the concepts between multiplication and division, modeling with unit cubes and drawing.  We are learning a new strategy  ( partial products ) and drawing area-models to prove our solutions. Quote of the week: "Being able to solve problems in different ways is important, Mr. Elliott".

Science

We have been learning the difference between circuits that are in a series or parallel and how to make switches.  We are designing model houses out of cardboard for our Electrical House Project".  We must have at least four rooms and have  two lights in a series and 2 lights in parallel.

*** Severe Food Allergies ***

During this time of the year when there are many classroom or school-wide events and celebrations it is important to remember the critical medical challenges food-borne allergies can pose to students. It is especially crucial to be mindful of the potentially life-threatening impact of peanuts and tree nuts. As you send food items to school for group consumption, please review our guidelines from our Family Handbook below. Some students at Sea Crest have severe food allergies including dairy, gluten, soy, shellfish, tree nuts and peanuts. These allergies can be life threatening and many times can be triggered by contact alone and not only by ingestion of the food. By far the largest category of severe life threatening allergies comes from nuts. We ask that the entire Sea Crest community become informed and sensitive to this issue. When preparing food for potlucks, bake sales, celebrations, or community gatherings, please avoid peanuts and tree nuts and clearly mark any dishes that may include them. "We are each other's keepers"

How to Reach Us

If questions ever arise, please do not hesitate to reach out! We are available by email at: ldruck@seacrestschool.org and/or telliott@seacrestschool.org. Email is our preferred method of communication. We will check our email after school daily.  If there is an emergency, please call Cathy at the front desk, at 650.712.9892.

Photo Galleries

Fourth Grade Do you have photos you'd be willing to share with the school?  Please click here to upload them to SmugMug, or email us at communications@seacrestschool.org.

Thank You

SEA CREST SCHOOL  |  seacrestschool.org  |  650.712.9892

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