Dear Fourth and Fifth Grade Families,
The year is off to a great start, and I’d like to share some updates about our classroom with you.
Curriculum Night
Curriculum night will be held this Thursday, October 7. Please join me and other families to discuss upcoming curriculum. I am so excited to share with you my plans for the year!
Clean and Green
This year, the chancellor has asked custodians and teacher to switch to green cleaning products for classrooms. I welcome the opportunity to discuss green options with students, but I have to admit, I’m not so familiar with the options. If your family uses any green cleaning products that you like and aren’t too pricy, I’d appreciate if you share with me the product names and where they can be purchased. I’m especially looking for a replacement for Clorox wipes. Thanks!
Literacy
In reading, we have been noticing the emotions we feel as we read different passages. Books can make us feel happy, scared, angry, and sad. In writing, we’ve been writing our own stories about times when we felt a strong emotion. We’ve also been pushing ourselves to write longer by putting an “x” at the part of the page we want to write to and timing ourselves in short increments. At home, students should be reading at least 30 minutes every night and writing in their book log. Students are also writing a story or a continuation of a story every weeknight, pushing themselves to write more than they usually do (half a page for reluctant writers to 1 or more pages for eager readers).
Math
We love story problems! We’re working on skills we can use to solve any story problem. First, we read the problem and say in our own words, what it’s asking. Next, we write an open ended equation to show what operation we need to do (ex. 324 + 728 = ______). Then, we show our work as we solve the problem. Finally, we write our answers with a label. We are also practicing estimating so that we’ll know if our answer is in the ballpark.
Social Studies
Students are loving our study of current events and maps. We started the year by making quizzes that use information from atlases and trading them to help each other get used to looking information up in an atlas. We are also reading many current events articles, looking up their locations on the map, and discussing what we think about important issues. Soon we will start a unit on slavery and the civil war, and we are getting ready by reading a fictionalized story about an Angolan queen during the time of Portuguese colonization.
IndyKids
One source we love for current events articles is IndyKids, a newspaper for 4th-8th graders produced by volunteers here in New York. To help us pay for this year’s IndyKids subscription, please bring in $2. If you’re interested in getting involved with IndyKids, check out these upcoming meeting they’re holding at their office 666 Broadway (at Bond Street), 5th Floor (Funding Exchange office): Friday, October 8: Brainstorming Meeting, 7:15 pm (New Volunteer Orientation at 6:30 pm), Tuesday, October 19: Editing/Mock-up Meeting, 7:15 pm, Monday, November 1: Proofing Meeting, 7:15 pm, Saturday, November 6: Bundling/Mailing Meeting, 10:30 am. Let me know if you’d like to go to one of these meetings, and I’ll try to meet you there.
Classroom Jobs
Students were very excited to start classroom jobs last week. They worked as a class to brainstorm all the things we needed to get done in the classroom. Then, they each created a job application for one of the jobs. Finally, they applied for jobs by writing a paragraph about their plan for doing their job well. They are all working hard to keep our classroom clean and running smoothly.
As always, if you need to contact me for any reason, you can reach me at stephschwartz@gmail.com or by leaving a note on my door or a message with anyone in the office. I hope to see you Thursday.
Best,
Stephanie
