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October 12 – Our First Full Week

Dear Fourth Grade Families,

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in school for over a month and this is only the first full five-day week! Students have been transitioning well into their fourth grade routines, and we’re all excited to get into the meat of our curriculum.

A reminder to parents that this coming Wednesday is school picture day. In addition, sign up for November parent teacher conferences is now available online (an email with instructions was sent out this week). Slots fill up quickly, so please sign up soon!

Finally, this coming week is Aliza’s last week at school before maternity leave. She will be out from October 20 – January 13, at which point she hopes to return full time. Aliza will still be reachable by email, but for every day correspondence including birthdays, bus/pick up, and daily class-related issues between October 20 and January 13, please reach out to Margaret (mpiraino@hannahsenesh.org) or Mike (msteele@hannahsenesh.org).

Shabbat Shalom,

-The Fourth Grade Team

 

Coming Soon:

  • Wednesday, October 17 – School Picture Day
  • Thursday, November 8 – Parent Teacher Conferences (Evening)
  • Monday, November 12 – Parent Teacher Conferences (Day) – NO SCHOOL

 

General Studies with Mike:

We accomplished quite a bit in our first five-day week of school! We began the week with a chapter 1 assessment in math before beginning the second chapter, which focuses on estimation and number theory. We reviewed rounding to the nearest hundreds place and front-end estimation to the nearest thousands place. We ended the week by discussing when it is most appropriate to use rounding vs. front-end estimation.

 

In reading, we’re well into our first read aloud, The Tiger Rising By Kate DiCamillo. This week, we discussed how to summarize what we most recently read by referring to details from earlier parts of the story. Students also received Words Their Way word sorts to practice spelling.

 

In writing, we continued to draft our realistic fiction stories. Students created story arcs, where characters’ problems get worse and worse until eventually resolving. We also discussed ways to show how our characters are feeling, instead of simply telling the reader.

 

We kicked off a new social studies unit focusing on Native Americans and European Exploration of the Americas. Students charted what they already know about this topic and what they want to learn.

 

Judaic Studies with Aliza and Margaret:

This week in Judaics, Fourth graders worked hard to turn a paper bag and duct tape into beautiful and durable protective covers for their Siddurim. These prayer books will be with them through eighth grade, so a lot of thought and careful planning went into covering them. The kids did a great job!

We also started learning Parshat Toldot straight out of the Chumash text. Students received their Chavruta partners with whom they will be learning Chumash every day and practiced finding words in the text according to Perek (chapter) and Pasuk (verse). Finally, they began translating the verses themselves into English from context clues, learning the story of Yakov and Esav which we will be focusing on this year.

At the end of the week, we did an in-depth study of the prayer Adon Olam, which we traditionally sing at the end of the prayer service. We learned about the origins and meaning behind the prayer, and why this song seems to fit so well with so many different kinds of tunes. We even tried out a few for ourselves, and watched videos of some creative tune/prayer combinations!

Shabbat Shalom!

 

Hebrew with Ilana:

This week the 4th grade start working on their workbook. They have vocabulary and we practiced comprehension, and writing questions using the vocabulary. The students had this week their first quiz. In the enrichment class, we worked on focusing and listening skills with Hebrew games.

Shabbat Shalom