E2G News

October 5, 2009

Dear families,

I can’t believe that one month of school is already behind us. The students are stepping up to the E2 standards, even the 4^th graders! They are quickly learning that I am looking for quality work rather than quantity. Therefore, if I get something turned in that isn’t quality, I will return it to the child asking them to redo parts of it. Of course, the children don’t always appreciate it, but in the future they will appreciate it more and more.

A couple of weeks ago we had our first Great Lesson, The Story of the Universe, from a scientific approach. We will continue these Great Lessons in the near future. These do not discount any religious beliefs, but are meant to strike the imagination of the child. The second Great Lesson looks at how different organisms dominated the earth at different times. The students will hear this story on Wednesday as their culture lesson. Then we’ll move to the third Great Lesson, which focuses on the work of the hand and how the hand is so important to everyday life. The final two stories focus on the origins of language and mathematics.

In the other subjects such as arithmetic, the children are busy learning their multiplication facts or working with more advanced multiplication using a material known as the checkerboard.  Multiplication becomes a key operation in mathematics throughout the year, and there for it is important for the children to become familiar with their multiplication facts. It would be greatly appreciated if you also help your child find ways to remember the basic facts (through 10s ), whether it be in the car or at the grocery store.  Other children are working on long division, and the process of writing their work on paper.

In geometry, many of the 4^th graders have become very familiar with the geometry cabinet and the shapes that are in it. Some of these shapes have been new to the child, especially when giving the children the names of the triangles according to sides. Some are still struggling with this, but are getting better.  The 5^th graders started off with a geometry review from the work they did last year by discussing a piece of art by Kandinsky and identifying everything they remembered about angles that we studied. They then began the process of creating their own Kandinsky inspired piece, which they get to use pastels on in order to finish.We have since moved into the study of triangles and their parts.   The 6^th graders have been the various formulas of how to find the area of various shapes. So far they have learned about the rectangle, the parallelogram and the triangle. They have been busy measuring the various shapes around school to help them master each of the formulas.

During the past month all grades have been studying the botany portion of biology. This started off with our first environmental  education day of classifying leaves according to different qualities. The fourth graders will revisit the leaf in a couple of upcoming lessons, both biology and art related. The 5^th graders are building their knowledge of different plants through the use of riddles and a little bit of research about their own plant. The 6^th graders have been working on some plant classification, which has definitely challenged them.

In language, the kids are working on a study of the noun, pronoun and some logical analysis material. They are also learning about writing good paragraphs, poetry, and we have even had an introduction to our major study on fairy tales from the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was told as an oral tale.

The healthy snack program has been a great success. The kids enjoy helping to create the snacks as well as shopping for the ingredients. They even get a chance to sit down with me on Mondays to look at the Cash Wise add and see what types of things would be economical choices for the week. We try to use the ads as much as possible, but we also look at the items themselves. Often times the kids are realizing that the Food Club brands are cheaper and they also take into consideration that the Food Club UPCs  help benefit the school, so they remember to  cut them off when they make snack.

I think that wraps up our classroom for the last month! If you have any questions or concerns about your child, or what they are working on, please contact me via email or phone.