This Week at Discovery

Hello everybody!  The holiday season is coming on quickly.  Before we know it we'll be off on holiday.  Here's to finishing up a successful first half of the school year together!!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:

NEW ONLINE RESOURCE:  Parents and students, we are trying out a new online resource starting this week.  The website is ixl.com  and it provides students a fun way to practice their math skills.  We will be sending home a letter with each student today with your child's user name and password, and instructions on how to access the site.  We ask that you help your child log on to the site, and go to the Fourth Grade section, and scroll down to the section labelled division.  In the division section we would like the students to try the subsections E.4  E.6  E.7.  We encourage each student to spend roughly 20 minutes on each subsection over the course of the week.  We will be checking online on Friday to find out whether or not each student was able to access and practice on the site.  Feel free to explore the site and try any other sections if you like.  Thank you for your assistance parents, and please email any questions, concerns, or comments to Jordan or Karen.      

Christmas Baskets For Our Support Staff:    As is our tradition, Discovery School will be putting together Christmas gift baskets for our school's support staff.  Grade 4 is being asked to contribute either boxes of pasta/spaghetti or a bag of coffee.  Thank you for helping make the holiday season a bit brighter for our hardworking support staff.

Songfest:  Discovery's annual songfest celebration is coming.  The music department has asked for parents to help with the grade 4 costume.   All students are asked to wear blue jeans, a black shirt, and a  black cap, and to bring a broomstick.  The students will need their costumes for Thursday, Dec. 13th for their first dress rehearsal.

THIS WEEK'S ACTIVITIES:

Math:  This week we will practice dividing two digit numbers, then three digit numbers, and dividing problems with zeroes in the quotient.  We will also be working on interpreting remainders in real world problems, and dividing money amounts.

Reading and Writing:  In reading periods we will be reading "James and the Giant Peach" and analyzing how the author creates an exciting build-up within the novel.  We will compare and contrast these build-up plot points to other novels that we have read this year.  We will be learning more about common plot structure in narrative writing.  This week we will focus on climax and resolution.  We will also begin using a plot mountain graphic organizer to begin planning out our own narratives.

Science:  We will be turning our attention to science this week and our new science unit, 'Design and Motion'.  Our students will be discussing what they know about design and motion, and what they hope to learn within this unit.

Grammar:  Our grammar focus this week will again be subject and verb agreements.


Thanks as always for checking in with us.  Here's to another great week!

All the best,

Jordan and Karen