Spring Creek Cardinals
4th Grade Newsletter
MARCH 2016 EDITION
What is a growth mindset?
You need to ask your student and see if they can explain it to you.
We have a large display in our main hallway (see picture below) and all of our students have sat in front of it and used it as a guide to help them with their goals for the fifth six weeks.
We hope you have a great discussion and learn something new!
** Return Yellow sheets!! - For 5th grade Registration & Austin Field trip **
***AUSTIN FIELD TRIP***
Next week the fourth grade will be going on a field trip to Austin to explore both the Bob
Bullock Museum and State Capital. It’s a great field trip for fourth grade as the social
studies curriculum is all about Texas history. The kids love to see artifacts from what
they have been learning about all year.
We will be leaving the school on Thursday morning, March 10th, at 7:30 am.
Your child can come to the fourth grade pod as early as 7:15 am so that we
can get their lunches put in coolers and groups assigned and organized. The time that
we plan on returning to school is about 5:30 pm. Students won’t be able to ride the bus
home from school, so you will need to arrange an alternative form of transportation
home for them on that day.
The following are things we will need for the field trip:
-Chaperones; if you would like to be a chaperone, in charge of a small group of
children, please be sure you have signed up for a background check with CSISD
Central Office and you will need to pay the $16 fee for entrance into the museum
and the movie we will be watching before we leave for the trip. Please, no
siblings for the chaperones. We are counting on you to spend time helping the
students explore the museum, which will be more difficult if you are having to
also watch additional children.
-Rolling coolers to store student lunches. Please put your name on it if you want
to lend it out to us for the day.
-Blankets or tarps for us to sit on for lunch on the capital grounds
-Students to wear their gray Spring Creek shirt and comfortable shoes
-A sack lunch for your child, stored in a gallon Ziploc bag with their name written
in black permanent marker.
-A sack lunch for you if you are going to chaperone. There isn’t time for you to
leave to go buy a lunch.
-Two separate snacks for the bus ride, one for there, one for the way back. It’s
amazing how hungry they get on a field trip!
-A note turned into the office before March 10th stating you are going to take your
child home from Austin if you are planning to take your child home in your own
car.
MATH Update
Math In March
We will be continuing with area and perimeter to start the month of March. Soon after,
the focus will move to measurement, including customary and metric units of length,
volume of liquids and mass. We will not only look at different units of measurement, but
the students will learn how to convert between those units. For example, how many
quarts will be contained in 7 gallons of milk? Or, how many inches are found in 3 yards
of ribbon. The conversion of units of time and money will also be part of our lessons.
Once we have a good grasp on finding measurements, we will begin learning about
geometry. Our study of geometry includes learning the difference between a parallel
line and a perpendicular line. Another important area in geometry includes knowing the
difference between acute angles, obtuse angles and right angles. Then they will apply
the understanding of the lines and angles to help to identify and classify various 2D
shapes based on their parallel or perpendicular sides and the angles in each corner.
These topics will continue on into April.
READING/WRITING Update
March - STAAR Writing Tuesday, March 29. Be sure students get a good nights sleep the night before and a protein rich breakfast the morning of.
ELA
Wow, how the year is flying! Your child is really growing as a reader and a writer. If you have invisibility as your superpower, I suggest you sneak in my room to hear the discussion students are having about books. (Or if you want to volunteer to assist in the classroom during reading time, let me know.) We are reading historical fiction. These books are teaching us so much about our world and how the time period a person lives in often shapes his or her actions. For example, one slave mailed himself to escape the southern US. During war times items such as butter, sugar, leather, rubber, and fuel were scare or rationed. Some families still had "coffee," which was actually hot water with some herbs. Once slavery was abolished, African Americans still worked in harsh conditions with minimal compensation. Egyptian boys still created as much mischief at home and school as boys do today.
Your child has been conferring with Mrs. Shepard or Mrs. Dungan about their essay writing. We are both noticing students brighten as they hear the great things they are already doing as a writer. Students are also hearing tips about a way to improve their writing and applying it.
Mrs. Dungan has a homework club that all students begin the 6 week grading period as members. For each day they complete their homework they remain in the club. At the end of the 6 weeks, any student still in the reading homework club will have earned a new book! Remember that homework can always be found on my website at www.mrsdungansclass.weebly.com
SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES Update
In Social Studies:
During the next three weeks we will look at Texas during the Civil war. How the Texas frontier developed with ranching cattle and the impact railroads had on life in Texas. Students will also begin looking at the free enterprise system in Texas.
**WEEKLY QUIZZES** - encourage your student to participate in class and review the key vocabulary that is on the webpage. If you see that your student is scoring below an 80 each week on their weekly quiz, please check with me and see when they can come in for tutorials so we can make sure they are understanding what we are covering in class.
In Science,
We will finish up looking at the patterns of the moon and sun and move on to the water cycle and the weather.
As a reminder, Encourage your child to review the vocabulary on the website.
http://mann4thgradeclass.weebly.com/
Something new.....
"Science Stations" - I have created science stations similar to what your student sees in math and ELA class. My goal is to have students work 1-2 times a week in these stations to help review current concepts we are learning in class and to revisit main vocabulary that we have learned this semester.
.....CONTAINER GARDEN after SPRING BREAK.....
Your student can start bringing a container for them to put soil in and plant seeds.
The idea is to grow plants that each student can then take home with them in May.
Help with the first Spring Creek Yearbook! New deadline for pictures is MARCH 10!
Looking Ahead...
March 2 - Read Across America, Dr. Seuss's birthday
March 3 - Double Daves Spirit night
March 7 - PTO meeting @ 6pm
March 10 - Field trip to Austin
March 14-18 - Spring Break!
March 25 - School Holiday
March 29 - 4th Grade STAAR Writing
Spring Creek Elementary
Website: http://sc.csisd.org/
Location: 2450 Brewster, College Station, TX
Phone: 979-694-5838
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CSISDSpringCreek
Twitter: @sc_elementary