7425 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Portland, Oregon 97202
Phone (503) 774-8871

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Fourth Grade

*Wednesday, February 26: Ash Wednesday Mass

*Thursday, February 27: No Mass

*Friday, February 28: 2:45 PM PBIS Assembly

*Friday, March 6: Stations of the Cross

*Tuesday, March 10 @ 1:30 PM: Rotation Performance

*Friday, March 13: Noon Dismissal

*Friday, March 13: Stations of the Cross

* Friday, March 20: Report Cards Go Home

*Friday, March 20: Stations of the Cross

*March 23 – Spring Break Begins

*March 30 – School Resumes

*June 12 – Noon Dismissal & Last Day of School

Religion

We have great, insightful discussions on how God wants us to treat others. We discuss the importance of having trust, respect, open communication, and honesty in our friendships. We have learned about the Beatitudes and the Ten Commandments, and return to the question throughout our studies: graders participate in prayer daily, and help and respect God's creations. , the fourthfaith-filled learnersAs
How do we live out The Beatitudes and the Commandments every day to help us grow as faith-filled learners, responsible decision makers,
and self-aware and engaged learners?

We are entering the season of Lent. Lent consists of the forty days (excluding Sundays) that come before Easter. We begin our forty-day walk with Jesus on Ash Wednesday.  We know we will face difficulties and challenges in our lives. We remember to see these times as they really are and with our hearts.   We pray and fast to show sorrow for our sins and to try to be like Jesus who prepared for his public life with forty days of prayer and fasting.

This year, the fourth graders will be taking part of a weekly Lenten challenge in which they will each invite their family members to join in and participate. Each week focuses on one of the ways we can create space in our life for the full life Jesus gave us. As shown on the illustration below, the faith-filled fourth graders will understand and live out the following focuses--FAST, PRAY, GIVE, THANK, SERVE, and REFLECT.

During Lent, we walk the Stations of the Cross.
What are Stations of the Cross?

Stations are places where people take time to think about Jesus as he went to die on a cross. They show us how much Jesus loved us.   How can we think of and use the teachings of the Stations of the Cross in our own lives?   We do not have to think of all of the Stations of the Cross on one day. We may want to stay at one Station with Jesus for a few days before we move to another Station. Whatever we decide, Jesus is with us and he loves us.

The fourth graders have illustrated the Stations of the Cross to be meaningful for all students at Holy Family Catholic School. They are displayed on our bulletin board in the hallway so when you're in the school, please take the time to do your own walk of the Stations of the Cross.

In fourth grade, we learn about the Catholic Social Teaching, Rights and Responsibilities of the Human Person. The Catholic Spirit defines it as:

Every person has a fundamental right to life — the right that makes all other rights possible. Each person also has a right to the conditions for living a decent life — food, health care, housing, education and employment. We have a corresponding duty to secure and respect these rights for others and to fulfill our responsibilities to our families, to each other and to our larger society.

A great way to live out this teaching is by volunteering at the Oregon Food Bank and participating in schoolwide service learning projects such as Backpack for Kid, Pennies for those in Need, and making lunches for the Willamette Shelter with our eighth grade buddies.

A former fourth grader reflected, "I was a faith-filled learner by helping some of the of the people who are food insecure. Food insecure is not knowing when your next meal will be. I made a difference by helping lots of people. It really feels good to help others!"

Her classmate excitedly reported, "...just a little bit can make a huge difference in someone's life. I am glad we went to the Food Bank. Helping people is fun!"

"We lived out the Catholic Social Teaching, Rights and Responsibilities. We were all faith-filled learners because we did our duty to help.
It is always important to do your part in the world."

To help us live as faith-filled, responsible learners, the fourth graders participate in the Second Step Program.

In the Second Step Program, the fourth graders learn important skills that will help them get along better, manage their emotions, and solve problems. The following four areas are taught throughout the year:

1. Skills for Learning
2. Empathy
3. Emotion Management
4. Problem Solving

When we interact with our friends, we make decisions. God's gift of conscience helps us choose right from wrong, and helps us turn away from sin. We will continue to grow as responsible decision makers. God wants us to treat others kindly and with love.

We strive to be CHRIST-LIKE daily by being

SAFE,

RESPECTFUL,

& RESPONSIBLE.

Growth Mindset--
The fourth graders will learn about ways to exercise and train their brains to have a Growth Mindset instead of a Fixed Mindset.

Spelling---

The fourth graders participate in the Rebecca Sitton Spelling Program.
- Each week, the students are given five words that are No Excuse words—words that fourth graders should know how to spell; there are no excuses. They are encouraged to use these words in their daily writing.
- The fourth graders participate in Stretch It, a Rebecca Sitton activity, that teaches the fourth graders how to add detail to their thoughts.
- The fourth graders have a weekly Fix It homework assignment, which assesses their knowledge of how to make corrections to grammatical mistakes. They use proofreading marks and are peer editors.
- Weekly, the fourth graders learn grammar essentials to assist in their spelling and writing skills.
- Each week the fourth graders take a Word Test that assesses their knowledge of the fourth grade No Excuse words in context.
In fourth grade, we have two word walls. A word wall is an ongoing, organized display of key words that provides visual reference for students. These words are used continually by teachers and students during a variety of activities. They engage students and enhance their learning.

Word walls serve multiple purposes. Effective word walls:

- support the teaching of key words and subject-specific terminology.
- promote independence in reading and writing by building vocabulary.
- provide visual clues and reference for language learners.
- help students remember connections between words and concepts.

One word wall in our classroom is our homophone word wall. Homophones are words that sound the same, are spelled differently, and have different meanings.

Our second word wall is The Word Wall Woods. This wall will consist of words more than five students have misspelled in a given task. These words may be words from our curriculum or words we use in our writing projects and journals.
Integrated Across the Curriculum--

NEWSELA is an online resource implemented in grades four and above at HFCS.

Articles the fourth graders read connect to topics being learned across the curriculum. Newsela engages students with primary sources and articles from world-class news publications, enables classes to read together as Newsela adapts to each student's reading level, and sparks thoughtful classroom discussions and empower students to find their voice.
We use the 6 + 1 Writing Traits
to improve our writing.

Ideas and Content

Organization

Word Choice

Voice

Sentence Fluency

Conventions

Presentation

This year, our fourth graders become successful multi-paragraph writers. They learn about the outline for a multi-paragraph composition: introduction, body, and conclusion. It is important for us to have ideas to write about. This is, at times, where writers may hit a road block and don't know where to begin. The fourth graders will learn about and experiment with various prewriting strategies--brainstorming webs, graphic organizers, making lists, making T-charts, etc. to assist them in avoiding writer's block.

It is the drafting stage where students take time to formulate their ideas into complete thoughts. They are encouraged to not worry about grammar (spelling, punctuation, capitalization). After composing a first draft, the fourth graders will discuss ways to add colorful language into their writing. During this stage, the fourth graders will conference with Mrs. Masini. This is an opportunity to receive feedback (praise, questions, possible suggestions) to again assist themin improving as writers. The fourth graders are encouraged to revise their work. Revising is important because it helps the fourth graders reread their pieces and make changes to improve their writing. Before the fourth graders finalize their papers and being the publishing stage, they conference with Mrs. Masini again. The editing stage is when our English conventions are looked at closely.

Your child has received and is storing the packet "Tap Into Expository Writing" in their LA sections of their binder. This is a great resource to use at home and school when writing responses and/or compositions across the curriculum.

As responsible decision makers , clearly stating our messages is important.

The fourth graders are self-aware and engaged learners who strive to improve their writing with each new experience.
The fourth graders participate in hands-on activities and discussions, and learn various reading strategies that increase their reading comprehension. The fourth graders will use higher level thinking to connect any story's events to previously learned material, to themselves, and to the world. With every unit, the fourth graders will review the story elements--setting, characters, plot, conflict, resolution, and theme.

We are building our metacognitive skills this year. It is important for us to THINK WHILE WE READ. If your child reads a paragraph, page, chapter, or article and has difficulty retelling whathappened, encourage and model the rereading of the selection. I encourage parents to use the four step process, RACE, we will learn and utilize in our activities throughout the day.

Social Studies, Reading, Writing, and Technology--
The fourth graders recently finished studying the two year journey that took Meriwether Lewis and William Clark west from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean. They learned about the Louisiana Purchase and its effect on Westward Expansion. The fourth grade historians gained a deeper understanding of how the Lewis & Clark Expedition impacted the United States and Oregon as it exists today. The fourth graders discussed how life was different for Lewis and Clark as they traveled 8,000 miles without our current world consisting of iPhones, iPads, GPS technology.

To culminate the unit, the fourth graders created digital storyboards recording this epic journey of Lewis and Clark. Our historians took a virtual tour and a Google Earth tour of the Expedition on iPads in partnerships and read an informational text--reading, discussing, and recording important details on their timeline graphic organizers. The tours allowed the fourth graders to better understand the experiences of the Corps of Discovery. Our engaged historians then summarized each stop to retell twelve stops on this two year expedition. These summaries became the foundations for the digital storyboards they created on Storyboardthat.com. This project integrated Social Studies, Writing, Reading, Technology, & Math. All of the fourth graders worked hard on their creations. They used higher level thinking skills and creativity in their teams to publish their very first digital storyboard. Check these wonderfully designed digital storyboards on our bulletin board outside our classroom in the near future.

Because the fourth graders gained a better understanding of how the United States changed due to the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark's expedition, the fourth graders will be able to connect the impact pioneers additionally had on the settlement of our state of Oregon. This takes us to our next unit of study-- Pioneers Traveling West on the Oregon Trail.

The fourth graders will read the nonfiction book If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon in literature circles. They will gain knowledge about pioneer life and why setters traveled The Oregon Trail. While reading this informational text, the students will participate in hands-on geography and extension activities that complement their reading and connect to historical documentaries and news stories presented to them.

The fourth graders will discuss the growth of our nation, and how Westward Expansion impacted the lives of Native Americans. They will compare and contrast the pioneers' lifestyles to our lifestyles today, specifically with technology, medicine, and modes of transportation. The fourth graders will more deeply understand how pioneers and Natives were faith-filled learners, responsible decision makers, and self-aware, engaged learners during this historic time period.

At the end of the unit, the fourth graders will be able to retell the top ten important things of traveling The Oregon Trail.  They will also be able to write their very own historical fiction pioneer journals. The fourth grade engaged authors will be given the following scenario:

It is 1846. Your family has decided to be adventurous and move out west. What trail will you take? Your cousin, who is your best friend, has to stay behind. You promised to keep a journal about your experience to share with him/her some day.

The faith-filled, responsible, and engaged learners will work in partnerships or cooperative small groups to discuss and assist each other with ideas and content for their journal entries. They will experience the writing process and meet with Mrs. Masini throughout the project to brainstorm ideas, to calculate the dates of entries, and to edit and revise their narrative writing. These conferences will give the fourth grader authors the opportunity to receive feedback in the following areas:

Ideas and Content—Is the information accurately written from our research?

Word Choice—Are the words colorful and not repetitive?

Sentence Fluency—Are the sentences well-written and do they flow smoothly?

Conventions—Is proper grammar, punctuation, capitalization used?

In March and April, the fourth graders will read the historical fiction novel Bound for Oregon. Using the knowledge gained from our If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon unit, the fourth graders will connect real life situations and facts to the fictional story of the Todd family traveling to Oregon territory. The fourth graders will follow the Todd family's journey using our classroom map. We will compare the Todd family's journey to other pioneers' experiences. The fourth graders will use previously taught Best Practice strategies and will learn new comprehension strategies to assist them in understanding this in-depth, detailed novel.
Science--

The fourth graders are beginning their next unit on energy. This energy unit will encourage the fourth grade scientists to think about the energy that things need to move. Students will explore how energy makes things go, from powering vehicles to moving one’s body. Students will experiment with rubber bands to discover the relationship between how much energy is stored in a material and how much is released. They will investigate the role that hills play in making roller coasters move and the energy transfer that happens when two objects collide. Students will realize that thinking about the world in terms of energy helps them make sense of how and why things speed up and slow down. Hands-on activities focus on engineering, testing hypotheses and using results to develop their ideas.
Math

The fourth graders are growing as faith-filled learners as they work in math partnerships, helping their peers practice new concepts. They are learning a variety of strategies for each concept, helping each of them determine the most effective and accurate strategy to use to solve mathematical inquiries. The fourth graders utilize a variety of interactive activities on the SMART Board as this engages all students in the learning process.

Bridges is the math curriculum we use at HFCS. Bridges blends direct instruction, structured investigation, and open exploration. It taps into the intelligence and strengths of all students by presenting material that is as linguistically, visually, and kinesthetically rich as it is mathematically powerful. Bridges encourages mathematicians to show their work in sketches. Explaining how and why they have reached an answer shows us they were thinking. This is the work of self-aware and engaged learners, embracing the challenge and showing their excellence to the best of their ability.

In our current unit, Fractions and Decimals, the students work with a variety of tools, including folded paper strips, egg cartons, geoboards, number lines, and base ten pieces to model, read, write, compare, order, compose, and decompose fractions and decimals. They are using all four operations in this unit--addition, subtraction, mutliplication, and division.

Their investigations and explorations range from the purely mathematical—the relationship between fifths and decimals, for example—to applied, as they determine a strategy to figure out how many candy bars the fourth grade teacher will have to buy if she plans to give an undefined number of students three-quarters of a bar each.

This unit takes an applied and visual approach to fractions and decimals. The fourth grade mathematicians are exploring unit fractions, common fractions, mixed numbers, improper fractions, equivalent fractions, and decimals. They are understanding that two fractions with unlike numerators and denominators, such as 4/6 and 8/12, can be equal, and they deve lop methods for generating and recognizing equivalent fractions. Students also investigate the relationship between unit fractions, such as 1/3, 1/4, and 1/12 and common fractions, such as 2/3, 3/4, and 6/12. They come to understand that common fractions are composed of unit fractions, which makes for an easy transition to multiplying fractions by whole numbers. (When one understands that 3/4 = 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4, it’s not hard to see that 3/4 is also equal to 3 x 1/4.)

Ev ery month students explore patterns and concepts with our Number Corner calendar and activities. It is amazing what our engaged mathematicians see, understand, think.

It is extremely important to practice fast facts in the areas of addition, subtraction, and multiplication with your child on a regular basis. We want the fourth graders to have automaticity with these facts. Flash cards and computer games that assess your child's fast facts’ knowledge are wonderful and provide immediate feedback to the students. Check out the fourth grade class website for online math games. Please give your child random problems to solve in the car, while on a bike ride, or while you're waiting at the doctor's office. Practice makes better!

Keep practicing your multiplication and division fast facts!

We are learning so much in fourth grade!

Fourth Grade

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