Weekly Update

 

Our next Lower School Outreach project is a really special one! For our Lenten project, we are supporting Celebrate! RVA, which was started by an alum of St. Catherine's, Julia Warren Mattingly. Her mission is amazing and really lives out our school motto, "What we keep we lose, and only what we give remains our own." Each grade level will collect a different item to help make birthday bags. Here is the information for the fourth grade. Our grade level is collecting paper plates and napkins without any characters. Thank you for your help in supporting this amazing cause!

 

 

After spring break, Nurse Blanton will begin the Growing Up Healthy class during their science class time. Next week, she will host a virtual parent meeting to discuss the curriculum. The meeting will be on Wednesdsay, February 22 at 7:00 pm. Here is the zoom link for the meeting.

The girls have been working hard on learning about important historic figures during Black History Month. They are charged with reading at least 10 articles from a Newsela text set about different and important people. We will continue this ongoing project through the end of the month.

 

On Tuesday, the girls visited the Middle School to hear from the world language teachers. They spent 15 minutes with the Spanish teacher and 15 minutes with the Chinese teacher. In the next week or so, you will receive a sign up form to choose their world language for Middle School.

 

Our second Wordly Wise Dress Up Day was a success. Here are the girls in their creative costumes.

 

Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Holloway
• Mid Year ERB tests: February 21 and 22 (no preparation is needed)
• Reading Spirit Week: February 27 - March 3 - Information here
  
• Remember to check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teacher
• Scavenger hunt question - answer this!
• Future dates:
• April 13: Fourth Grade Field Trip to DC - We will arrive back after dismissal so please plan to pick up your daughter at 4:15. More details to come.
• April 28: Grandparents' Day
• April 29: Daisy Days

 

Weekly Update

I hope everyone has a nice, long weekend. The girls have been working hard and are ready for a day off! 

 

We started a really fun writing lab this week where the girls design and describe a friendship machine. The only parameters I gave them was to involve teamwork and a prize at the end. Here is a description of this expository writing lab. 

 

 

In math, we began our fraction unit by reviewing basic fraction concepts. Next week, we will dig deeper into equivalent fractions and ordering and comparing fractions.

 

The girls are really enjoying our region study and are learning some interesting facts about others areas of our vast country.

Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Vivian
• Special Week: Queen
  
• Scholastic book order due by 2/17/23. Shop Our Class Page!
  
• Wordly Wise Dress Up Day: Friday, February 17: Please click here for all of the details!
• Remember to check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teacher
• Scavenger hunt question - answer this!
• Future dates:
• April 13: Fourth Grade Field Trip to DC - We will arrive back after dismissal so please plan to pick up your daughter at 4:15. More details to come.
• April 28: Grandparents' Day
• April 29: Daisy Days

Weekly Update

 

 

 

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and we will have a class celebration on Tuesday, February 14. The girls may start working on a mailbox to hold cards from their classmates. They may be as creative with this as they would like and it would be great to have the boxes and Valentine's in by Monday, February 13. They need to make a card for each student and here is a list of our classmates. They may also make a Valentine for friends in other classes that we will deliver.

 

Speaking of Valentine's Day, there is a Greg Tang Valentine challenge that the girls may complete. The link to the interactive game board is here and on the side of the blog. We did a quick mini unit on area and perimeter and will finish up early next week. Next, we move into fractions! The girls are enjoying the region study and we started with the Northeast region. To celebrate Groundhog Day, we did a few fun activities yesterday. There are lots of papers coming home today so please take a few minutes to go through the work. The geometry math test is included in it.

Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Ashby
• Friday, February 10: Saints Take a Break Day
  
• Wordly Wise Dress Up Day: Friday, February 17: Please click here for all of the details!
• Remember to check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teacher
• Scavenger hunt question - answer this!
• Future dates:
• April 13: Fourth Grade Field Trip to DC - We will arrive back after dismissal so please plan to pick up your daughter at 4:15. More details to come.
• April 28: Grandparents' Day
• April 29: Daisy Days

Weekly Update

I want to begin by sending a reminder about an even being held in the Lower School next week.

Lower School Community Connection Event

Lower School families are invited to attend our latest Community Connection event, a faculty-led workshop about Project-Based Learning. 

 

This workshop will feature Lower School faculty members Maddy Hargis and Meg Zehmer, both of whom are trained in Project-Based Learning and have been instrumental in the success of this program in our Lower School. We hope you will join us for this informative event. 

• February 1, 6 -7 p.m., Lower School Assembly Room
• Click here to RSVP 

Here are some curriculum updates:

Math: We have finished our geometry chapter and I will give the girls an assessment on Tuesday.  Today, we did a fun culmination project where they had to apply their knowledge of the geometric skills. They are doing a great job with this project! Next, we will move quickly through our chapter on area and perimeter.

Writing: The girls really enjoyed interviewing a fellow Fourthie, writing a paragraph about them, and making a magazine cover. They did a great job asking deeper questions and learning more about girls in their grade.

 

Social Studies: Next week, we will begin our study of regions in the United States. We will learn about unique aspects to each part of our country as well as learn which states are included in each region.

It is hard to believe we are at the end of January! Valentine's Day is right around the corner and we will have a class celebration on Tuesday, February 14. The girls may start working on a mailbox to hold cards from their classmates. They may be as creative with this as they would like and it would be great to have the boxes and Valentine's in by Monday, February 13. They need to make a card for each student and here is a list of our classmates. They may also make a Valentine for friends in other classes that we will deliver.

 

Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Anna
• Special Week: Vivian
  
• Remember to check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teacher
• Scavenger hunt question - answer this!
• Future dates:
• April 28: Grandparents' Day
• April 29: Daisy Days

Weekly Update

The girls enjoyed the short week and the highlight seemed to be the writing lab project where they interviewed a fellow Fourthie. Here are some pictures of them in action.

Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Eleanor
• Special Week: Hampton
  
• Monday, January 23: Wear red for Chinese Lunar New Year
  
• Homelinks for all math chapters
  
• Remember to check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teacher
• Scavenger hunt question - answer this!
• Future dates:
• April 28: Grandparents' Day
• April 29: Daisy Days

Weekly Update

Everyone is excited for the long weekend! The girls and I began our discussion about Martin Luther King, Jr. to remember why Monday is a holiday. We began a collaborative mural of his portrait that we will assemble next week. We will continue studying his life and legacy next week.

 

The Fourthies had a special treat today when they helped with the ribbon cutting of a new Lower School playground. They then had a few minutes to play on it as a grade. This is an exciting addition to our campus!

 

Curriculum Updates:

Next week, we will begin a grade wide writing project that the girls are excited about. Each Fourthie will interview another Fourthie and will try to ask "big talk" questions. We learned the difference between small talk and deeper talk, "big talk." They will interview a fellow Fourthie and then write about what they learned. The project will end with each girl designing a magazine cover about their friend. The girls are extra engaged in a task that incorporates friends, pictures, and writing!

The president projects are just about finished. Next week, the girls will share their presidential portrait along with several interesting facts they learned.

In math, we are moving through the geometry unit. This week, we learned about equilateral, right, scalene, and isosceles triangles. Next, we will move on to quadrilaterals and lines of symmetry.

Thank your for partnership and support!

Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Jane Randolph
  
• Monday, January 23: Wear red for Chinese Lunar New Year
  
• Chat and Chew meetings with Mrs. Sterling
  
• Homelinks for all math chapters
  
• Remember to check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teacher
• Scavenger hunt question - answer this!
• Future dates:
• April 28: Grandparents' Day
• April 29: Daisy Days
  

 

Weekly Update

 

We had a great first week of school in 2023! I am excited to be back and feeling more like myself. I am going to start with some important nuts and bolts.

• The girls will switch to Chinese for their World Language class the week of January 16
• We have had several rule refresher discussions this week regarding expectations in the classroom and with computers. It can be hard to return after a two week break so we discussed how everyone can be the best versions of themselves in class.
• With computers, I do remind the girls that having a laptop to use is a privilege. With that privilege comes responsibility. Some girls have a hard time remembering to bring theirs from home and we have also had 3-4 accidents where a computer has fallen on the floor and the screen has shattered. 
• Please make sure your daughter brings an afternoon snack because they are hungry when we come in from recess. If anyone wants to send in snacks for the class that I can keep on hand, that would be great!

On to the curriculum...

Math: We jumped ahead to chapter 12, which focuses on geometry. We reviewed lines, line segments, and rays and how they meet at a vertex to form an angle. We learned about different angle types including acute, obtuse, right, straight, and reflex. The girls learned how to use a protractor to measure an angle's degrees. We ended the week learning about specials types of lines, including parallel and perpendicular. We will continue on with triangles and other polygons next week. 

Social Studies: We are wrapping up our presidential research project. The girls are working on their essays and started a portrait today. I look forward to wrapping this up next week and then starting our study of the regions of the United States.

Language Arts: The girls are progressing well with spelling and Wordly Wise. This week, we discussed how the word lists are getting harder and that this is okay. We talked about ways they may need to study a bit more as things become harder.

Reminders:

• Carpool helper next week: Virginia H
  
• Special Week: Holloway
• Chat and Chew meetings with Mrs. Sterling
  
• Homelinks for all math chapters
  
• Remember to check SeeSaw for updates from Specials teacher
• Scavenger hunt question - answer this!