Celebrations and good-bye 2011
December is a great time for reflection and celebration. Progress reports are finished and the Winter Concert is this week. Tuesday is our concert and it will be great to celebrate and hear the music that everyone has been working on. Our class should meet in the classroom at 6:20 to assemble before the performance.
This week our schedule will be totally rearranged for rehearsals. We will have art on Thurs., PSD on Mon. Thurs. and Fri.; Music will be on Mon. and Recorder Tues. (as usual). See you at the concert!
We are finishing our novel, Dear Mr. Henshaw. Students have been keeping a journal and thinking about how writing can be a good way to reflect and process experience. The protagonist in this story is getting used to his new family structure (his parents are recently divorced) and finding his way in a new school. He writes in a diary and learns how to get beyond his anger, solve problems, make friends, and pursue his dream of becoming a writer. We have been talking about how each person experiences things differently. Our discussions and writing assignments have had students relate and empathize to the feelings and conflicts that this character experiences. Reading this book gives a fourth grader a look at how older kids learn to find their way more independently. It shows a troubled boy transformed by his own accomplishments.
We finished our watershed experiments by creating a dam and seeing how toxic waste is spread in the watershed. In the spring we will go back to this theme of how human impact affects river ecology. This week we are putting energy into artistic and cooperative challenges. We are making a winter scene on a bulletin board and we will make some paper folded window stars. We will think of service projects we can get involved with. I am looking for ways to get fourth graders involved in a service project outside of school. Please let me know if you have any ideas.
Looking ahead, be ready for XC skiing and Tues. Winter Sports. I will be going to Okemo on Tuesdays. We will begin an intercurricular Mystery Theme in January. We will study some chemistry and do experiments that will get students ready to explore forensic science and conduct an investigation of an imaginary crime scene.
Have a terrific winter break and Happy New Year!
Emily
P.S. No HW until 2012!
Our spelling list this week is a review of all the classroom words. We will practice at school and have a test on Friday.
