Coming Up:
Sept. 29
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- Walk for Fun - be ready for outside walking and running
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Oct. 6
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- Homecoming
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Oct. 13
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- PGD day, No School
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Oct. 18
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- Field Trip to Oxbow Park
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Oct 19
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- Field Trip to Bonneville Dam
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Nov. 2 & 3
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- LS Conferences
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Team Building Day:
On Monday, the fourth graders braved the rain and headed out into the woods to try some team challenges. They surprised themselves with the courage, determination, and team spirit they displayed. Back in the classroom the children discussed and wrote about how the experiences on the challenge course might inform our work as 4th graders, learning to work and play together. We reflected on how the experiences helped us practice dealing with frustration, encouraging each other through difficult times, feeling safe enough to take risks and enjoying a collective sense of accomplishment. See some pictures from the day here.
Author Visit:
On Tuesday, September 19th, Kathryn Otoshi visited OES to talk about her books: Zero, One, Two and Beautiful Hands. She shared some of her own life experiences that gave her inspiration for her stories. Ask your child about her visit and the intention behind our beautiful OES spirit bird.
Curriculum
Social Studies:
Launching Watershed Study
This week we dipped our toes into our yearlong theme of water studies. This began with a walk through our own OES campus to uncover the path of rainwater as it travels to Fanno Creek and beyond. We traced the conveyances of water from the Middle School building, past the Lower School, and into the storm drains. Many students wondered out loud where the water travels from there. A sewage treatment plant? A lake? Eventually our walk led us to an outfall pipe going directly into Fanno Creek. Ask the children what they are doing in this picture!
From this we imagined a “watershed address” for OES:
This week we dipped our toes into our yearlong theme of water studies. This began with a walk through our own OES campus to uncover the path of rainwater as it travels to Fanno Creek and beyond. We traced the conveyances of water from the Middle School building, past the Lower School, and into the storm drains. Many students wondered out loud where the water travels from there. A sewage treatment plant? A lake? Eventually our walk led us to an outfall pipe going directly into Fanno Creek. Ask the children what they are doing in this picture!
From this we imagined a “watershed address” for OES:
Middle School Roof
Swale next to Middle School
OES Parking Lot
Unnamed Storm drain
Underground Pipe
Fanno Creek
Tualatin River
Willamette River
Columbia River
Pacific Ocean
Next week we will be exploring many features of our watershed:
- What are the uses (and abuses) of our rivers?
- Who lives here and how do they depend on the waterways?
- How does the water cycle work?
- What is the significance of salmon in our region?
We encourage families to consider visiting an event this Sunday from 10:00-4:00 at Westmoreland Park, and participate in their Salmon Celebration. It is free and geared toward families.
Math Workshop:
As mathematicians this week, we put our work on multiplication to good use to explore the possible dimensions for our poetry quilt. We knew we had 36 tiles to arrange and we used our math skills to consider all the different arrays that we could make. In the end, we decided on a 9 x 4 array. This work gave us the opportunity to talk more about prime, factors, multiples and composite numbers, hidden arrays, and square numbers. We then applied our thinking to larger numbers and solved story problems.
Ask your child about the first Math Forum this week where they highlighted the connection between multiplication and division! They shared their thinking with the class by making a poster.
Reading:
We read a few more chapters of the book Tiger Rising and the question about fitting in came up in our conversations. This had us wondering whether it was better to fit in or stand out. Multiple perspectives were shared and connections were made to the characters in the story… Ask your child about his/her thoughts on this topic.
Writing/Spelling/Word Study:
Grammar/Writing: Reviewed nouns
and verbs. Ask your child about the Noun/Verb poem he/she is working on.
Spelling: Ari Sternberg placed the children in four flexible groups based on the spelling inventory/assessment that they did last week. Ari and I rotated between the four groups. Ask your child about the work we did in spelling this week.
and verbs. Ask your child about the Noun/Verb poem he/she is working on.
Spelling: Ari Sternberg placed the children in four flexible groups based on the spelling inventory/assessment that they did last week. Ari and I rotated between the four groups. Ask your child about the work we did in spelling this week.
Our class will serve as acolytes in chapel for the next couple of weeks. Lower School students in Primary through 4th grade have the opportunity to serve as acolytes for at least one chapel every year. Most children enjoy this voluntary experience. Parents are always welcome to attend chapel and photograph their children when they serve as acolytes. Chapel starts at 8:10 a.m. on Tuesdays.
9/26
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Lucy, Dianna, Jonah, Stu, Jake, Jacob
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10/3
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Evie, Katie, Selin, Lucas, Griffin, Hayden
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10/10
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Annie, Abigail, Jot, Maija, Kamran
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