Coming Up:

Oct. 31	-   Overnight Informational Meeting
Nov. 2 & 3	-   LS Conferences
Nov. 21	-  Grandparents Day
Nov. 22-26	-  Thanksgiving Break
Nov. 28-1 Dec.	-  ERB Testing
Dec. 5-7	-  Fourth Grade Overnight

Reminder: Tuesday, October 31 from 7:40 a.m - 8:20 a.m

The 4th Grade overnight parent information meeting is in the Lower School Library. We hope many of you can make it; if not, forms will be available during conferences.

Social Studies:
The big news last week was the arrival of the salmon eggs in the fourth grade affinity commons! These eggs came from fish recently returning to the Clackamas River, and about 500 Chinook salmon eggs were lowered into their new home. The children will track their progress in the weeks to come. Stay tuned to hear about the release of the fish into the Willamette River close to Winter Break.
Students are finishing their concept maps on self-selected topics covered over the last two months to share their learning.

Reading:

We continue to read Tiger Rising; the text is rich with literary devices such as figures of speech. We are exploring these as well as symbolism, metaphors, and personification.

Students worked with their partners to

• share their ideas about characters and episodes from the text and support their ideas with evidence
• talk about characters by outlining examples from the text... My character often... for example... this makes me think…
• review their conclusions on characters by providing supporting evidence for the change in their thinking using examples from the text... I used to think my character was... because...but now I ... because I realize... about my character.
• to note patterns in characters’ actions and form ideas about them by asking... How do new actions fit with/change those ideas? What might be motivating the character to act in this way?

Writing:

We are wrapping up our writing about a small moment.

Students are at the gathering stage to begin a persuasive piece of writing.  We talked about all the experiences we have had in our salmon study thus far and identified some of the stakeholders in considering different  perspectives. Students will consider biases and different points of view to develop their own points of view in getting ready to write their persuasive pieces.

Math:

In math we've started our work in Unit 2 by exploring larger arrays and double digit multiplication. We've also been challenging ourselves to work systematically to solve some complex problems.

Challenge Homework:

Challenge homework is due next week; please let me know if your child needs an extension. A few of the children have already shared their projects.

P.E: Unicycling

Please remind your child to bring his/her helmet to school on the following dates:  

November 1 and 10

Jacob, Hayden, Evie, Lucas, Maija and Lucy.

November 17 and 20

Jot, Kamran, Katie, Abi, Dianna and Annie.

Parent Conference Schedule:

	Thursday, November 2	Friday, November 3
7:30-8:00 AM	Jonah	Evie
8:00-8:30 AM	Lucy	Jot
8:30-9:00 AM	Griffin	Stu
9:30-10:00 AM	Maija	Kamran
10:00-10:30 AM	Selin	Hayden
10:30-11:00 AM		Jake
12:00-12:30 PM	Katie
12:30-1:00 PM	Jacob
1:30-2:00 PM	Annie	Shay
4:30-5:00 PM	Abigail

Coming Up:

Oct. 31	-   Overnight Informational Meeting - 7:40 a.m. LS Library
Nov. 2 & 3	-   LS Conferences
Nov. 21	-  Grandparents Day
Nov. 25-1 Dec.	-  Erb Testing
Dec. 5-7	-  Fourth Grade Overnight

Social Studies:

Fourth Graders visited two radically different sections of the Columbia River watershed in back to back field trips this week: Oxbow Park (a pristine reach of the Sandy River with wild salmon runs), and Bonneville Dam and Hatchery (a highly engineered hydro-power plant with salmon ladders and hatcheries to offset dam related impact on salmon).

In class, we have been studying the life cycle and habitat requirements of Pacific Salmon. Students headed off on these trips with many questions -- What are the benefits and drawbacks of the dam? How do hatcheries help or hurt wild salmon? What does it feel like to watch salmon spawn in the river vs. watching them return to the hatchery?

One highlight was viewing a dead Chinook Salmon on the banks of the Sandy River. Students observed the many ways this fish was providing nutrients to the surrounding forest and the animals in the area. Consider attending Oxbow Park's "Salmon Homecoming" event  on October 21 and 22 to experience this!

Back in class, we now have some complicated issues to explore through persuasive essays. Some wonderings in class -- Can we continue to have cheap electricity while protecting salmon? What else might be done to help the fish? How can we teach others about what salmon need?

On Friday we followed up by reflecting on these trips with the help and guidance of our service learning coordinator, Kristin Haferbecker. Students were challenged to consider the many perspectives of people, wildlife, and the river itself in regard to the dam, salmon, and the hatcheries.  Many were inspired to consider alternative designs to hatcheries to do a better job at mimicking nature.

Please view some photos of our trips here and here.

Math:

During math this week we tinkered with volume and capacity, while branching into larger numbers and multi-digit multiplication. We had a lively discussion around the finding the area of a page in our math workbook. Kids shared ways to find the area (21cm x 28cm) that ranged from using the standard algorithm for multiplication to covering the page with base ten pieces that could then be counted up. Many agreed that the most efficient way to think about this problem was something like (10 x 28) + ( 10 x 28 ) + (1 x 28) or 280 + 280 + 28 = 588.  This was a natural time to consider how the distributive property of multiplication can help support our mathematical understandings.

Writing/Word Study:

Children are working on completing their small moment stories. In looking over the children’s writing, I realized that the children would benefit from review and practice in adding suffixes to words. So we looked at where syllable breaks occur in words and reviewed some of the rules around adding suffixes such as -ed and -ing to words.

Reading:

We are working on distinguishing between summarizing/retelling vs. synthesizing events in sections of Tiger Rising.

• When retelling  or summarizing sections of a book, we identify key elements and important information in our own words during and after reading to solidify meaning. Five Finger Rules offer one way of organizing details about setting, characters, problems, events and endings.
• Synthesizing has to do with creating original insights, perspectives, and understandings by reflecting on text and merging elements from text and existing schema.

Students used these skills to gain a deeper understanding of the text through their personal reading.

Chaplain's Visit:

Chaplain Craig  visited our classroom to meet and get to know the children. Ask your children about the activity they did with him!

One of the highlights this week was our chapel on Tuesday where hundreds of dearly loved stuffed animals were blessed at the altar.

Our hope was to honor the gift of stuffed animals, which provide opportunities to model love and care, and which offer back the treasure of companionship and security. A surprise visit from our largest and most beloved stuffed animal - Aardy the Aardvark -- was an additional blessing indeed. (Chaplain Craig)

Conference Sign-Up:

Conference sign-ups close on Monday, October 23.