Tuesday, December 13th
The FGCS office is closing at 3:30 p.m. Tues., Dec. 13 for a staff holiday party.
All after-school activities are canceled.
Please be sure your students are picked up promptly at 3:20 p.m. so office staff can enjoy the holiday gathering. Thank you!
December 19th - January 2nd
Winter Break- NO SCHOOL
School will resume on Tuesday, January 3rd
Are you able to donate to our class snack supply?
We need Fruit Leather & Graham Crackers for daily snack in the Puffin Nest.
Math Homework
For December 12th-16th, focus on these Apply homework pages:
For 4th graders:
Work on lessons in the new Module 2 workbook up to lesson 23.
For 3rd graders:
Work on lessons in the new Module 2 workbook up to lesson 14.
Also strongly recommended: daily practice with multiplication facts for 2-10's
Check out these multiplication fact practice apps:
What's happening in the Puffin Nest:
Writing Workshop:
To prepare for our Informational writing unit, we continue to work on the composition and structure of an informative paragraph. This week, we focused on how to write a topic sentence. We studied and practiced a basic set of five topic sentences.
During Reading Workshop:
Our Novel Study read aloud is The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
We are exploring a new genre: Science Fiction!
We jumped int our Novel Study in earnest. Each week, we explore new vocabulary, make new predictions & inferences, visualize the characters & setting, consider new information & ideas in the text, and reflect about the book through discussions and writing.
Out & About & Science
This week, our focus was energy transfer. We learned that:
- Energy can be converted from one form to another.
- Electricity can transfer energy from place to place.
- Light, sound and heat also transfer energy.
For our "In & About" on Wednesday, parent volunteer Nate Ball showed off the electrical power of a Van de Graaff Generator. This device is able to create lightning-like sparks as it builds up electrical charge and tries to balance it out. Students then collaborated to transform electric energy to power lights and motors by building circuits. Ask your kiddo: if you could shrink down really small, what do you think electricity might look like flowing through a circuit? We'll continue exploring next week!
Social Emotional Learning
This week, our focus returned to compassion.
Compassion is when you SEE someone in need, CARE about their feelings, and DO something to show you care.