Week of February 1

    

Daily Student Health Screener:

Click here for a checklist of symptoms and situations to keep a focused eye on this year. The teachers are logging daily health checks, as well. We are doubling down on health and wellness in efforts to protect our ability to meet for in-person learning. Thank you for your cooperation on this.

Yearbook Ordering:

It’s time to order your 2020-21 yearbook! This year all sales will be done online at http://www.geskusphoto.com/?YB=3716

Please place your order by Monday, February 15. Contact Sheri Baker at sheribk@gmail.com with any questions!

Virtual Variety Show:

This year’s variety show will be virtual and will be shown at Brown on Friday, March 5! (Will also be posted to our FB page.) We invite all of our in person and virtual Brown students to participate. Please see form linked here for more details (a hard copy was sent home last week with students).

We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Valentine's Day: 

February 14th is approaching fast and, of course, things this year will be a little different.  It just so happens that the 14th is on a Sunday this year and students do not have school on Friday the 12th or on Monday the 15th. So, hold off on the candy and packaged valentines, here is the plan...

During the week of February 8 - 11, our Positivity Project (P2) activities will be focused on "Love."  Their definition of love is that you value close relationships with others and being close to people. The character strength of love represents the way we think, feel, and behave towards the people with whom we have close relationships. 

Our class will have activities and lessons throughout the week that will take the place of the traditional card exchange.  No need to send anything in from home, we will handle it all in-house.

Mrs. Bawks' Brown School Family Blog:

Please don't forget to take a peek at Mrs. Bawks' Brown School Family Blog each week. CLICK HERE to read it.

Important Upcoming Dates:

Wed. 2/3 - Late Start - school begins at 9:45am

Friday 2/5 - Popcorn Friday!

Wed. 2/10 - Late Start - school begins at 9:45am

Fri. 2/12 - NO SCHOOL

Mon. 2/15 - NO SCHOOL

Wed. 2/17 - Late Start - school begins at 9:45am

Wed. 2/24 - Late Start - school begins at 9:45am

This week's learning:

Positivity Project (P2): This coming week we will be focusing on the character strength of "Integrity" - You are honest and speak the truth. You present yourself genuinely and sincerely.

ELA: This week, we will be focusing on making inferences and drawing conclusions. We will:

-identify evidence in a text to support a reasonable conclusion.

-make inferences to understand ideas implied by not stated in a text.

Looking to help your child connect what they are learning in school at home? Click on the image below and check out the activities:

Writing: This week we are continuing our persuasive writing unit. This week we will be focusing on using a graphic organizer to plan out our persuasive essay, writing our introduction, organizing our paragraphs and identifying fact vs. opinion.

Math:  This week we will really start diving into our multi-digit multiplication unit! You may notice that the home link packet is out of order; we have decided to re-structure the unit to better teach and extend the concepts within this unit. They are in the order that we will be teaching each concept in class. Please continue to work on mastering single digit multiplication fact fluency at home each night (this can be done with flash cards, using an online program or any other method that words well for your child).

Monday: Lesson 4-2: I can make estimates and evaluate the reasonableness of my answers.

Tuesday: Lesson 4-3: I can solve multiplication problems by partitioning rectangles.

Wednesday: Continuing Lesson 4-3

Thursday: Lesson 4-6: I can multiply multi-digit numbers by using the partial-products strategy.

Friday: Continuing Lesson 4-6

Looking to extend your child's learning in math at home?

I highly recommend having them work on Khan Academy (we use this in class)! Students have access to the assignments that I've put onto Khan Academy for them (they use these during our math workshop time) and they can also work on their "course mastery." Khan Academy will continue to work them through 4th grade concepts and beyond (for those students who are ready to begin learning skills beyond the elementary level) and provides video explanations to help them work through the content. They also have courses to practice reading and language arts, computer programing (Pixar in a Box has historically been very popular with students in my classroom!), growth mindset, careers and much more!

Science: This week we are diving further into how our eyes work, exploring the function of the iris and pupil. Your child will add a part to their eye model (the one they created last week) and experimented to see how the pupil affects vision.

One thing you can do to support your child's curiosity is to sit down together and look at pictures of animals’ eyes. If you have a pet at home, like a cat or dog, use the flash of a camera to snap a photo, and see if you can spot the pet’s colorful green layer at the back of the eye. This layer helps these animals to see better at night. Invite your child to share with you what they’ve learned about this!

Social Studies: This week we will continue learning about the human characteristics of the Unites States. Big ideas from this lesson are:

-Geographers use physical and human characteristics to describe what a place is like.

-Human characteristics of a place are man-made features.

-Human characteristics of a place can include cities, highways, bridges, and buildings.

-Human characteristics are often closely connected to physical characteristics. For example, cities are often located near bodies of water and farms are often located in prairies.

Homework:  Homework each week consists of reading 20+ minutes at home (this can be a library book, magazine, newspaper, online book, etc) and practicing multiplication and division facts 1 through 12. Mastering multiplication and division facts is vital to our learning this year.

Students will also have a math home link page to work on most days of the week. I will always include the lessons we are working on in the blog each week so that you know when to work on each home link. These home links are not going to be turned back in, but I highly recommend that students work on them each week so that they can show you what they have worked on. I don't mind if students work a bit ahead in the packet; it is also ok if you miss a night and have to come back to that particular lesson on a different day. Times are unpredictable and I completely understand that you may have prior commitments on certain days of the week.

Photo Gallery!

Check out some photos of our learning this week:

Thank You,

Mrs. Hassenger