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Fourth Grade Newsletter December 13, 2013

EUROPEAN EXPLORATION
Our class acted as deep sea divers this week, searching for objects from sunken ships of European explorers. They discovered artifacts that motivated explorers, navigational tools, and items explorers were bringing back to their native countries. After break, we will be taking a closer look at individual explorers. We will briefly discuss the Vikings from Norway and Marco Polo from Italy. We will take a closer look at Christopher Columbus, his motivations, his sponsors, his four voyages, his accomplishments, his treatment of native peoples, and even some of his character traits. Through reading, activities, discussion, DVDs and further research, history will hopefully come alive for our class. I look forward to seeing the students evaluate the information and express their views. Next, well study the other Spanish explorers as well as some from England and France. Mrs. Brown has been and will continue to teach the children some important research skills, which they will be applying to their study of a specific explorer.

WHO IS SHIRLEY TEMPLE WONG?

Our class has begun reading the novel In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. We are getting to know the main character, Shirley Temple Wong, who leaves her home in China to live in New York in the year 1947. The children are writing responses to this piece of literature. They are looking for details in the text that show Shirleys character qualities. Please ask your child about the circumstances in which Shirley received this name, an American name, just before she left China. Before starting this novel, our class did a read-aloud about Jackie Robinson, number 42. He will become an important character in the final chapters of our book.

WINTER BREAK IS ALMOST HERE!

I hope your family enjoys a healthy, safe and fun winter break! There is no homework over the break, but please help your child to keep working on learning division facts, which we will be focusing on during our mad minute in January and February. Also, the children may take one week off of their RAH. The RAH Journal prompts them to choose the week ending on December 26 or the week ending on January 2 to complete. On Thursday, Jan. 8, I look forward to reading two weeks of RAH entries (not three).