Newsletter Fourth Grade HGC
December has arrived and our students are working hard to accomplish their goals for the
second marking period. We enjoyed meeting with our students’ parents during conference
week and we hope you found the information helpful and insightful. Your support in your
child’s education is truly a gift. We are excited to see Guys and Dolls at the Olney Theater
December 10th. Following the play the students will have the opportunity to meet with the
actors and director for a question and answer session.
Science
The students are learning more about the scientific process as they continue to work on their
experiments in which they are testing different independent variables to see how they impact
plant growth. Some of the independent variables include the amount of water, frequency of
water, amount of sunlight, number of seeds, type of water, the amount of soil, and whether
there are rocks beneath the soil. The students will continue to collect data to monitor how
their independent variables will affect their dependent variable, plant growth.
Social Studies
The students are hard at work as they propose a specialized business that they feel should be
part of the Damascus Shopping Center. The students are describing their business and
providing a floor plan for their business. In addition, they are using what they have learned
about supply and demand in order to determine prices for the goods in their stores. We are
looking forward to seeing the finished projects!
Language Arts
Our debates were a success as students worked collaboratively to research and support their
ideas about the Texaco oil spill that impacted the Cofan people. We are in process of
completing our Native American fiction novel studies and are beginning to study the elements
of science fiction. Students will write their own narrative, developing real or imagined
experiences in an effort to develop their own science fiction stories!
Math
In math for the next few weeks we will apply and extend understandings about multiplication
and equal groups to understand fraction as multiples of unit fractions and multiply a fraction by
a whole number. While computing the sums, differences, and products may seem simple, it is
important that students use models, contexts, and reasoning to develop critical understandings
of the meaning of the operations with fractions. Furthermore, we will work on problem solving
involving time, distances, and mass.
Important Dates
Thursday, December 10…Olney Theater Field Trip
Tuesday, December 23… Damascus High School Band performance and
Clearspring Holiday Sing-a-Long
Wednesday, December 24-January 4…Winter Break