Typing/Keyboarding Skills

As the computer science curriculum continues to expand in the Lower School, we have decided to remove the keyboarding unit from classroom instructional time.  Below are recommended resources that your daughter can use at home to practice and improve her keyboarding skills.

Typing.com offers free lessons for your child.  You have the option of creating user name and password or completing the lessons without an account.  The benefit to having an account it tracking progress.

Typing Club offers touch typing for free.  Again, you can create an account or completing the lessons without one.  This site has good reviews from Common Sense Media.

The most important thing when learning how to type is repeated practice.  There are many other resources available online if you daughter is ready to go beyond these suggestions!

2017 Reading Challenge!

The 4th Grade girls have been given a reading challenge for 2017......

By the end of school, can you complete the challenge by reading books that fit the following criteria? Check off each item as you finish, and write the book title next to the challenge. (You may fulfill 2 challenges with the same book.)

Can you read a book …

1.  published in the year you were born______________________________

2.  that takes place in another country_______________________________

3.  with a color word in the title___________________________________

4.  by an author with your initials__________________________________

5.  with a one-word title_________________________________________

6.  with a mostly blue cover_______________________________________

7.  that takes place during summer__________________________________

8.  you can finish in a day_________________________________________

9. that is a friend’s favorite________________________________________

10.that is non-fiction about someone you admire________________________

11.that is a genre you’ve never read before____________________________

12.  with magic in it_____________________________________________

13. that is the first in a series______________________________________

14.that won a Newbery award or honor ______________________________

15.  with a cover that you like______________________________________

16.  published in 2017____________________________________________

17. with a food or drink in the title__________________________________

18.that is a picture book (read it aloud to someone)______________________

19. written by a Maryland author___________________________________

20. that makes you laugh__________________________________________

Believe it or not, many of the girls have already filled in several of the titles of books they have completed just this past week.  We encourage anyone who would like to participate to join us in meeting this challenge and broadening your reading horizons!

WINTER CONCERT

Come one, come all!

Please join us for the Winter Concert for students in grades 3-5 on Tuesday, December 20.  The concert begins at 8:30 am and will end by around 9:15.

Each and every student participates in this performance!  The fourth graders will be on the left side of the stage (as you are facing it).

Attire for the concert is as follows:
• Split top uniform, skort, jumper, or gray pants
• Dark green or gray tights or knee socks (no leggings or white socks)
• White long sleeve turtleneck or polo shirt (no sweaters – the girls will be warm enough under the bright lights!)

See you there!

Art_Finished Worlds

The girls have finished their collages and their "I Am" poems. Here's a sneak peak of their work. They will be on display this week in the administration building gallery.  

Action!

The girls continue to work on their amazing designs of small containers.  We are now in the action phase of the Thinking and Learning Design Process.  They have learned how to use several tools in the Creation Station!  Once the prototypes are finished, students will reflect on their work and the work of classmates.  

4th Grade Loves Magnets!

We have been studying magnets this fall in science. It was fun to learn that opposite poles attract and like poles repel each other.

Different materials were tested to determine which were attracted to a magnet and which ones magnetic force would travel through.

Putting magnets under dishes with iron filings meant that we could see how the filings lined up in the magnetic fields.

Levitating magnets by putting like poles together was fun! We measured to see which combination of magnets would levitate the highest.

And....we created our own original magnet games and then presented them to the class!

At the end of the unit, we made our own magnetically levitated (mag-lev) train cars. Balancing them so that they would travel down the magnetic track was a challenge, but we persisted and were successful! After testing the mag-lev cars to see what could be done to make them travel farther, we prepared for the final race, using the knowledge we had gained from our experiments!

From the Library

Fourth graders started the year by reading an assortment of great, but maybe lesser known books in Library. Anne Isaac's Meanwhile Back at the Ranch reminded students of Riding Freedom which they read in third grade last year. The Bathing Costume or The Worst Vacation of My Life by Charlotte Moundlic was a story of a French boy who spends the summer with his grandparents in the country. Kate Coombs' The Secret Keeper led to an interesting discussion about listening and keeping secrets. The Cloud Spinner by Michael Catchpool, beautifully and amusingly illustrated, inspired conversation about greed and need and their impact on the environment.

From there we moved into World War II stories. I Will Come Back for You, in which a grandmother uses her charm bracelet to explain her childhood in Italy; Rose Blanche, in which a young girl smuggles food to children in a camp outside her German town; and Otto, the Autobiography of a Teddy Bear, in which a bear starts in 1930s Germany, saves the life of an American GI, and ends up in New York where he is recognized in an antique store and reunited with his childhood friends, now old men.