News from Fourth Grade
January 17, 2010

Happy New Year! Dutchess Day students left for school break in December with a half day which included community service activities. The projects and activities made us all think about people around us in need of food, warmth, or simply cheering up. While many upper school students sang carols for group homes in the area, lower school classes (and the sixth grade), chose from a broad selection of activities including sculpture, holiday crafts, knitting, baking and making a recycling awareness video. They seemed to enjoy the event and appreciated the meaningfulness of their gifts to others. Also, several boxes of new children’s books were delivered to Astor Head Start, through Ms. Dreier’s on-going effort to put Book Club bonus points to good use.
On their first day back in January, fourth graders jumped right into work, starting a poetry project, tackling mulitdigit multiplication and creating Egyptian artifacts. Thank you for helping your child in the many recent assignments that required a little family input: sharing what you know about Egypt, Haiti or famous women leaders in history, or looking through articles of clothing to find countries of origin. These kinds of shared inquiries at home lead to much excitement at the beginning of the school day. (“You wouldn’t believe where my boxers are from!”)
Ancient Egypt continues to fascinate the students in fourth grade. Over the next two months we will read about daily life and mythology in Ancient Egypt from our text, Ancient World, and from other sources. In addition to making headdresses, jewelry, and models of boats, shadufs and pyramids, students will create mock newscasts from Ancient Egypt and think about a topic for a research report. For some of the projects, students will dress in costume. I have some plain sheets stored in the classroom, but you can help by sending in any of the following embellishments: black wig, cloth collar, costume jewelry (nothing valuable), sandals, green eye shadow and black eyeliner (both men and women wore make-up). The field trip to the Metropolitan Museum will fall sometime in April, but you if you find yourself in San Francisco over the March break, you may want to consider reserving tickets for the King Tut exhibit at the de Young Museum. Check out kingtut.org or the exhibits in S.F. and Toronto, Canada.
I look forward to the book projects coming in this month. The students will share their portraits, sculptures or letters and then create a timeline of the class’s biography subjects. They will also work with the collection of famous quotations.
The cold weather will probably last for a few more months, so please help your child be prepared for snow-covered grounds and cold temperatures. (Children do not go outside when the temperature is below 20 degrees.) Children with snowboots are allowed the full range of the playground at recess, but those without waterproof footwear must stay on the blacktop area. Fourth graders who sled must have snowpants, boots, hats and gloves. Snowpants are strongly encouraged for all other play. You may want to send in an extra pair of socks and pants to store on your child’s cubby shelf.

Thanks, Barbara