May News from Grade 4 The end of the year is near. May, the last full month of the year, is here and summer is right around the corner! LANGUAGE ARTS     In Writers’ Workshop, our current unit on Literary Essays is drawing to a close. The students all managed to craft a thesis statement and then collect material from their chosen story to support their claim.  They will be celebrating their essays at the beginning of May. The final writing unit for this year will be writing a Memoir, a narrative dealing with a specific period or incident in their life. We will be giving the second DRA of the year starting the week of May 2nd. The DRA is a developmental reading assessment that helps to identify a student’s reading achievement through systematic observation, recording and evaluation of performance. With this May evaluation, the analysis of the data will also be given to the student’s next teacher to provide effective reading instruction from the start of the year. 4K is in the process of finishing off a biography unit with the biography speeches taking place early May. 4W will have finished reading and reflecting on their “Classics” books.  All the 4th Grade students will be free to choose the genre of book they read during independent reading time, for the last few weeks of the year. 4M continues to read Little House on the Prairie together as a novel study. The students’ reading responses will be expressed in the form of a diary, written in the first person. Vocabulary taken from the text will be the words we study as we move through the unit. SOCIAL STUDIES      In social studies we have just completed our unit “People in our World”. For those of you who were able to make it Wednesday, you will have seen our cultural display of nations. A big congratulations to the students who put in hard work for this project that tied together much of what we had learned. Of course, the next time you’re in Botswana it will be invaluable to know that “pula” means “rain”. Think of all the things we adults have learned in Grade 4…  SCIENCE      In science, we are beginning our study of human body systems. Actually, it’s not just the human body. To aid in our study, our investigations will explore mouse skeletons (within owl pellets) and chicken muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones (found in the wings). We will focus on our body systems and also touch on ways we can keep them healthy. This unit will progress through the skele tal, muscular, digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems. An added benefit: if you want to save money on doctor visits, your child should soon be able to diagnose most family ailments. MATH Our next unit, Unit 11, begins with a review of weight that leads into a discussion of the relationship between weight and capacity. Students will review properties of geometric solids and explore concepts and units of volume. Subtraction of negative and positive numbers will also be introduced in Unit 11. All three classes should be just finishing up with this unit around May 20th. Unit 11, which has only seven lessons before the test, has four main areas of focus: To review grams and ounces as units of weight, To identify geometric solids, given their capacities, To review concepts and units of capacity and volume, and To introduce subtraction involving positive and negative The end of May will find all three classes beginning our final unit, Unit 12, Rates. This unit includes only seven lessons before the test. In Unit 12, students focus on rates. The use of rates is prevalent in the everyday world. The ability to handle rate, ratio, and proportion problems with ease is an indication of good “number sense” and “measurement sense”. Everyday Mathematics takes the position that the key to understanding rates is repeated exposure to their many uses in everyday life. Unit 12 has three main focus areas: To introduce rates and provide practice collecting and comparing rate data, To provide practice solving rate problems, to provide practice comparing unit prices and identifying information needed for comparison shopping, and To reflect on this year’s World Tour experiences and progress on 50- facts tests.  Tech News for May The fourth grade students are finishing their viper movie and now the voting begins. The students in one class will vote on the movies in the two other classes. They are voting for Best Story, Best Artwork, and Best Narration and Sound Effects. The movies will be put on the ES website for parents to view by mid May. For the remainder of the month the students will be using the ACS website to find links to use during the summer to review skills for language arts, math and typing. Mrs. Willis Technology Integrator Art 4th grade Lizards: This project is a fun one because it’s all about camouflaging a lizard on your shirt. The students practiced various styles of designs and patterns. They imagined seeing their shirt hanging in a store. Would they want to buy this shirt? Using lots of color we could hide the lizard somewhere in the design. From a distance the shirt looks like a nice design, but as you look closer you notice the lizard.  Ms. Staley Arabic Language for Native Speakers Assalmu Alaikum.. It’s May already. We will continue working in the second part of the book and hope to cover all of it by the end of May.  In these lessons, the focus will be on the types of verb, pronouns, pointing nouns, correlation nouns, rhyming words, acquiring more vocabulary words, reinforcing word structure (nouns, verbs and adjectives), forming verbal clauses as well as writing short paragraphs. Kindly encourage your kids to work more independently in their workbooks and provide assistance whenever needed. Arabic Language and Culture for Non-Native Speakers  In May and June students will learn more common Arabic greetings.        We will continue learning more letters Na, Ha, Wa, Ya with simple words related to each letter in "Arabic Alphabet book". Students will also continue the unit of "Places" in both the Arabic text book (I Love Arabic),  and the Arabic exercise book learning how to form simple sentences, ask and answer questions related to the assigned unit.                                          As for culture , students will work on their Phoenicians Alphabet project. Ms. Fadia, Mrs. Mina, and  Ms. Maha PE     April has come and gone and the fourth graders are almost done with their first month of our swimming unit.  I along with two other swimming instructors (Ms. Tanya and Ms. Nadia) have been working with your sons and/or daughters teaching American Red Cross swim lessons.  The swim lessons have brought a nice change of pace from being in the gym or outside on the fields, and the students definately seem to be enjoying themselves.  Along with the swimming instruction, students are also learning what it means to be safe in and out of the water, as well as healthy tips when outside in the sun.  I would just like to remind parents or guardians to remember to please make sure your son and/or daughter has everything they need when they come to class (i.e., swimsuit, goggles, swim cap, towel, and bag to carry everything in). Mr. Schwamberger In May we will review songs we have learned this year and prepare a small in-class presentation for parents to show you some of the things we have been learning this year in music. We will also include something from our recorder unit and our Jazz unit. Our presentation will be May 17, 18 or 19th during your child's music class time in the ES Music Room. We hope you can join us! Recorders: Our recorder unit will end on May 13th. From now until then, students will work towards completing their recorder prectice bug and the pages included in their packets. We will have some in-class written exercises and students will practice writing music of their own. The unit ends with both a written exam and a playing test. There is a rubric in each student's packet for the playing exam. We will practice for this in class. Recorder Club: Meets on Sundays and Mondays during lunch recess and after school from 3:15-3:45. Students who need extra help or students who need to make up a Zero grade for daily points are welcome to attend. Recorder Karate: Will run from Sunday, May 16-Thursday June 03. This is a game and a friendly competition among students to continue to improve their recorder playing skills. Students are NOT required to participate. Interested students will receive a Recorder Karate packet from me beginning on Sunday, May 16. Students ready to earn a Karate belt can sign up for a time to test with me outside the ES Music Room. As students earn a belt they will receive a piece of yarn to match the belt color they have earned to put on their recorder. Belts will also be displayed in the ES Music room on the bulletin boards. Those who earn black belts will be recognized at at special gong ceremony at the assembly in June. Seminar Day: Our last Seminar Day of the year will be May 25, 26, or 27 during your child's music class on the day he/she presents. I am confirming with students this week who will present and will send the final list next week. Parents are of course welcome to attend but this is not a requirement. Student Recitals: Do you have a student who takes music lessons and is looking for a performance venue? Did your student have a music-related goal this year to present? If so, we will be having 2 student music recitals in May for children who are taking private lessons or have a music-related goal. They will be held on Wednesday, May 19 and on Wednesday, May 26 from 3:30-4:30 pm in the ES Multipurpose Room. A sign-up sheet will be available outside the music room starting Sunday, May 02. Students may sign up to perform on 1 recital. There will not be auditions but students and parents will need to fill out a form letting us know what piece will be performed, the composer and the performance length. There are a lot of ARTS events happening in school and in Abu Dhabi before the end of the year with some great opportunities for your children to attend. A few of note are: Wed    May 05-May 08    Disney's Beauty and the Beast Fri    May 14        Dame Evelyn Glennie - Percussionist    Beauty and the Beast will feature a lot of people from the ACS community from students to parents as well as ACS staff members. Our very own Katie Pritz (Mother of Eli &Joy Pritz) will be performing the lead as Belle. Mr. Pavlos (HS Drama) is Gaston, Ms. Banu (Ms. Mary's assistant), Ms. Salminen (ES Librarian) and myself will be playing cello, oboe and flute in the orchestra. There are 6 performances including 2 afternoon matinees and ACS receives a discount on tickets! Tickets will be on sale every day after school in the middle school courtyard until next Monday. Evelyn Glennie is a musician we have studied in class this year and she will be coming to Abu Dhabi. Evelyn Glennie is not only the first female percussionist to make a solo playing career for herself but she herself is also 90% deaf. Tickets are available for children and adults ages 3 and up. Child tickets are only Dhs. 30.00. Visit www.abudhabiclassics.com for more details.