Dear GRAIS Families,
We had a busy week at GRAIS. The boys and girls are to be commended for settling right back into the routines of the school day following our week off.
Upcoming Book Fair:
The PTO will be holding another Scholastic Book Fair starting tomorrow. This book fair will feature a BOGO offer.
Nature's Classroom:
The final paperwork and balance information was sent home to pre-registered students’ families this week. ALL paperwork and payments are due Friday, May 24. If you have any questions, please email Stacey Snyder at ssnyder@freelake.org. You may also visit www.naturesclassroom.org. Our students will be attending the Hilltop location in Charlton, MA.
From the Gymnasium:
As we head towards winding down the year, we will move into our personal health and hygiene unit. In addition, we will be finishing up team games and introducing pillo polo, floor hockey, and lacrosse between grades four and five,focusing on team play and fundamental striking skills. Students will also be completing their spring fitness challenge in hopes of making some improvements from winter! Finally, we will prepare ourselves for the annual end of the year SURVIVOR DAY festivities to be held Friday, June 14th!
From the Music Room:
Fourth and fifth grade students are finishing up our musician of the month, 21 Pilots. They are an amazing American music duo with positive messages for people of all ages. Fourth grade students are working on recorder fundamentals and beginning a project of their own on artists of their choosing. Fifth grade students are finishing up their music units and will work on their own songs next week.
From the Art Room:
Fourth graders have been working hard practicing writing their names in cursive and are finishing up an artwork featuring their names. Looking ahead, they have projects such as character designing and weaving. Fifth graders viewed the geometric artwork of Al Held and Sol Lewitt and have been practicing drawing three dimensional looking shapes for their own art. Learning how to draw the illusion of three dimensional form is a great starting point and practice for drawing realistically. Looking ahead, fifth graders still have some much-anticipated projects on the horizon including creating ceramic mugs and cardboard tube chairs.
From the Library:
Students have been learning all about using the Google Sheets app. First they learned about cells, rows and columns and basic formatting by creating vocabulary lists and study guides, civil rights leaders in fifth grade and explorers in fourth grade. Then they created simple budgets to learn about using formulas to add and subtract in the spreadsheets. Finally, they used the spreadsheets to create games, such as Battleship, Connect 4 and Dots and Boxes. This month we will be focusing on poetry and the Tournament of Books Reading Challenge will come to an end on May 10th.
Grade Four ELA and Social Studies
In ELA, we are working to increase our students' love of reading while building stamina through an end of year novel study! Social studie classes are concluding their study of the regions of the United States and moving on to our neighbor to the north, Canada.
Grade Four Math and Science:
Fourth graders are working on finishing up our fractions unit and relating fractions to decimals. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts often show up during our fraction unit so continue to practice those facts. In science, we are starting a new unit on natural processes by exploring the natural process and ways to reduce impact.
Grade Five ELA and Social Studies:
In ELA, fifth graders are doing one last novel study before the end of the school year. During this novel study students will be reading closely in order to understand how characters change over time. They will also be exploring themes throughout the novel. In social studies, fifth graders continue to learn about the Constitution of the United States. This unit helps students engage in important discussions about the importance of local governments here in our community too.
Grade Five Math and Science:
In fifth grade math and science, we are working hard to prepare for our upcoming MCAS assessments. Students are learning to describe and complete number patterns, compare terms in patterns, and graph terms as ordered pairs on a coordinate plane. We are also extending students’ prior knowledge about perimeter and area to find the volumes of rectangular prisms and of 3D figures made from rectangular prisms (for example, two boxes stuck together in an “L” shape). Students are learning that the volume of a rectangular prism can be found by multiplying length x width x height or by multiplying the area of the base x height. In science, students are learning about the water cycle, the amount and locations of freshwater and saltwater on Earth, and how humans impact their environment.
The Counselors’ Corner:
With MCAS season upon us, some of our students may have some anxious feelings. There are a couple of quick skills that students can practice that may ease some of those feelings. The first is called five-finger breathing and the second is grounding, or using your senses to focus on the environment around you. Both work best when they are practiced regularly, in addition to times of feeling worried or stressed. Here are a couple of graphics that show how each work:
A Message from Mrs. Burke in the Nurse’s Suite:
While having outdoor fun this spring, please encourage the children to be safe by wearing a helmet while riding bikes, skateboards, and scooters. Your child’s helmet should fit properly and be:
Well maintained
Age appropriate
Worn consistently and correctly
Appropriately certified for use
https://www.cdc.gov/headsup/helmets/index.html
Also, please note that poison ivy, oak, and sumac contain oil causing an allergic skin reaction that looks like swollen itchy red bumps and blisters appearing wherever the oil has touched the skin. Check around your home and teach your kids to recognize and avoid it. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/outsmarting-poison-ivy-and-other-poisonous-plants
Stinging insects are back! If you or your child is stung, remove the stinger as soon as possible with a scraping motion. Wash with soap and water and apply a cold compress. If there is any trouble breathing noted, severe swelling, or fainting occurs, call 911 right away!
Ticks are often a problem in our area – use tweezers or fingers to grasp as close to the head as possible and pull the tick away from where it is attached. Call the pediatrician for symptoms of a rash or fever. See this link on tick removal: :https://www.aad.org/public/everyday-care/injured-skin/bites/remove-a-tick.
Dates to Remember:
Scholastic Book Fair – April 29th through May 3rd
PTO’s Teacher Appreciation — May 6th - 10th
No School – May 27th
Grade Five Math MCAS – May 13th & 14th
Grade Four Math MCAS – May 15th & 16th
GRAIS Band and Chorus — May 16th at FLMS
Grade Five Science MCAS – May 20th & 21st
Nature’s Classroom — June 4th - 7th
Survivor Day – June 14th
Projected Last Day of School – June 20th (11:30 a.m. Dismissal)
Kindly,
Dr. Sullivan
508.923.3506 x 3150/esullivan@freelake.org