Mr. Z's Grade 4 Class – Remote Learning Update #13

This will be the last Remote Learning Update for this school year. I have a lot of things to cover, so sorry in advance for the length. Please feel free to contact me during the summer if you have any questions. I do check email regularly.

This is Week #13 of remote learning, our last full week of school. The overview of this week’s new work is in the “Remote Learning Week #13 Parent-Caregiver Guide,” available as a PDF file here. Also, this message and all the previous weekly Remote Learning Parent-Caregiver Guides are always available on my class blog at bssroom302.blogspot.com.  

It has been an emotional week for many as people continue to take to the street to speak out about inequality and show their support for those suffering the pain and anguish of persistent and pervasive injustice. So much work needs to be done, but I am heartened to be at a school like Bridge Street where there is an open commitment to self-reflection, learning and working together to fight racism and bigotry. If you are interested in exploring these issues more at home, here is a list of children’s books that can serve as conversation starters. Also, the online library site Epic has created a special collection of books called “Celebrate Black Culture” that I assigned to your student to make them easier to find.    

Report cards and class placements for next year will be mailed out to your home addresses within a day or so of the last day of school, which is June 15. Per school district direction, the report cards for the final trimester will not have marks in the usual subject fields. Instead, I will write a narrative evaluation about your student in the comments section.

As an aside, the online library site Epic informed me that our class has read 287 books for a total of nearly 90 hours since we activated our account in early April. That’s awesome!  I also want to mention that many students have worked really hard on the Happy Numbers math website and have made great progress through the fractions and decimals work I assigned.

Later in this message, I have a list of the online resources like Happy Numbers and Scholastic News that we have been using during the school closure period, with information about their continued availability during the summer, in the event you are interested in having your student continue to work.

Principal Choquette will be in the building 9 am to 3 pm on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of this week, and on Monday June 15, the last day of school, in case you need to pick up anything at the building.

NEW THIS WEEK

* Scholastic News: Civil Rights Movement

In this week’s assignment is an article about the election of Steven Reed, the first African American mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, a focal point of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. In the close reading questions for the article, I ask the students to think about what the events of the past two weeks might say about the current state of civil rights in the U.S.

* Weekly School Zoom Meeting

We will do our regular weekly class Zoom meeting on Tuesday June 9 at 10:00 am. I will post the new meeting link in our Google Classroom “Specials, Talk with Mr. Z and Other Cool Stuff” where the kids can access it on their own. We will have one more Zoom meeting on the last day of school. Invitation for that meeting will follow later. Here is a copy of the Tuesday June 9 meeting link for your convenience:

* Activities for BSS Sock/Jump Rope

Mrs. Flaherty offers a video on how kids can correctly size the jump ropes we delivered last week plus provides some links to fun jump rope activities. The post is in the “Specials, Talk with Mr. Z and Other Cool Stuff” classroom.

*Extra Writing Prompts – Personal Narrative and Information Writing

If you want your student to practice some different writing styles during the summer, I am posting a reusable assignment that has instructions for writing personal narratives and information texts in the “Reading and Writing – Mr. Z” Google Classroom.

OTHER INFO

* Last Tuesday our music teacher Ms.Michaud joined our class zoom call. It was great fun to have her with us. She reminded us that she has been posting weekly music lessons that are accessible via the school district’s Elementary Remote Learning Resources page.  I’ve shared that district page with you before, but here’s the link again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11QIJ6IGTZmxOD6XM6sX55UgAYRX3WwqfcEWvRJeNMN4/edit

So students can have a handy link to Ms. Michaud’s site, I have also created a post called “Weekly Music Lessons with Ms. Michaud” in the Google Classroom “Specials, Talk with Mr. Z, and Other Cool Stuff.” 

* Here is information about the continued free availability of the online learning resources and student accounts we have been using during the school closure period.

Available All Summer

Northampton’s Elementary Remote Learning Resources page

Google Classroom (all the rooms we used in 2019/2020 school year)

Mystery Science

Typing Club

Epic

Available Until June 30

Happy Numbers

Available Until July 31

Scholastic News

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. My phone and text number is (413) 342-1490. Email is jzyskowski@northampton-k12.us