Fourth & Fifth Grade: January 8 - 12, 2024

Dear Fourth and Fifth Grade Families,

This second semester of the school year, our class will concentrate on Ancient Civilizations. Ancient Greece is an overarching theme for our class. As an introduction to the Ancient Civilizations, the students took a week to study the gods who reside on Mount Olympus alongside Zeus and Hera. After hearing stories about the gods, the students wrote an overview of them, which included their different attributes and symbols in their main lesson books. In addition, the class learned to write the Greek Alphabet with their new fountain pens and how to write their names with Greek letters. After the introduction to Ancient Greece, the students are now going back in time to study Ancient Mesopotamia. They will then work through time until they circle back to Ancient Greece. The fifth-grade students will continue to learn more about Ancient Greece throughout the semester, as they will participate in the Waldorf SouthEast Pentathlon with eight other Waldorf schools this spring! 

In our daily math practice, the class started working on the Key to Fractions Workbook 2, which will go deeper into multiplication and division of fractions. So far, the students have been looking at the greatest common factors of fractions to determine how to write a fraction in its simplest form. While many concepts are being taught to the class as a whole, the students work on their workbooks at their own pace. 

In Handwork, the students have been busy sewing their animals for the Chinese puppet play. They are writing the play themselves in Mandarin class and will perform it using their hand-sewn puppets for the grades classes in February.

I am looking forward to meeting you tomorrow at the Parent Night. We will discuss the semester ahead and the school auction. Parents of our fifth-grade students should plan to stay a bit longer as we will discuss more details regarding the Pentathlon. 

Announcements and Reminders:

  • Please remember winter coats and two water bottles are required daily.

  • Please join us on Wednesday evening from 6:00 - 7:00 pm for an overview of the Spring semester. Additionally, we will brainstorm together for an idea for our class auction project!

Upcoming Events:

  • 1/16 Early Childhood Curriculum Night (via Zoom) 6:00 p.m. 

  • First Grade Risers Informational meeting - TBD

  • 1/17 Grades Curriculum Night (on campus) 6:00 p.m.

  • 2/3 Community Work Day 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

  • 2/3 All School Meeting 12:30 p.m.

 Warm regards,

Gaby