I send warm Holiday Greetings to all of our 4H families! We kept particularly busy on projects this past week in Room 117, which was a good thing, since the rise of energy and excitement became more apparent as the week drew to a close :). After some preparatory lessons in mapping features, our students were finally ready to add those elements to their own large maps of Wisconsin. It provided for some productive and fun class periods during which they could be artistic with color, design, and printing - and at the same time, discover where to locate Wisconsin's major cities, rivers, state parks, even universities, airports, and some campgrounds! We are going to mount these maps in the halllway near our classroom door, so that will add some color to our entrance. Our next lessons will explore the natural landforms of our state, and how the last Ice Age influenced our present geography, with a detour to 'Fantasy Island' along the way (more about that later!).
We spent some time editing the Christmas Stories everyone had written (some students chose to write two stories!). We have some wonderful imaginations in our group, and it is so rewarding to see their growing ability to communicate their ideas with more description and clear story telling. That has been a goal - now on to the mysterious world (for most) of 'paragraphing' those great ideas and descriptions! We also practiced and tested on a list of holiday spelling words this past week - those stories highlighted the need for the proper spelling of 'ornaments' 'decorations' and 'sleigh', etc. We continue to encourage each other to keep reading, and looking out for that next great book, even when we might all be very busy with the other parts of our lives every day.
Math classes this past week involved wrapping up Unit 4, using our new skills with decimal numbers to convert measurements between millimeters, centimeters, and meters. This is a new skill for almost every 4th grader, and we have laid the foundation for future work on this concept in 5th grade. The conversion work is not presented as a required 'secure' skill at this point, but our exposure at this time will pay off with greater understanding the next time it is covered. Our Unit 4 test will be given next week on Tuesday, with Monday being a valuable review day. On Wednesday we will meet with our present groups one last time to discuss the test items.
Other activities this past week included seven preliminary class rounds for the district-wide Geography Bee. I will submit our scores to our GT teacher, Ms. Weber, and she will take the results from all participating students to determine the next step in narrowing down contestants. The kids loved doing these rounds, and I found that to be quite amazing, since the questions were REALLY hard, and I believe most adults would not have done much better with knowing the answers! Whew! Our classmates also wrote out rough drafts for their own short email note to send out to Tyler, our Chinese classmate who moved to Chicago around Thanksgiving time. Tyler has been able to email me and tell us about his new school, and so has become our penpal! This is proving to be a fun and valuable way to practice more writing - and as I have found out - to also practice newly developing keyboarding skills. Our tech teacher, Mrs. Stirn, has recently brought our students to the point where they have been exposed to all the keys and proper finger positioning on the keyboard. Now it is very important that our kids get consistent practice typing and using the proper fingers. If you are able to give your student time to type at home on a consistent basis - even 10 minutes most nights - that would help them develop their speed and accuracy. So many kids at this point have had several years already using computer keyboards with their own ways to find keys, and it makes it more difficult to switch habits to correct positioning. It is frustrating for many of them to adopt the 'new' way to type, but it is very important they keep trying and practicing it correctly. Thanks for your support with this.
Next week will go very fast. We will end the three days with a classroom holiday party the last hour of Wednesday. We have some wonderful moms who are planning some treats and even an art project! Thank you, thank you! On Wednesday, each student will be bringing home to you something special they made this past week - enjoy! I will write again once we gather back together in January. My own family has planned to do something we've never done before at this time of year - we are taking the week after Christmas to escape to Playa del Carmen in Mexico together. My husband and I have three grown daughters and one future son-in-law who all live out of town (two are out of state!), and we never get near enough time to spend with them. So we all managed to clear calendars and plan a getaway together. I am just hoping weather and flights cooperate! Until then, may you all enjoy memorable family time as well, and we can all recharge as we draw close to the midpoint of our year together. Best wishes to all of you! Melanie
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
December 9, 2011 Weekly Update
Dear families, as we get closer to Christmas and it gets colder outside, we have been keeping warm and busy inside Room 117. Our first hour math classes each day just speed by with our current work with decimal numbers. We all hope to be able to finish Unit 4 by the end of next week, tentatively planning the unit test on Monday, December 19th. That gives us a chance to wrap up all our work with these lessons before our Winter Break, and start fresh with Unit 5 upon returning in January.
In social studies, the Wisconsin maps have been unfurled, the dozen brand new globes from our school library have been rotating, and we are digging into our new social studies books to become familiar with landmarks all over the world, and particularly our state of Wisconsin. The concepts of latitude and longitude, equator and prime meridian, map legends, and compass rose directions have given us a chance to literally tour the world with our fingertips, and discussions have been lively. Soon we will be ready to create our own maps, and we can't wait.
We practiced descriptive sentence writing in our study of homonyms for spelling over the last week. That test has been taken, and next week we will have a list of holiday words to practice. Today we began writing some fantasy holiday stories in our continuing quest to become so descriptive that our stories play like movies in our heads. This morning we all attended the annual West Middleton Spelling Bee, and our four representatives (Cecilie, Buddy, Karsey, and Seth) did an outstanding job with some very tricky words. We are so proud of them! This week also included the beginning rounds in our classrooms for the annual Geography Bee as well! After seven preliminary rounds in each classroom, our GT teacher, Ms. Weber, will take everyone's resulting scores, and further narrow down the field of representatives. Stay tuned for more information about this endeavor in January.
Report cards came home today in white envelopes. These envelopes have a 'First Trimester' line where parents can sign, and then one day next week, would you please send these envelopes and report cards back to school? Thank you! It was fun to see many of our families at the Winter Tea on Wednesday. I got some very nice pictures to add to our classroom photo album, and will share copies with you as well. I should add that today was another photo 'opportunity'. In our celebration of taking first place in the West Middleton Box Tops Contest, we will now have some shots of Mrs. Hannam and Mr. Rykal covered in cream pie!! I randomly drew a name from our classroom name container to see who would be the 'pie thrower', and out came "Buddy L" !! He did a thorough job, I must say :), and it was loads of (goopy) fun. Our class also gets to look forward to a complete pizza party, compliments of the WM PTO, in January! Yay for us!!
Planning for our holiday classroom party on Wednesday afternoon, December 21, has begun, thanks to Beth Graf, Mary Hoferle, and Jane MacLean. If you have any ideas for an activity or want to send in a treat to add to the fun, just let one of them know - and many thanks from all of us!! I just cannot believe we are at this point in the school year already! We are working hard, but enjoying what we do together everyday, and the weeks are just flying by! It is such a privilege to work with your fourth graders! Most sincerely, Melanie
In social studies, the Wisconsin maps have been unfurled, the dozen brand new globes from our school library have been rotating, and we are digging into our new social studies books to become familiar with landmarks all over the world, and particularly our state of Wisconsin. The concepts of latitude and longitude, equator and prime meridian, map legends, and compass rose directions have given us a chance to literally tour the world with our fingertips, and discussions have been lively. Soon we will be ready to create our own maps, and we can't wait.
We practiced descriptive sentence writing in our study of homonyms for spelling over the last week. That test has been taken, and next week we will have a list of holiday words to practice. Today we began writing some fantasy holiday stories in our continuing quest to become so descriptive that our stories play like movies in our heads. This morning we all attended the annual West Middleton Spelling Bee, and our four representatives (Cecilie, Buddy, Karsey, and Seth) did an outstanding job with some very tricky words. We are so proud of them! This week also included the beginning rounds in our classrooms for the annual Geography Bee as well! After seven preliminary rounds in each classroom, our GT teacher, Ms. Weber, will take everyone's resulting scores, and further narrow down the field of representatives. Stay tuned for more information about this endeavor in January.
Report cards came home today in white envelopes. These envelopes have a 'First Trimester' line where parents can sign, and then one day next week, would you please send these envelopes and report cards back to school? Thank you! It was fun to see many of our families at the Winter Tea on Wednesday. I got some very nice pictures to add to our classroom photo album, and will share copies with you as well. I should add that today was another photo 'opportunity'. In our celebration of taking first place in the West Middleton Box Tops Contest, we will now have some shots of Mrs. Hannam and Mr. Rykal covered in cream pie!! I randomly drew a name from our classroom name container to see who would be the 'pie thrower', and out came "Buddy L" !! He did a thorough job, I must say :), and it was loads of (goopy) fun. Our class also gets to look forward to a complete pizza party, compliments of the WM PTO, in January! Yay for us!!
Planning for our holiday classroom party on Wednesday afternoon, December 21, has begun, thanks to Beth Graf, Mary Hoferle, and Jane MacLean. If you have any ideas for an activity or want to send in a treat to add to the fun, just let one of them know - and many thanks from all of us!! I just cannot believe we are at this point in the school year already! We are working hard, but enjoying what we do together everyday, and the weeks are just flying by! It is such a privilege to work with your fourth graders! Most sincerely, Melanie
Friday, December 2, 2011
December 2, 2011 Weekly Update
Hello to all our "4H" families! We have had a satisfying week of work and fun. You probably heard about the 'fun' part pretty quickly after school today! We DID take first place in the four week contest to collect the most Box Tops For Education at West Middleton! The kids screamed and danced with excitement when the announcement was made this afternoon. Congratulations to our determined fourth graders who never slowed down in their quest to collect from every friend and relative they could find! I am so glad their efforts can be rewarded - even if it does mean a cream pie in my face next week! It will also mean a cream pie for Mr. Rykal's face, and a pizza party for the whole class. It will be a blast! Thank you to all of you who supported the kids' efforts. This contest coordinated by our PTO will result in some new equipment for our playground - and most likely some fun memories of their teacher and principal covered in cream pie!
We began our week on Monday with a trip for six students from our room (20 4th graders total from WM) and myself to the beautiful new Union South on the UW campus for OM (Odyssey of the Mind) Day Away. It was a day full of sessions where teams of 4th graders needed to team up and cooperate to succeed at tasks that required some thinking 'outside the box' along with good leadership skills and lessons in the value of collaboration. Our students will all get the chance to participate in this program again when they are seventh graders. Mrs. Andler was our guest teacher that day, and our class got started on making posters of all the Wisconsin State Symbols they could find. (There are more than you might think!) By the end of this week, all our students have completed colorful posters which now decorate the hallway near our classroom door. They are now experts at many symbols which identify important features of our state. We also spent an entire hour this week poring over maps of our state, giving each other tours and directions to favorite places all over Wisconsin. What a great way it's been to become more adept at giving and receiving directions (and all without a GPS, thank you!) and in learning where places are in our great state. This is only the beginning of our exploration and desktop travel.
In math, we began Unit 4, which covers decimal numbers - learning their place value, their equivalent fractions, ordering them, adding and subtracting them, estimating their value... We have a solid start. Please ask your student to show you their journals and explain what they are learning. This is a valuable way to reinforce the new lessons they are receiving, and will give purpose to my 'rule' that even if they have completed the assignments in school that day, they must bring home their workbooks so that they can demonstrate to you the new concepts. I believe this will give the clear message that this is important work for them, and that we all care that they do their best. Remember that you can check the Homework Page on our classroom blog for daily updates on homework assignments and all other reminders. Speaking of our blog site, did you catch the Electricity Experiment Video clip on the main page that I posted last week? I love how the students were so engaged and focused on their 'research'. They looked like serious scientists!
In Literacy, we have been practicing a list of 20 homonyms that I've collected after reading through writing journals the past several weeks. These lists should all be located within their take-home folders so it is accessible both at home and at school to practice. We will have a spelling test on these words next week on Wednesday. We have also begun short silent reading sessions with each student's current chapter book, and then writing several sentences to share with the class about 'what just happened'. It is giving us more writing experience, practice with comprehension skills, and also a great way to book share and give ideas to the rest of us for the next good book we want to read.
Looking ahead, next Wednesday from 12:35 to 1:00 pm, we would love to meet all of you in our West Middleton Winter Wonderland - the multipurpose room - for our annual Winter Tea. it will be a nice way to share some goodies, have some visiting time with each other, and take some pictures together, too. The PTO always decorates the room beautifully, and there will be live holiday music from MHS orchestra students. We all hope you can come! Another note: The first trimester report cards will go home on Friday, December 9th. Please sign the envelope and return them the next week. Thank you!
Wednesday, December 21, it will be our last day of school before Winter Break. Our class would like to celebrate the holiday and each other with a little party, beginning at 2:00 pm. If you are able to help out with providing a treat, planning an activity (game or small art project), or just being there to give a hand, we would love that! We have one volunteer to help out already, Mary Hoferle. Would you let me know how you can add to the festivities, if possible? Thanks so very much!
I will see many of you next week! Melanie Hannam
We began our week on Monday with a trip for six students from our room (20 4th graders total from WM) and myself to the beautiful new Union South on the UW campus for OM (Odyssey of the Mind) Day Away. It was a day full of sessions where teams of 4th graders needed to team up and cooperate to succeed at tasks that required some thinking 'outside the box' along with good leadership skills and lessons in the value of collaboration. Our students will all get the chance to participate in this program again when they are seventh graders. Mrs. Andler was our guest teacher that day, and our class got started on making posters of all the Wisconsin State Symbols they could find. (There are more than you might think!) By the end of this week, all our students have completed colorful posters which now decorate the hallway near our classroom door. They are now experts at many symbols which identify important features of our state. We also spent an entire hour this week poring over maps of our state, giving each other tours and directions to favorite places all over Wisconsin. What a great way it's been to become more adept at giving and receiving directions (and all without a GPS, thank you!) and in learning where places are in our great state. This is only the beginning of our exploration and desktop travel.
In math, we began Unit 4, which covers decimal numbers - learning their place value, their equivalent fractions, ordering them, adding and subtracting them, estimating their value... We have a solid start. Please ask your student to show you their journals and explain what they are learning. This is a valuable way to reinforce the new lessons they are receiving, and will give purpose to my 'rule' that even if they have completed the assignments in school that day, they must bring home their workbooks so that they can demonstrate to you the new concepts. I believe this will give the clear message that this is important work for them, and that we all care that they do their best. Remember that you can check the Homework Page on our classroom blog for daily updates on homework assignments and all other reminders. Speaking of our blog site, did you catch the Electricity Experiment Video clip on the main page that I posted last week? I love how the students were so engaged and focused on their 'research'. They looked like serious scientists!
In Literacy, we have been practicing a list of 20 homonyms that I've collected after reading through writing journals the past several weeks. These lists should all be located within their take-home folders so it is accessible both at home and at school to practice. We will have a spelling test on these words next week on Wednesday. We have also begun short silent reading sessions with each student's current chapter book, and then writing several sentences to share with the class about 'what just happened'. It is giving us more writing experience, practice with comprehension skills, and also a great way to book share and give ideas to the rest of us for the next good book we want to read.
Looking ahead, next Wednesday from 12:35 to 1:00 pm, we would love to meet all of you in our West Middleton Winter Wonderland - the multipurpose room - for our annual Winter Tea. it will be a nice way to share some goodies, have some visiting time with each other, and take some pictures together, too. The PTO always decorates the room beautifully, and there will be live holiday music from MHS orchestra students. We all hope you can come! Another note: The first trimester report cards will go home on Friday, December 9th. Please sign the envelope and return them the next week. Thank you!
Wednesday, December 21, it will be our last day of school before Winter Break. Our class would like to celebrate the holiday and each other with a little party, beginning at 2:00 pm. If you are able to help out with providing a treat, planning an activity (game or small art project), or just being there to give a hand, we would love that! We have one volunteer to help out already, Mary Hoferle. Would you let me know how you can add to the festivities, if possible? Thanks so very much!
I will see many of you next week! Melanie Hannam
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