Dear Families,
We have reached the last week of school, and I can't believe it. We held our last all-school assembly this morning, using that chance to gather our West Middleton family together to honor Mr. Rykal as he begins his retirement with the end of the school year. Yearbooks will be given out during the coming week, and we will all write each other one last fourth grade note. You will see various folders and projects coming home throughout the week, so that by Friday June 8th, all gear, supplies, and papers should have found their way home. Report cards will come home Friday as well. Thankfully, the best thing of all won't end with that last class period on June 8th, and that will be all the hundreds of precious memories we have created together in our Room 117 Community. The friendships, the shared triumphs, the hard work, the laughs, the projects, the new knowledge and that joy of discovery... we will always have those. I know I will always remember this special group with great fondness, and what a most wonderful year it has been. Thank you for trusting me with your children - it has been my pleasure! Oh, I will surely miss them this summer!
We have been presenting our State Reports/Posters all week, and how we have all learned from each other. The students uncovered and displayed so many interesting facts about their states! I sat and learned right along with everyone else. To 'sweeten' the whole endeavor, several of our students brought along delicious 'props' to enhance their presentations - and wow! - we got spoiled this week! Thank you to the Lindbloms for Cecilie's New York Cheesecake (with three kinds of fresh berries), to the Lynch's for Buddy's Arizona Chocolate Chip Cookies, to the Deptula's for Cole's North Carolina Krispie Kreme Doughnuts (these were invented there, you know!), to Katie Joslyn for showering us with our own Mardi Gras beads from New Orleans, Louisiana, and finally, to the Hipwell's for Noah's Smith Island (Maryland) Seven Layer Cake! Oh, my! Our study of the United States has become quite fattening! We have more reports to share yet in the coming week.
We have just about completed the last unit of our Everyday Math curriculum, which has been all about rates and averages, and conversions between units of measure. We will spend several class periods during our last week reviewing the main concepts from the year, which we all hope no one EVER forgets! That review will take the form of a friendly multi-day contest, which makes it more fun. Also, remember that the yellow math folders coming home will contain every unit test from the year, and these provide a nice overview of the skills we covered, which would be good practice for warmups before starting 5th grade. I will also send home each student's set of two math journals, which give more examples for practice.
When you see your student's Language Binder come home next week with all their writing projects collected, take a look at the front pages. During the first week of school, they each filled out a couple of "time capsule" lists of their current preferences and opinions. They will get a chance to fill these out again in their last week, and have fun comparing where they have changed - or not! They haven't seen the September questionnaires since they filled them out. It will be interesting. Both sets of pages will be put into the front of their Binders.
We picked the chilliest day of this past week to go touring outside at Little Norway and the Cave of the Mounds, but we didn't get rained on, and we kept moving, so that helped. It was a great day. Little Norway is so beautifully landscaped, with buildings and artifacts so carefully preserved, and the guides explained the history of this settlement so clearly. The presentations of the guides at the Cave were also very thorough, and our students proudly proved themselves as they knew how to answer most every question about rocks and minerals. The hike through the amazing cave was the highlight of the day. This would surely be worth a family trip this summer. The guides were so full of information and there was just so much to take in, as I'm sure you heard, we ended up coming back a few minutes late to school, and EVERYONE had to wait for us! Yikes! (We tried a story about how a giant stalactite broke loose in front of the cave entrance, trapping us all inside, but that didn't fly, for some reason...) :) I want to send a very big THANK YOU to the parents who took the whole day to join us and help keep track of everyone: John Pertzborn-Jensen, Laura Lynch, Josephine, Renee Dahlk, Beth Graf, Tiffany Jones, and Tammy Bursac.
I hope I may have a chance to see some of you before we begin our summer vacations, and we can always email. I check email throughout the summer, so if anyone - parents and kids - want to write any notes, I will find them promptly and answer back. This will probably be my last weekly update, but if any other information needs to be shared, I will be in touch again. It's hard to say goodbye, but I expect to get many visitors from 5th grade next year - hint, hint! Best wishes for a wonderful summertime for all! Melanie
