Hello, dear families, we have had a much healthier week than the previous week - in fact, pretty much perfect attendance! We worked hard to catch everyone up on our work and to keep going on our subjects. I felt moved to tell our students by the last hour on Friday that they should feel proud of how much they had done - the many pages read (several of our kids are really into their books!), the many lines written for their fictional stories, and the new math all groups have begun with the start of new units occuring for everyone this week. For our 4th grade math students, the big focus in this unit is learning the steps in long division problems, and we will be devoting extra time both in school and for homework to get in additional practice as we add steps each day.
In social studies we are winding up our study of Wisconsin regions, and with an eye toward our upcoming field trip, we want to explore our state's earliest people and settlers, along with some background on our government and capitol. We want to be prepared to understand and fully appreciate what we will see on (take note!) Friday, February 22nd, when all of our 4th grade classes will tour the Capitol building and also the Wisconsin Historical Museum. Very soon you will have a permission slip to fill out for this trip, and a chance to come along to chaperone -so think about it!
We said goodbye to our practicum student, Ms. Engel, on Friday, since it is time for her to return to college to continue her education classes. She quickly became a part of our 4H family over the past three weeks, and helped every single one of us in many supportive ways with our work. She got a thorough immersion into life in a 4th grade classroom, and we have another friend to add to our 4th grade memories. With one friend leaving us, I must not neglect any longer to introduce you to a new classmate who joined us this month. We have welcomed a new student into our room, Yessenia. It has been heartwarming to watch how kind and friendly our students have been to help her feel at home and comfortable in a new school and new group of classmates. We are now a class of 25!
As of the end of this week, we are now at the official halfway point of our school year! Along with academic progress, we are also focusing strongly in all of our fourth grade rooms on self control, respect for teachers and classmates, listening skills, and making sure we work to the BEST of our abilities. I will venture to say that these four areas go farther in developing a successful school year and career more than anything else. Please talk over what these behaviors mean to your student. There is much room for improvement, and as we get into the second half of our year, we expect to see some real growth. Thank you. Melanie Hannam
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
January 18, 2013 Weekly Update
Greetings to our 4H Families! What a different kind of week we have had! That flu virus certainly must be highly contagious - we were missing a full third of our students in Room 117 for three days in a row! By Friday, we still had one friend out ill, with everyone else making it back in varying stages of recovery, but with smiles all around - we are all glad to get most everyone back together, and hopefully over the worst of this 'storm'. We have gone through our room daily with Clorox wipes in hopes this will help - thank you to those who donated more of these containers to our room! We will keep up the extra wiping for awhile yet!
We tried our best to walk the fine line between progressing with our lessons, but not going so far that it would be overly difficult for our missing friends to catch up. We did an extra review in math today to make sure all felt ready for the Unit 5 Test, which will take place Tuesday. Fifth grade students will also be taking their unit test on Tuesday. The 4th graders should have their unit review sheets in their take home folders, and I encouraged them to use sample problems from those to refresh memories before coming back to school next Tuesday. Multiplying with two digit numbers and rounding off numbers in the hundreds and thousands are a big part of the 4th grade test.
We took several of our literacy class times this week to practice writing Haiku poetry, with the goal of identifying two best poems each student can submit to the Dane County Contest. I am so amazed and impressed with the creative writing our students produced - wow! Many of them really got the idea quickly, and enjoyed doing these - I think I may post some of their Haiku on our blog next week to give you a peek at their clever 'wordsmithing'. All poetry attempts are being saved to each student's writing binders. More work on writing this week included each student developing a complete fictional character in preparation for writing a realistic fictional story. They turned their lists of attributes into descriptive paragraphs, and we had lots of fun today sharing these new characters with the class.
We have had to stretch out our timetable for our current spelling list due to all our absences, but we hope that we will all be ready for the final test on these 21 words next week on Wednesday. All students should have their master lists in their take home folders, and these words need some time and attention before next Wednesday! Thanks for helping by giving some practice quizzing.
I wish all of you good health in the coming days as we are hopefully moving out of the worst of this flu season. Maybe an extra day's rest on Monday for many is well timed to get over coughs and headaches, etc. Sincerely, Melanie Hannam
We tried our best to walk the fine line between progressing with our lessons, but not going so far that it would be overly difficult for our missing friends to catch up. We did an extra review in math today to make sure all felt ready for the Unit 5 Test, which will take place Tuesday. Fifth grade students will also be taking their unit test on Tuesday. The 4th graders should have their unit review sheets in their take home folders, and I encouraged them to use sample problems from those to refresh memories before coming back to school next Tuesday. Multiplying with two digit numbers and rounding off numbers in the hundreds and thousands are a big part of the 4th grade test.
We took several of our literacy class times this week to practice writing Haiku poetry, with the goal of identifying two best poems each student can submit to the Dane County Contest. I am so amazed and impressed with the creative writing our students produced - wow! Many of them really got the idea quickly, and enjoyed doing these - I think I may post some of their Haiku on our blog next week to give you a peek at their clever 'wordsmithing'. All poetry attempts are being saved to each student's writing binders. More work on writing this week included each student developing a complete fictional character in preparation for writing a realistic fictional story. They turned their lists of attributes into descriptive paragraphs, and we had lots of fun today sharing these new characters with the class.
We have had to stretch out our timetable for our current spelling list due to all our absences, but we hope that we will all be ready for the final test on these 21 words next week on Wednesday. All students should have their master lists in their take home folders, and these words need some time and attention before next Wednesday! Thanks for helping by giving some practice quizzing.
I wish all of you good health in the coming days as we are hopefully moving out of the worst of this flu season. Maybe an extra day's rest on Monday for many is well timed to get over coughs and headaches, etc. Sincerely, Melanie Hannam
Sunday, January 13, 2013
January 11, 2013 Weekly Update
Hello to all of our 4H families! We had a full 5 day week back at school, and we were able to accomplish a lot in Room 117. Our students hung in there during two trips to the computer lab to complete their second of the three MAPS testing sessions for the year in Reading and Math. The new data will tell us details about progress in their learning goals, according to this one measure. Another day, I was also able to meet with a number of our students to administer a Rigby reading record, which tells me updated info on their reading level.
In addition, back inside our classroom, we are working hard to become proficient at multiplying two and three digit numbers. After presenting partial-products and lattice methods as alternative ways to multiply larger numbers, we are concentrating on the traditional method from here on out. The curriculum in future years does not require students to use these alternative methods, and if it works best for some, those methods are always available. We find out that the traditional method, in most cases, is the simplest and quickest way to come to our correct answers. This news should come as a relief to parents who want to help their child practice multi-digit problems! We have three remaining lessons in Unit 5, so by the end of the coming week, we should be in "review" mode, and please stay tuned for the exact date of our next Unit Test. Also, you should have found an envelope Friday in your 4th grade math student's Take Home Folder, which reports the current level of progress your child has made in mastering his/her basic facts. Some of our kids really do need to make some extra practice a regular part of their homework routine if they expect to make satisfactory progress!
Our literacy classes have been very satisfying and exciting for me as a teacher. This past week, I witnessed again the power of brainstorming and collective thinking and group discussion. Our very own students have come up with numerous inspired ideas together, and we are so proud of the lists we have created together. These lists are now written into our brand new Fiction Writing Notebooks, and will help us with ideas for coming up with creative story themes and deeper character development within those stories. This has been really fun. We are learning to create believable characters with personalities that match the story theme and setting, and this coming week we will use that information to realistically create the problem, conflict, or challenge facing each of our characters. What a wonderful and solid way this is proving to be in building our story writing skills.
The new spelling list given early this past week should be 'living' in each student's student's take home folder, and these words should be reviewed each day. The final test for this list of 20 (plus a bonus!) will be coming up later in the next week. Some students are not taking the time and effort they require to master these useful words. The words for each of our spelling lists come directly from the writing that our own students do - I take notes on frequently used words written by our fourth graders that I notice get misspelled, and it is these words that end up on our lists.
We will take some of our literacy time this week to dip into the art of writing Haiku poetry. Every year at this time, most of the 4th graders in all of Dane County have the oppportunity to submit their original Haiku in a contest. So we will all give it our best try! It is amazing to see what beautiful thoughts and descriptions our students can create, and some really get into it, creating several pages of them. Try it yourselves, parents! Haiku are comprised of three lines: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables, and usually describe topics in nature and/or relationships. Watch for some drafts to come home, and maybe you can all sit together to create some one evening!
I end this update with a request. We are trying very hard during this month in particular, to keep our room clean and as a germ-free as possible. We have run out of disinfecting wipes, and they are so handy to run over desks tops and other well used surfaces in the classroom. When you are out shopping next, would you keep Room 117 in mind and pick up a container for your student to deliver to school? Thank you so much!! May you all continue this winter to stay healthy and warm. Till next note, Melanie Hannam
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In addition, back inside our classroom, we are working hard to become proficient at multiplying two and three digit numbers. After presenting partial-products and lattice methods as alternative ways to multiply larger numbers, we are concentrating on the traditional method from here on out. The curriculum in future years does not require students to use these alternative methods, and if it works best for some, those methods are always available. We find out that the traditional method, in most cases, is the simplest and quickest way to come to our correct answers. This news should come as a relief to parents who want to help their child practice multi-digit problems! We have three remaining lessons in Unit 5, so by the end of the coming week, we should be in "review" mode, and please stay tuned for the exact date of our next Unit Test. Also, you should have found an envelope Friday in your 4th grade math student's Take Home Folder, which reports the current level of progress your child has made in mastering his/her basic facts. Some of our kids really do need to make some extra practice a regular part of their homework routine if they expect to make satisfactory progress!
Our literacy classes have been very satisfying and exciting for me as a teacher. This past week, I witnessed again the power of brainstorming and collective thinking and group discussion. Our very own students have come up with numerous inspired ideas together, and we are so proud of the lists we have created together. These lists are now written into our brand new Fiction Writing Notebooks, and will help us with ideas for coming up with creative story themes and deeper character development within those stories. This has been really fun. We are learning to create believable characters with personalities that match the story theme and setting, and this coming week we will use that information to realistically create the problem, conflict, or challenge facing each of our characters. What a wonderful and solid way this is proving to be in building our story writing skills.
The new spelling list given early this past week should be 'living' in each student's student's take home folder, and these words should be reviewed each day. The final test for this list of 20 (plus a bonus!) will be coming up later in the next week. Some students are not taking the time and effort they require to master these useful words. The words for each of our spelling lists come directly from the writing that our own students do - I take notes on frequently used words written by our fourth graders that I notice get misspelled, and it is these words that end up on our lists.
We will take some of our literacy time this week to dip into the art of writing Haiku poetry. Every year at this time, most of the 4th graders in all of Dane County have the oppportunity to submit their original Haiku in a contest. So we will all give it our best try! It is amazing to see what beautiful thoughts and descriptions our students can create, and some really get into it, creating several pages of them. Try it yourselves, parents! Haiku are comprised of three lines: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables, and usually describe topics in nature and/or relationships. Watch for some drafts to come home, and maybe you can all sit together to create some one evening!
I end this update with a request. We are trying very hard during this month in particular, to keep our room clean and as a germ-free as possible. We have run out of disinfecting wipes, and they are so handy to run over desks tops and other well used surfaces in the classroom. When you are out shopping next, would you keep Room 117 in mind and pick up a container for your student to deliver to school? Thank you so much!! May you all continue this winter to stay healthy and warm. Till next note, Melanie Hannam
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Friday, January 4, 2013
January 4, 2013 Weekly Update
Happy New Year to you all! It's been nice to have three days this week to ease back into our routine, and get warmed up again. It felt like we were away longer than two weeks. Everyone in the classroom has been pretty mellow, and all seem happy to be back together again. Our class discussed the fact that we didn't get our classroom Holiday/Winter Party which was to be held the last hour before Break, and we came to an agreement on a new plan. We are going to work toward earning ourselves a special day of favorite activities on the last day of January. We will make a list and a schedule for our day, and successfully following our PBIS good behavior rules will get us what we want to do. We will keep you posted on our progress, and if we might need a little help with a special treat to go along with our possible books and games that day. (By the way, I want to send many thanks to the parents who volunteered and began planning our winter Holiday party. Perhaps we can modify some of those plans for a Valentine's Day party...!)
We have jumped right into where we left off in math class. We are working on rounding off numbers and estimating answers, and next week we move into multi-digit multiplication. If any of our students are still struggling with knowing their basic facts, that will add an extra challenge for them. Ten to fifteen minutes each night practicing facts is still a very good idea!
I am very happy to see that our students continue to be well supplied with good books that they enjoy reading. The Class Reading Log has been passed around all week, getting updated with books read over the break. Next week we are scheduled to take the second round of the MAPS computer testing for Reading and for Math, and we have discussed how we want to see our scores improve over the ones we earned last September. Once we learn our new scores, I want to divide our readers into several "book clubs' where each group will read a common book and meet together to discuss it. I have been collecting multiple copies of appropriately leveled books, and I even read a couple of them over the break, and now I can't wait for our kids to dig into them! This will be lots of fun and will work toward deepening our comprehension skills. By the way, the January Scholastic Book Order Forms came home today, and we have agreed on a due date for orders being Friday, January 11th.
In Writer's Workshop, we were able to wrap up our unit on Essay writing with our last day in December. This week we are organizing all our past rough drafts, story ideas, character sketches, etc. into binders, and next week we will begin a new unit of writing: "Writing Fiction - Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions". This unit builds upon our previous work developing deep and believable characters, realistic settings, and also logical solutions to conflicts that make a story engaging. I am really looking forward to experiencing these lessons with our students.
Social Studies class this week gave us a chance to review our knowledge of glacial landforms, and we are also studying the importance of Wisconsin's waterways. Our state can be divided up into several regions with unique characteristics for each, and next week we will find out about those. For your information, by the end of our second trimester in early March, we want to have covered the early explorers and native people in Wisconsin's history and then study our state's government. Later in February, our three 4th grade classes have made plans to go on a field trip to our Capital building and the Wisconsin Historical Museum! Specific details will come in future newsletters, in case you'd like to join us!
The next two weeks are full 5-day weeks of school, and then we will have two Mondays with no school - the 21st and 28th. Also, beginning on Monday, January 7th and for the rest of the month, we will be welcoming a practicum student from Luther College in Iowa to our classroom. Her name is Colby Engel, her family lives in the Verona area, and she went to Middleton schools, including West Middleton! She will be a teacher in two more years, and being with us will give her more experience in the classroom. We are looking forward to getting to know Ms. Engel.
May you all enjoy a wintery but cozy weekend. Melanie Hannam
We have jumped right into where we left off in math class. We are working on rounding off numbers and estimating answers, and next week we move into multi-digit multiplication. If any of our students are still struggling with knowing their basic facts, that will add an extra challenge for them. Ten to fifteen minutes each night practicing facts is still a very good idea!
I am very happy to see that our students continue to be well supplied with good books that they enjoy reading. The Class Reading Log has been passed around all week, getting updated with books read over the break. Next week we are scheduled to take the second round of the MAPS computer testing for Reading and for Math, and we have discussed how we want to see our scores improve over the ones we earned last September. Once we learn our new scores, I want to divide our readers into several "book clubs' where each group will read a common book and meet together to discuss it. I have been collecting multiple copies of appropriately leveled books, and I even read a couple of them over the break, and now I can't wait for our kids to dig into them! This will be lots of fun and will work toward deepening our comprehension skills. By the way, the January Scholastic Book Order Forms came home today, and we have agreed on a due date for orders being Friday, January 11th.
In Writer's Workshop, we were able to wrap up our unit on Essay writing with our last day in December. This week we are organizing all our past rough drafts, story ideas, character sketches, etc. into binders, and next week we will begin a new unit of writing: "Writing Fiction - Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions". This unit builds upon our previous work developing deep and believable characters, realistic settings, and also logical solutions to conflicts that make a story engaging. I am really looking forward to experiencing these lessons with our students.
Social Studies class this week gave us a chance to review our knowledge of glacial landforms, and we are also studying the importance of Wisconsin's waterways. Our state can be divided up into several regions with unique characteristics for each, and next week we will find out about those. For your information, by the end of our second trimester in early March, we want to have covered the early explorers and native people in Wisconsin's history and then study our state's government. Later in February, our three 4th grade classes have made plans to go on a field trip to our Capital building and the Wisconsin Historical Museum! Specific details will come in future newsletters, in case you'd like to join us!
The next two weeks are full 5-day weeks of school, and then we will have two Mondays with no school - the 21st and 28th. Also, beginning on Monday, January 7th and for the rest of the month, we will be welcoming a practicum student from Luther College in Iowa to our classroom. Her name is Colby Engel, her family lives in the Verona area, and she went to Middleton schools, including West Middleton! She will be a teacher in two more years, and being with us will give her more experience in the classroom. We are looking forward to getting to know Ms. Engel.
May you all enjoy a wintery but cozy weekend. Melanie Hannam
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