May 17, 2013 Weekly Update

 

The countdown to year's end is on, but we have lots left to accomplish in 4th grade!  You should find the letter and permission slip for our June 3rd field trip to Cave of the Mounds in your student's Take Home Folder.  Keep all the info and send back the half sheet with your signature.  Thanks a lot.  If you would still like to join us on this day, you are most welcome - just let me know.  I have asked the kids to talk over with you if they should bring their own completely disposable sack lunches for this day, or if you want them to buy the sack lunch through Lunch Express at school.  We will have to fill out forms for Ms. Kay by Tuesday if we want to order a lunch.

 

Another permission slip will come home in the next couple of days!  This one is for our afternoon on June 4th at Pope Farm Park.  The naturalists have gone to great effort to accommodate our classes and I think it will be a very special tour and hands-on experience for all of us.  Again, any number of parents are welcome to join us, so just let me know.  The buses will get us to the Park by noon that day, and we will be back to school by 2:30.  See the permission slip info to find out all the details.  Your signature will be needed promptly for this trip as well.  Thank you!

 

Back in the classroom, we have spent nearly every day in the past week deeply involved in up to hour-long sessions with our new Chromebooks, doing research for our Informational Booklets.  Thanks so much for your support at home with computer time and printing jobs.  This coming week, we will be working on creating and constructing our book pages.  The kids have been excited to do their searches for info on the Chromebooks, and we have all been teaching each other how to find facts, pictures, save and share documents, etc.  They have taught me a number of tricks and shortcuts!

 

In 4th grade math, we are halfway through Unit 11 already.  In a few short days, look for the unit review sheets which will prepare everyone for our last unit math test within the next week.  We are learning about metric weights, volume and capacity, three dimensional polyhedrons, and subtracting with negative numbers.  Quite a mix of concepts!

 

Social Studies has had us roaming the western states lately, and comparing the extremes of geography and conditions in this region.  Thanks to some high quality National Geographic DVD presentations, within three days we explored the depths of Death Valley in California all the way up to the highest peak in Denali National Park in Alaska.  Fascinating!  We will still find time to do more exploring in our final science unit during the next two weeks when we delve into a study of our Solar System.  We are running out of time with so much to discover, but we are going to pack in as much learning as we can right up to the very last days!  

May 10, 2013 Weekly Update

Hello to all!  I must say, it was a special week of feeling appreciated!  I came to our classroom Monday morning with a newly decorated door crawling with personalized little Pac Man ghosties - it was "a Maze ing".  Thank you to the creative moms who put this all together - Trisha P. and Stephanie R.  In addition, our staff was very well fed all week long with breakfast, desserts, and two incredible lunches.  I love getting handwritten notes from our kids - they are precious.  Thank you all!

 

Speaking of gifts, your son or daughter will need to do some explaining when Mom opens her decorated envelope for Mother's Day.  We 4th grade teachers tried something new this year - and we will all have to wait and see if this is a successful venture.  I can't explain any more now, in case you have to wait till Sunday to see what I'm referring to!  I told the kids that an additional gift would be if they took responsibility for the 'care' of this gift... Let me know if anyone experiences any successful 'sprouting'!

 

We have already conquered Unit 10 in math, and took the final test today.  Watch for the test next week to sign and return.  We will begin Unit 11 on Monday. We will continue to meet in all of our math groups, 4th and 5th, through Friday, May 31st. 

 

Our Writing Project for creating Informational Booklets on a topic of interest, in order to teach other classmates, has been a major activity this past week.  We have been taking advantage of the new Chromebooks in our school, which are like small laptops.  At the same time, everyone can do research for their topic and take notes, saving articles and pictures to their own Google Drive accounts.  We cannot print from the Chromebooks, but by saving their material in Google Docs, they can access this material at computers in our computer lab, or at home, and get pictures printed from there.  I have been encouraging our students to take time at home to research, take notes, and print pictures in addition to time at school.  There is never enough time to do it all in class.  The kids love working with the Chromebooks, and the time we have them goes way too fast.  Next week we will have to decide on a deadline for note-taking, and get to the process of creating their booklets.  Thank you for helping your student get time on a home computer, if possible, to gather information for their note cards.  If any parent would like to come in for 45 to 60 minutes one or two days next week, to help some of our students gather information and take notes, that would be so very helpful.  It is difficult for me to get to everyone who needs assistance with notes and printing.  Just email me if you can help, and we can look at times and days.  Thank you! 

 

An update on upcoming field trips:  We are all set to spend the full school day on Monday, June 3rd, at the Cave of the Mounds.  Any and all parents who want to spend the day with us at this special place can do so, and follow our buses in your cars.  Some of you have let me know you plan to come - please email me if you want to chaperone, too.  Details with a permission slip are coming home soon.  Our other outing was to be for the morning of June 4th at Pope Farm Park.  That day needed to be rescheduled due to the conflict with the MHS Senior Class trip (no buses available for us!).  However, we got rescheduled to June 3rd!  At this time, I am trying to coordinate new plans with one of the naturalists with the Pope Farm Program, so I will let you all know as soon as I can if we can still make something work.  As it is now, June 4th will be a regular day in class for us.

 

Our final Scholastic Book Order is due this Monday, May 13th.  Another deadline is Friday, May 17th, the last day we collect Box Tops and Food Donations toward our building goal of 12,000 total items.  We send Mr. Macklem to the West Middleton rooftop for a day if we succeed!  Also, if you have a 4th grader interested in performing in a 4th grade (only) talent show on the afternoon of May 31st, the deadline for turning in audition/permission slips is Wednesday, May 15th. 

 

May you enjoy family time this Mother's Day weekend!  Melanie

May 3, 2013 Weekly Update

Hello, again, everyone.  This week we went from a couple of days in shorts and t-shirts for recess, to being stuck back inside with sweatshirts being pulled on and a 40 degree rainfall!  

 

We took two days in fourth grade math to complete Unit 9's final test, to make sure there was enough time to catch any careless mistakes or misreading of directions, which does plague many of our students.  Now we are exploring reflections and lines of symmetry in Unit 10, along with work on adding and subtracting negative numbers.  This unit is quite a bit shorter than the others, so we will be reviewing our lessons by the end of next week already in preparation for the final test there.  We will keep you posted on the exact date for that.

 

This week's spelling list may be more difficult for many, so I am giving everyone some extra days to practice.  The test will be next Wednesday.  The stories our students are creating, using these spelling words, are quite entertaining and fun - and they get the chance to let their imaginations roam along some unusual routes in trying to use all their words.  In Writer's Workshop, we did not get real far in our note taking this first week for our Informational Booklets.  We needed to take two class periods to complete this year's final and third round of MAPS assessments in the computer lab for math and reading.  Many of our students are becoming noticeably more comfortable using the computer for these assessments, and they are visibly gaining confidence in how they are answering as well.  We all feel great that we have completed these assessments for the year!

 

Now that our first Book Clubs have finished their books, we have given ourselves the chance to trade and exchange, so that students interested in reading one of the other books get the opportunity to do that.  We traded around today.  We will be doing more reflecting on our reading in our Thoughtful Logs with these.  In Social Studies, we are winding up our exploration of the Midwest Region of the U.S., and just like Lewis and Clark, we are pushing westward!  I cannot wait for the perfect time in this unit to show our students some National Geographic DVD's of our beautiful National Parks.  Watch out - you may get some requests for major family trips! 

 

On Monday at lunchtime, all of West Middleton's 4th graders get treated to a small dish of Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt!  Woohoo!  We won the contest for best behavior in the lunchroom over a two week period earlier in April!  We've come a long way!

 

Early next week, your student will bring home the last monthly Scholastic Book Order form of the school year.  We'll give it a week's time to turn them back in, so I can get our order out in time to receive our new books before the last week of school.

 

Keep in mind that we are planning our day away at the Cave of the Mounds on Monday, June 3rd.  If you are interested in chaperoning, just let me know.  The other trip, to Pope Farm Park for a half day, is now questionable - I will keep you informed.  It was scheduled by the district on the same day as the Senior Class Trip, and buses won't be available that day!  So stay tuned on the status of that one!

 

As notes of importance come up during this last month of school, I will email you all and keep you up to date.  We will be quite busy trying to get all the learning in that we can during our rapidly dwindling time together in fourth grade!