February 28, 2014 Weekly Update

Hello, 4H Families!  The last day of February already!  May March become the turning point in this difficult winter!  As I 'speedwalked' my way across the cold MHS parking lot back to my car after our choral concert tonight, I thought of how our West Middleton families filled that large theater to capacity, and felt so proud to be a part of it - we have a wonderful, supportive community of families, and we don't let these frozen Wisconsin conditions stop us. 

Yesterday, we had just a great day touring around the marble floors of our State Capitol Building - sitting in the padded chairs of our government leaders, and craning our necks to see the huge murals and priceless architecture covering every wall and ceiling, hearing the stories that make it all so meaningful.  Then we toured four floors of the Wisconsin Historical Museum, and it was like entering a time machine for our state's past.  Our students soaked up as much information as they could hold, and combined with our studies of the past several weeks, they have become 4th grade experts on Wisconsin's history and heritage.  I want to express many thanks to our chaperones for helping to make this day go as smoothly as it possibly could:  Mr. Sisk, Mrs. Pansegrau, Mr. Bernier, Mrs. Faucher.

I look forward to visiting with you and your 4th grader over the next two weeks as we meet for conferences.  The second trimester officially ends on March 7th, and we will then work on completing our grade reports and getting report cards ready to send home within the next two weeks after that.  Spring Break will end our month of March (3/24 to 3/28).  Next week as we begin the new month, we will all be celebrating Literacy Week!  You have hopefully seen the email I sent with the details of each day attached - Monday, March 3rd, will contain DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read) for our entire building at the same time - we will ALL be reading!  On Tuesday, we are planning an assembly which will bring some our students' writing to life - some of our teachers-turned-actors will be performing original student stories.  On Wednesday, we all hope to wear some clothing featuring WORDS, and on Thursday, plans are being made to swap teachers to read to other classrooms, and to swap books. If you have any books at home that you are ready to pass along to other readers, your student can bring them to school and then choose someone's else book to take home.  On Friday, we can dress up like our favorite book character, and we will start the day with a parade around the halls!

These activities will provide many great camera opportunities, and that brings me to the next reminder - West Middleton Yearbooks can now be ordered!!  The order form went home this past week, and we have until March 14th to send in our orders.  This will be the last West Middleton Yearbook for your student!  They will receive them on one of the last days of school in June, and we always give everyone time to sign each others' books.

We are almost ready to send out our second pen pal letter to our new high school friends in the National Honor Society.  This has been an excellent and motivating writing activity for our kids, and SO much fun to receive those replies!  We have been promised another return letter before Spring Break.  We are also finishing our rough drafts for our Realistic Fiction Stories, and will head into the computer labs next week to type up the final draft, giving everyone much needed keyboard practice.  In reading we have been researching and note taking in Informational Books about Wisconsin's history, and will now organize our information into a poster presentation.  Next on the agenda:  Literary Essays and Historical Fiction Book Clubs!  Math classes are all taking the Unit 7 final tests this week, and we all begin Unit 8 next week.  (Fourth graders get to divide up some real pizzas early next week in celebration of completing our unit on fractions - we will be sharing with our fifth grade math classmates as well...)  Mrs. Bertz has sent home your student's last Science Test recently, so take a look at that.

As more news and information comes around, I will be sure to keep you updated.  Remember to check your student's Take Home Folder for important notices - it seems like we have been sending more of these notices home lately!  Feel free to email me any time if you wonder about any details.  Jump Rope For Heart and the annual PTO Bowl-A-Thon are two more events that are coming very soon - see those details in the Folders as well.  See you all very soon!  Melanie Hannam

February 14, 2014 Weekly Update

Hi, families!  Happy Valentine's Day and Weekend!  Much to the disappointment of a few of our 4th grade friends, we did not replace our writing, reading, and math classes with a party all day!  :)   But we did have a really fun celebration the last 45 minutes of the day exchanging cards and treats.  We want to send many thank you's for Mary O's delicious brownies, Michele P's ice cold milk, and a Bingo game with prizes by Stephanie B and Betty S, along with the great help of these moms in our room to help out. 

Remember that this coming Monday is a Professional Development Day for school staff, so there will be NO school for our students.

By Tuesday of this coming week, I will be able to send home a confirmation sheet of our scheduled Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences to be held during the first two weeks of March.  Thanks for the quick responses, and for your flexibility with my adjusted schedule of days. 

We also have all of our permission slips turned in to attend our 4th grade Field Trip to Capitol Square on February 26th!  Yay!  So far, we have just two parents who have let me know they can join us for the day to chaperone.  I would really like about 3 more parents to come along, so if you are able to fit this day into your schedule, thank you for letting me know!

Our students have urged me to send along this link to you - it features numerous 5 minute video clips about the physics of many Olympics sports events.  We have been watching some of these in class when we can fit them into our days, and they show some amazing action, along with teaching some basic laws of physics! 

 http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/winterolympics/index.jsp 

During the school day on February 27th, the day after our field trip, every grade level will be traveling with classroom teachers and Mr. Yentsch, our music teacher, to the MHS Performing Arts Center for an hour's rehearsal.  This is in preparation for that evening's 6:30 pm West Middleton choral music performance (students should arrive at 6:15).  All students are to wear their WM tie dye t-shirts for the concert.  See you there!

Our Writer's and Reader's Workshops this past week have been filled with hardworking sessions, writing our realistic fiction stories, and digging deep into informational resources that are revealing some eye opening facts about our state's history - we are all learning so much, including me!  Our students have become both teacher and student during these research periods, and what a wonderful way for all of us to learn!  In 4th grade math, fractions are the new focus, and with each day, the new concepts have become more clear to our students - it takes time and patience on the part of students who are used to catching on quickly - it does get better each day!  Much of our work is a preview to more in-depth work later this year and in 5th grade. 

I will continue to keep you updated on all of our news, and I look forward to seeing all of you in person in March!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam 

February 7, 2014 Weekly Update

Greetings to our 4H Families!  Has your 4th grader shown you one of the coolest things to come out of his/her Take Home Folder all year yet??  On Friday, we received back the first letter from our Middleton High School Pen Pals!  What a delight!  Early in January we accepted the invitation from members of the National Honor Society to become pen pals with them, and we wrote our first letter to them.  Their replies are beautiful letters, and it was SO exciting to hand everyone their own personalized letter from a new high school friend.  This coming week we will answer them back and become even better acquainted.  Oh, what a fun time it will be at the end of school year when we can all meet in person!  For now, what a wonderful opportunity for some really motivating writing!! :)

In other writing news, in our Workshop we have been busy 'plotting' our realistic fiction stories.  It is probably the first time most of our students have done so much note-taking and list-making before they launch into a creative writing project - it will be so interesting for them to see how this affects their actual first draft writing experience.  My hope is that their stories become more focused and orderly and follow the 'story mountain' (ask your child for an explanation of what this is!).  We have been analyzing well thought-out characters, settings, and conflict development and resolution that makes real world sense! 

In Reader's Workshop, we have launched a new unit, reading Informational texts of ALL kinds, researching and grouping relevant facts for subtopics on the broad subject of Wisconsin Government!  This is perfect timing, since we are approaching this topic in Social Studies now, AND we will be going to the State Capitol Building and WI Historical Museum on February 26th.  Our students should be fully prepared with background knowledge by then!  You have received the permission slip for our trip, and please remember to return the bottom half of this slip along with $2.00 for the Museum entrance as soon as you can.  Thank you!  I would love to have any number of parents come along for these two tours, so do let me know if you can chaperone on this day.  You would need to bring along a lunch, and perhaps carpool together from school.  (Our three 4th grade classes fit just right on one school bus.)  I will divide our class into small groups for each of you for the day.  We are due by 10:00 am at the Information Desk on the first floor of the Capitol to meet our tour guide, will get to meet with Representative Dianne Hesselbein at 10:45, lunch at the Museum at 11:30, and then tour with another guide from 12 to 1:00, with an extra half hour to take our own small groups to other areas of the Museum before getting back on buses at 1:30.  Please see the top half of the permission slip for these details.  I hope you can come!  (If you are chaperoning, I would also need $2.00 for your Museum admission ahead of time, just like our students - thank you!)

In Math Class, our Unit 7 for 4th grade students deals with Fractions!  We do a lot of hands-on practice with pattern blocks to get a full understanding of the concepts.  Students should be bringing home their two workbooks every single day, even if they feel they have finished pages in class for their homework.  It would be SO valuable for them if you would ask them to explain what their lesson was about that day - the true sign they are understanding.  It may take a couple of days of work on some lessons before they fully 'get' it, but so far we are off to a solid start.  By this halfway point in the school year, we are also down to our last few students who have not been able to answer within 3 minutes the 100 basic facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  The first two operations should have been mastered long before this, and the last two should be at least 75 problems and more by now.  PLEASE give your student some extra practice help most evenings - just 10 to 15 minutes does make a big difference.  They should continually be recording their latest scores on a previously blank page in the back of their Studylink books, so do take a look! 

We will be able to share about your 4th graders progress in all subjects early in March. Coming home early this next week will be the sign up sheet for a time to conference with your student and with me in March.  Please mark your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices for a time, and return that paper just as soon as you can and I will reserve a spot for you.  When I have received all of your replies, I will send back a copy of the master schedule.  That will come in handy if you need to make a trade with another family - just let me know if that happens.  A heads up:  I am planning on after school times on March 3rd and 4th, and also March 10th and 11th.  (I must attend a workshop out of town all day on March 6th, which is one of our building conference dates - therefore the change in my schedule for our own class families).  Thank you!

One last note about upcoming events - Valentine's Day!  On Friday, the 14th, we will have a class party for the last 40 minutes of our day.  We have several moms coming in to help with a game, and some treats, and we are all set with plans for both.  The students may exchange cards at this time also (not a 'required' activity for every student).  We will be decorating some big envelopes beforehand. Also, February Scholastic Book Order Forms are coming home this week - stay tuned for the deadline to order online or through the paper catalog form.  Last month, the free books I was able to order for our classroom with our Bonus Points, thanks to your own orders, were so popular, I had to draw name sticks to decide who got to read the new books first!

I will continue to keep you informed through this very busy month!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam