December 7, 2015 Update

Happy December, everyone!  Here's an update on what we've been working on in class lately!

In Reader's Workshop, we've been wrapping up our unit on exploring non-fiction - digging into all kinds of resources, finding out what makes each book/magazine/article/online report a valuable and helpful source of new information.  Along the way we've been having a good time learning new facts about such wide ranging topics as extreme weather, natural disasters, global warming, drones, wild animals and sea creatures, glaciers, current events...  I am also taking the opportunity whenever I can to give our students practice picking out the main ideas, identifying the supporting details, and learning the most efficient way to take notes - all skills that will serve them well in their future years.  When we return from winter break, our focus will move to Historical Fiction, where we will also get experience reading and sharing our ideas within student Book Clubs.

I would like to encourage all of our families to keep it a priority, as much as it is possible in your busy days, to make special quiet time for your student to read and "get lost" in a good book daily.  I know this can be a challenge.  We stop and talk often in class about where and when we have each managed to find a time to cozy up with a good story, and it sounds like most of our kids love those times.  This is probably the single most effective way to foster a love of reading and your child's reading skills, along with the ability to stay focused, and they will grow with every single day this can happen. 

Writer's Workshop has been full of essay writing, and our students have done a beautiful job with clear thesis statements and supporting evidence.  We are just wrapping up one last essay about an important person in our lives. We are typing them on our Chromebooks in the classroom which is also great for more keyboarding practice. These last essays will be coming home to be presented as gifts to their 'person' - and they are quite touching.  Enjoy!

We've been using our various spelling lists to give ourselves additional creative writing experience along with handwriting practice!  (Much needed!!)  We turn our lists into creative sentences and imaginative stories as we practice the spelling patterns.  This coming week we will receive one more big list of seasonal words before the holiday break which should give us another fun chance to practice our writing skills.

In Social Studies, we are finishing our chapter about the geography of Wisconsin.  Warning -- many ideas for cool family trips around our beautiful state keep cropping up in our discussions!!  :)   Our next focus will take us back in time to how the first known native people of our state survived. We will move through time to discover how and why the first Europeans came here, and then on to how we became a state, exploring all the fascinating changes that had to happen along the way. In Science, it looks like our kids are coming to the end of their Rocks and Minerals Unit with Mrs. Bertz.

We should be able to take our final test on Math Unit 4 around the middle of this week.  I took some extra days during this unit because it covers some major new concepts.  We got into decimal numbers, banking, and the metric system!  Yikes - all big, new information for our 4th graders!   The whole concept of what numbers mean when they are behind the decimal point takes some new understanding.  Using the idea of money helps that, so that led to the very informative lessons on withdrawals, deposits, interest, and balance (hence the questions that came home about savings accounts, etc.!!).  Our decimal work was also the perfect set up to understand how the metric system works, which is also quite new to our kids.  Meaty, useful stuff -  these topics got a solid start here, and will be expanded upon and reinforced in future work both in this grade and in fifth grade.  

Whew, we pack so much into our days!  Along the way we've had fun with our Class ReadAloud book, Rain, Reign, collecting Pride Paws and growing our 'compliment chain' with our appropriate behavior and social skills, fighting to stay number one in the school wide contest for Box Tops For Education (we find out on Wednesday!), and of course, our Read-In Day was a hit.  Thank you for your support with homework, regular reading times, and staying up to date with the contents of your student's Take Home Folders and Assignment Notebooks.  Along with checking the Classroom Blog for the daily homework and reminders, these are the best ways to foster your own child's growing ability to be responsible for themselves.

It will be fun to see many of you on the morning of our Winter Tea on December 16th.  I like to take some family pictures that day.  See you then! 

Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

October 2, 2015 Update

Hello to all of our 4H families!  We had such a busy, fun week!  Our two field trips turned out to be full of new and valuable experiences for the kids, from handling a 1000 year old stone artifact to petting a fuzzy calf!  We trekked all over Pope Farm Park in autumn sunshine to role play survival for the winter as early Native Americans, and got up close and (sometimes very!) personal with both ends of a cow and a milking machine!  :)  I so enjoyed having so many of you join us as chaperones, and wholeheartedly want to thank you for being with us!  I should be able to send you all some pictures soon (many thanks to Mr. Olson, who became our unofficial photographer!).  We all created some precious memories together, and the following two days of the week back at school felt good - we were ready to settle in, make some excellent progress with our lessons, and have some good laughs together, too.

We also shared some tears - thanks to the finale of our class read-aloud book, Stone Fox.  Wow, this book never fails to hit right in the heart, and you truly could have heard a pin drop as we reached the gripping end of this story together.  Books like these bring home the message that reading can transport us completely into worlds and emotions and situations that we would never experience otherwise.  So cool!!  Speaking of books, you will notice that the new October Scholastic Book Order forms have come home.  Please do not ever feel obligated to order every month.  If you do want to order books this month, the due date is October 12th.  We had such great response in September that we ended up getting 39 new books for our classroom library with bonus points!  It took me several days to preview all of them with the class, and many of them got snatched up right away.  The love of reading is spreading fast in Room 117!   Woohoo!

We made good progress getting into Unit 2 in math, even though we missed two days of class.  Thank you for your support at home by looking into the kids' journal and studylink pages, asking them what they are learning, and also by continuing some regular practice with basic facts!  I see scores going up gradually with our daily 3 minute drills, but numbers could climb faster (and they do so noticeably) when there is extra practice at home.

We have been adding paragraphs to our realistic fiction stories in Writers' Workshop, and most of us are coming down the 'story mountain' now - trying to resolve the 'mess' we have put our characters into!  I will want to give our students the chance to edit and revise this coming week.  If you think you could be free to come in to class any day this next week or two from 1:45 to 2:30 - and like to help with spelling, punctuation, sentence structure - would you let me know when you'd like to come?  It is difficult for me to get to everyone who needs editing help when we get to this stage of writing, so the extra adult attention is so valuable!  Thanks a lot!

In Social Studies, we are transitioning from Wisconsin agriculture, to some mapping skills, and then on to the glacial history of our state, and our own area in particular.  Science continues with Mrs. Bertz leading them through experiments with rocks and minerals.

We have a number of friends in our classroom who are struggling with some self control when it comes to social conversation during class time, listening accurately to directions, and managing their papers and folders back and forth to home and school each day.  I've told our 4th graders I have given them the whole first month to work on developing good habits, and I do need to see better improvement.  Another challenge for many is their effort to work neatly and do their BEST job with each task.  I appreciate your sitting down with your fourth graders and asking them if any of these are areas they think they could improve upon.  Your support at home is powerful - so, thank you!!!

On Tuesday afternoon, October 6th, our class will spend a good hour in the computer lab to take the MAP Assessment (Measure of Academic Progress) for Math.  We will not be taking the Reading portion this year, since we are meeting with each student individually to read for us and determine their skill levels.  The MAP assessment gives us just one picture of where our students are with math skills compared to 4th graders across the country, as well as telling us which skills need more attention.  We will do this Math portion again in spring. 

Feel free to stay in touch with me with any concerns or questions, and I will do the same!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

September 18, 2015 Update

Hello, everyone!  We have completed our third week of school already!  Everyday we get more used to our routines and expectations - and each other!  We are learning more about each other with each class, it seems, and the relationships we are building makes it more fun to work together for all of us.  We are making it a priority to treat each other with respect and kindness, and when that happens, everything just goes more smoothly.  I think I am seeing our students' stamina growing as well.  We still get times when we just need to stop and take a breather (and get the wiggles and whispers out of the way!) before digging in again, but we have had some nicely focused work sessions where they have amazed me. 

In Readers' Workshop, we are concentrating on reading deeply for details that matter, losing ourselves in the world of our books (so much fun!), and trying to 'become' the characters in the stories.  We are keeping track of the books we are reading with a special, bright colored Reading Log sheet for each month - you can find these in the purple reading folder that should be coming home every single day in a 2-gallon ziplock bag with the reading books.  In Writers' Workshop, we are also giving our attention to characters, practicing how to center our Realistic Fiction story writing around the motivations and struggles of the characters.  We are realizing that the stories we love most are the ones where the characters really matter to us - so that is how we are learning to write engaging stories!  The students have had some excellent writing sessions this week where they are really giving this a good try - I am proud of them!

Social Studies class goes way too fast.  We are still working on writing our own home mailing addresses and at least one emergency phone number all from memory.  Thanks for any extra practice on this at home!  We are also collecting all the info we can about cows and the dairy industry so we can be prepared to appreciate all we will see at the World Dairy Expo on September 30th.  You may be receiving some 'education' about cows these days from your 4th graders!  In Science with Mrs. Bertz, our students are getting a great start to the first unit on Rocks and Minerals.

We are coming to the end of our first unit in Math already.  Next week we will spend some days reviewing and practicing, and as soon as I figure out the best day for the first Unit Test, I will let you all know.  It usually goes quite well - this first unit is full of new vocabulary words, but the concepts of lines, segments, rays, angles, and polygons are not too difficult.

I would like to confirm our chaperones for our two field trip days on Sept. 29th (Pope Farm Park) and Sept. 30th (World Dairy Expo).  There is no limit to how many parents can chaperone on either one, since you can meet us at each destination and there is no admission charge (for the Dairy Expo, we have free parking vouchers for any parent drivers who can follow our buses there).  Parents who have confirmed with me that they can come are as follows:  Sept. 29 at Pope Farm Park -- Gina W., Kristen S-E, Chris K.    Sept. 30 at WDE -- Gina W., Chris K.      Three others for each trip did sign up during our Back To School Night in August, so if you plan to go, just email me and I will know for sure that you can still come, as well any other parents who want to join us.  The more, the merrier!  These are fun trips.  Thanks a lot!  I will email all chaperones with updated details toward the end of next week.

Events coming up --! 

**We will be tie dying our new WM T-shirts for this year on Monday!  You will be seeing these come home in a plastic bag that day with instructions on how to finish the washing of them to set the dye, so be prepared!  :)   I am thinking we won't have to wear the shirts to Pope Farm Park because our school will be the only ones there that afternoon of the 29th.  But we WILL want to wear them on Sept. 30th to the Expo! 

**Mark your calendars for the evening of Monday, September 28th!  If it works into your schedules, come to Culver's in Middleton for dinner!  From 4:00 to 8:00pm, they will contribute 10% of all sales to our PTO.  AND if you can make it there between 6 and 7pm, I will be the one bringing the food order to your table!!  I know it can't work for everyone, but just in case, I will see you there!

**I have a special request.  Would you look through everyone's sock drawers at home and pull out any lonely singles, any holey, worn pairs - and send them with your 4th grader to our classroom?  These old socks (athletic socks work best) are perfect as erasers for our small, individual whiteboards that we use quite often during class.  Thank you!

I will end for now, and send reminders and short update notes next week as we approach our trips and any other special activities.  As always, feel free to email me or call with any other questions or concerns!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

September 4, 2015 Update

Greetings to all of our 4H families!  Our first week of school went so fast!  There was so much to tell each other as we got acquainted and as we learned about how we will manage our time and work (and fun) each day in 4th grade.  With each day, we will get closer to a routine.  Our class group is already showing such promise in direction following and helping each other out.  I am so happy to settle in for a fulfilling year with your 4th graders.

On Tuesday when we return, we will begin our first math lessons, using our new Journals and Studylinks.  Most days there will be pages, or parts of pages, to finish up as homework.  I want both books to go home everyday, so your child can show you (and ask them to explain to you how to do the skill!) what they worked on that day in class, and what they need to complete for the next day.  Even if the assignment gets all finished up in class, they should be bringing home both books, so you may see that they have indeed completed the items the best that they can.  Parents do not need to correct any work, but a suggestion to try an item again if you notice something incomplete or incorrect is appreciated.  I will be explaining to our math students that I do not grade anything they do in these workbooks, because this is where they practice their skills.  I never want anyone to be afraid to try something they are not sure of - I want them to feel comfortable giving every item their best effort.  I present the lesson one day, and we practice in class.  Students practice again by trying the pages in their books, and then the next day, we practice again by checking those items together and discussing again.  And remember, if you ever wonder about the accuracy of the homework assignment in their assignment notebooks, I update the Homework Page on our blog every day after school!

Another important part of our math class is Basic Facts practice in all four operations:  addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.  We will start out nearly every single class period with a chance to answer the 100 basic facts within 3 minutes.  On Mondays, we will do the 100 addition facts, Tuesdays it is subtraction, etc.  I check these papers daily and we keep track of progress.  Students may consider their facts 'mastered' once they achieve 100% accuracy within 3 minutes for each operation.  I tell them that once they achieve this, they get a 3 minute 'naptime' during this exercise!  :)  All you can do to help your child practice their facts is such valuable support!!!  I can't emphasize enough:  The 4th grade math curriculum assumes a 4th grader has mastery of all of their basic facts in the lessons that are presented every day.  If a student is still struggling to accurately recall their facts, it makes the new math skills much more difficult to practice and learn.  You will see each week's 3 minute attempts come home on Fridays, so you may be aware of how things are going for your child.  I will also send home progress reports every few weeks.  Thank you in advance for finding some way to routinely give your student the practice help he/she needs.  The clear plastic sheet protector with the fact sheets that came home in all of the parent papers is meant to stay home and be one way to practice.  If you use a slim dry erase marker on the plastic sheet, then you can use those pages over and over again. 

Speaking of the papers that went home the first night/day -- thank you so much for returning them so promptly.  I just need a few to come in yet.  One thing I thought I should explain better is that "Volunteer Disclosure Form".  It became necessary to have this on file about a year ago for all parents in the school district, before any opportunities to work with students as a volunteer and to even be able to go along on field trips!  So we are asking every one of our parents to fill out and sign this sheet at the beginning of the year, so if/when you want to join us for any activity or trip, you are all set and done with that formality.

And that leads me to the fact that all of our 4th grade classes are going on TWO field trips on the last two days of September already!!  Crazy, but that's how the schedules worked out this fall!  On September 29th, we go to Pope Farm Park for 2.5 hours to do activities with local experts in archaeology, gardening, geology, and history.  Our school district has made the commitment to send every 4th grader to these sessions both in the fall and in the spring for different activities. The Park is the perfect location to learn about Wisconsin's unique history, landforms, and geology - and we are so fortunate to have this area within two miles of our school!  If you'd like to meet us there and join us, it will be so much fun, and the more the merrier.  Just let me know - the permission slips will come home this next week, with the time frame and more details.  The following day on September 30th, we will continue our special tradition to attend the World Dairy Expo at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.  We study the agriculture of Wisconsin in Social Studies, and experiencing up close what is all involved in milk production from the most beautifully groomed cows we will EVER see, all the way to grocery store coolers, is a very memorable opportunity for our kids.  It is a highlight of our year, and parents love this trip, too, so again if you can find time to go along, let me know, and watch for that permission slip, too!  (For both of these days, we will probably have to eat a sack lunch in the classroom earlier than our normal lunch time, since we will be getting on buses around 11:00am (exact time frames will be on the permission slips), so talk over with your student this weekend if they will want to bring their own sack lunch from home, or will want to order the Lunch Express sack lunch.  We will have to fill out order forms on Tuesday so the kitchen knows what to plan for.  Thanks a lot!)

I will end for now with the reminder that if you have an Orchestra student, the first large group lesson begins at 7:15am THIS Tuesday, Sept. 8th, at school!  They will end at 7:45 each Tuesday, and get back to our room in time for our first class.  Sometime during Tuesday mornings, small group lessons also take place when these students get excused from class during different rotating 30 minute time periods each week.

I will keep you updated on all news and events, and as we go through the weeks ahead, I will fill you in on our other subjects and what we are studying and exploring.  I am happy to hear from you at any time through emails, calls, or visits!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

August, 2015 -- WELCOME TO THE NEW 2015-2016 SCHOOL YEAR!

Hello to all of our new "4H" families!  I welcome you all to Room 117, and to our classroom blog!

Please sign up to receive my posts from this blogsite, and you will find the Daily Schedule Page for our classroom, daily posts on the Homework Page, and weekly posts about life in our 4th grade world.  

Stay tuned for more information - and feel free to ask me any questions!  

Mrs. Melanie Hannam

May 1, 2015 Update

Happy May to all of our families!  The calendar is getting crowded with many events and activities being planned for this last full month of school.  I sent home on Friday a pink sheet with the schedule of meetings, etc. that Glacier Creek has sent out for incoming 5th graders - I thought that might be handy for you to keep.  On Friday, May 8th, all of our 4th grade classes will be taken to Glacier Creek for a tour from 1:00 to 2:00.  That will be very exciting!

As for the next month in our own West Middleton world  ---  whew, get ready!  We have all completed the new Badger Exams over the past month, and our kids handled it all very well.  Over the next three weeks, we will still need to fit into our days the 3rd round of MAPS testing for both Reading and Math (approximately one hour for each).  I will also be meeting individually with each of my students to listen to them read and discuss a short story with me, again a third round for this year to determine progress in reading skills.

We also have 3 field trips left to enjoy!  On May 13th, the 4th graders from our school will join those from Park and Sunset Ridge Elementary Schools at the MHS Track for the annual 4th Grade Track Meet.  The blue permission slip you received a good week ago has the approximate schedule of events printed on the back, in case you want to stop by and watch for awhile.  We will be wearing our tie dye shirts, and bringing along a completely disposable sack lunch, along with perhaps an extra water bottle or two for the day -- ALL marked with student name and school.  This includes all extra layers of clothing brought along as well, which is usually a very good idea!  On Friday morning, May 29th, our 4th graders go back to Pope Farm Park for the morning for a new round of sessions with naturalists, gardeners, and historians.  A permission slip and a chance to chaperone will be coming soon.  Finally, on Monday, June 8th, our four classes will be spending the day at the Cave of the Mounds.

Stay tuned for news of plans for our last afternoon of school on June 10th.  There will be special activities planned for our departing Fourth Grade Class, and you will get details from the organizing parents over the next month. If you are interested in helping with this, let me know (I think the activities will involve outdoor games and goodies).

We have transitioned to new units in all of our academic subjects over the last couple of weeks!  In Social Studies, we are exploring five regions in our United States, making maps and finding significant places and people for each region.  Science has our kids studying Life Structures, and they are developing 'green thumbs'!    In Math, we are well into Unit 11, figuring out volumes of geometric solids, and subtracting negative numbers. Just one more Unit to go after this one!  Writing class is giving us new opportunities to write more deeply about what we are reading (literary essays), and in Reading class, we are just about ready to start new books as members of Book Clubs.  Being able to converse about and analyze the characters and events in the books we read together has been a highlight in our room all year with our Class Read Aloud books.  Now we will be trying to transfer that same deep level of discussion to small groups where our students will be taking on more responsibility for the direction of their conversations.

I will definitely keep you informed as we go through each week, with details and special notes and reminders about our activities.  This coming week, we do have "Wacky Wednesday" where students can come with some mismatched or crazy clothing/hair/shoes.... - our school earned this day by accomplishing good behavior goals promoted by our PBIS Team.   Thanks for your attention and support with papers and deadlines for your student as we jump into this very busy final month of 4th Grade!  Wow!   Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

March 20, 2015 Update

Happy, Spring, everyone!  It was fun meeting with everyone again this past month at conferences.  Report cards should have come home on Friday.  You may keep the sheets inside, but please send the envelope back to school with your signature.  I'm sorry I had to be gone yesterday.  My mother will reach 92 years in two weeks, but she's been in failing health recently, and this past week was a rough one.  She is doing better again now.  My sister and I were able to transfer her from the hospital to a rehabilitation center yesterday, so that is a positive step.

We have been working pretty hard lately in Room 117, and the kids have been up for it!  I am proud of them!  In math, the new Unit 9 is taking what we've learned about fractions and decimals, and applying it to new knowledge about percents.  Combining all these relatively new skill concepts takes time, so I want our kids to know that we will give all of this plenty of practice and they will do well with it.  It just takes some extra exposure, which will happen in the next week.

In Writers' Workshop, we have dug into research and note taking about a well known or accomplished person in history.  Students have chosen people who have lived in a wide variety of time periods, from ancient to recent times.  We are reading from several sources, pulling out the info we need, taking efficient notes, organizing those notes into logical subsections, and then we will compose and type these into a biography.  Many useful skills are being used with this project, so we will be at it for awhile yet.  I am pleased that our kids have jumped into this with enthusiasm, sharing new information and facts with me and others as they discover surprises about their person.  I love this!

I couldn't be more impressed with the discussion points our students have been coming up with during Readers' Workshop over the last two weeks.  We are using our own reading books and those we have read together as a class so far this year, to compare and list life lessons and themes that we are learning from our characters.  Wow!  I am printing out the list of their comments we have made, so that each student can have a copy for their Writing Binders.  Wait till you see how deeply many of our kids are thinking, and the meaningful lessons they are discovering!  I think I will have them put their copies into their Take Home Folders for you to look at before we get them into our Binders.  I will let you know what day that will be.

The subject of immigration is the main topic of our current unit in Social Studies.  Most of our students were not aware of this entire issue in either our past or present world, so our reading and discussions have been opening up their eyes.  Now some of them have commented that they are noticing more about this topic when the news is on at home, and that is just awesome!!  In Science, they will be taking their final test on the Magnets and Electricity unit with Mrs. Bertz on Wednesday, March 25th.  Plenty of notes and guide sheets are in their red folders, so these should be coming home each day now to practice and review.  Thanks for helping them a little bit each night.

May I ask if some of our families would be able to supply our classroom with a few more boxes of Kleenex and cleaning wipes?  We have completely run out now on both.  Thank you so much.

I will be forwarding a flyer about a Young Writer's Camp to be held at Ohlbrich Gardens in Madison this summer, in case that is something you and your student would be interested in doing.

As always, please feel free to email or call with any concerns about your child, or questions you might have about our work.  May all of you have a most wonderful Spring Break, one week from now!  When we get back in April, I will inform you of some revised schedules on some days, due to the new Badger Exams we will be taking.  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

February 20, 2015 Update

Hello to all of our 4H Families!  We've survived a couple of cold weeks, with more indoor recesses than anybody wants, but... we can take it!  There's so much to accomplish in our classroom, so we are keeping it warm inside.  We've just completed reading "Number The Stars" by Lois Lowry in Readers' Workshop, and after reading our kids' Thoughtful Log entries, I know it is a story that has made a lasting impression.  We are winding down our Historical Fiction unit, and it has opened up a new genre of stories to 'get lost in' for most of our 4th graders.  Our next focus in Reading will be all about interpreting and analyzing themes, ideas, and life lessons in the books we are reading.  Which books share the same idea/theme, and how does one book handle that compared to another book?  What are we learning for ourselves from what happens to the characters in our books?  Our 4th graders have been demonstrating their growing ability to dig deeper into story meaning, and they are ready for these next steps.  It's very exciting and rewarding!

In Social Studies we have been doing some analyzing and comparing, too.  We are traveling through the time period in the early 1800's when the native Americans had to make room for the growing population of new settlers from the east, and our area's transition from Territory to Statehood.  We want to cover the beginning of our brand new state government, so we are prepared with the background to fully appreciate what we will see and hear about next Thursday.  Next week on February 26th, we go to the Wisconsin State Capitol and then the Wisconsin Historical Museum.  MANY thanks to the 14 parents from our classroom who will be meeting us downtown for our trip!  Wow!  For those parents who are going, you can plan on meeting us on the ground floor rotunda of the Capitol between 9:45 and 10:00.  Our guided tour will begin at 10:00am.  We will be walking over to the Historical Museum at 11:30 to eat our lunch in their lunchroom on the first floor, and then our tour guides will take small groups throughout the Museum beginning at 12:00 noon.  After an hour with our guides, we will have one more half hour to tour around ourselves with our chaperones, before boarding buses back to school at 1:30.  Parents, please remember to send along a completely disposable lunch for your child that day (unless they have ordered a school sack lunch).  Chaperones, feel free to bring a lunch and eat with us at 11:30, too. 

We are finishing up Unit 7 in 4th grade math, and we will take the Unit Test on Wednesday of this coming week.  It has been a pretty hefty unit with a lot of new fraction work.  These concepts and skills will come up again in 5th grade, getting reinforced and built upon next year, so if complete mastery is not demonstrated this year, our kids will still have learned some good foundational skills that will make a difference next year.  It is clear once again that the students who are still struggling with knowing their basic facts are the ones who struggle the most with our lessons. 

We are about ready to celebrate and enjoy the fruits of our labors in Writing Workshop.  We have completed our "How To..."  Books, and will be presenting them to each other, and then to our first grade buddies.  This project has also given our students a great opportunity to practice their skills with some researching online and saving information to their Google Drive.  Our next unit will be taking our research a little deeper by focusing on the life of a historical person, and practicing our skills with note taking and organizing information.

You should have seen a new bright green sheet in your student's Take Home Folder from Friday.  This sheet confirms every family's conference time on March 3, 4, or 10.  I look forward to seeing you and your child to talk over how 4th grade is going!  In the meantime, I will keep you posted on other events and reminders that come along.  See you all soon!  Melanie Hannam

January 23, 2015 4H Update

Hello to all. I'd like to bring you up to date with our activities in Room 117 over the last couple of weeks.  Friday, January 23rd, marks the exact halfway point of our school year!  We are approaching the end of several mid-year assessments!   Our class has completed MAPS testing in the computer lab for both Reading and Math.  I am also wrapping up my individual meetings with each of our students, where they have read a story (or two or three!) out loud to me, and then we discuss their comprehension of the story.  When we have conferences in March, I can show you progress with both assessments.  This coming Tuesday, January 27th, all of our 4th graders will be taking part in NAEP testing (see the letter that went home earlier this month).  This involves three 30 minute tests in the areas of Reading, Math, and Science.  Our kids have been troopers through all of these 'additions' to our learning days.

Math class, as you know, has involved the process of learning long division during Unit 6.  Almost everyone is feeling more confident with each passing day.  All students could use more practice, so whenever there are 5 or 10 minutes available, jot down a problem or two like the ones you've seen come home, and slide that paper in front of your 4th grader to solve!  (These would be problems of 2,3, or 4 digit numbers being divided by any 1 digit number.)  The last lesson of this unit does introduce 2 digit divisors, so we will be practicing those briefly (Part B on the test).  We are treating all remainders as fractions at this point in the year.  This work with long division has caused more than a few of our students to become painfully aware that they are still lacking in their quick recall of basic facts!!!!  Please continue to give your child support and practice with basic facts, especially multiplication and division facts.  We will be taking our final Unit 6 test sometime in the next week.  Then, fractions are on the horizon!

In Reader's Workshop, we have all found our first Historical Fiction books to read on our own!  As a class, we are also reading together "Number The Stars" by Lois Lowry.  This gripping story is a perfect example of what it is like to become immersed in another time period through the eyes of fictional characters.  We are learning history as we enjoy getting to know characters who represent what real people have gone through.  This story takes place in Denmark during the Nazi occupation, so this book also opens our 4th graders' eyes to a very difficult event in our world's past.  I want to assure you that we are treating their first exposure to these events carefully and sensitively. For about the next month, your student will be trying to keep up with the free reading book of their choice along with their choice of a historical fiction book.  Thank you for helping them manage their reading time to include both (or if they want to exclusively dig into historical fiction for awhile, that is just fine).

In Writer's Workshop, we are using our newly acquired knowledge of what makes an effective Informational Book, using a variety of Text Features, and we are creating our own Info Books!  These will involve topics about which each student already feels comfortable sharing in step by step detail.  This will allow them the chance to use Text Features (both computerized or hand written/drawn) to make their own book effective and appealing to their audience.  We will not only share our books with each other, but we will also 'teach' our first grade buddies when we have completed our projects! 

Social Studies class has been all about understanding what it was like for the native Americans in our area of Wisconsin as European explorers and fur traders, followed by the new United States government after the American Revolution, all brought their influence, customs, and new laws to rapidly settling new lands.  I have so enjoyed hearing the thoughts and opinions of our students as they realize that there are many sides and viewpoints to the same events and issues. (Plus, you may get some requests to travel to Prairie du Chien or Portage... :)  In Science, they are working on experiments to prove the presence and power of magnetism as they approach they study of electricity.

Our January Scholastic Book Order should be arriving any day now.  Thanks for continuing to check into your student's Take Home Folder with them each day for any notices that come home, along with papers that might need signing.  We've had some illnesses make the rounds in our room over the last couple of weeks - many thanks to those of you who sent in cleaning wipes.  We are making good use of them!  I will send you another update in a couple of weeks - in the meantime, we are staying cozy and productive with our napping polar bears keeping an eye on us in Room 117!  :)  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

January 9, 2015 4H Update

Happy new 2015 to all of you!  It feels good to say that we are one of very few schools who put in a full 5 day week of classes this past week!  In our classroom, we swept out some cobwebs in our brains after two full weeks off, and ended up being very productive.  In spite of the difficult weather, we kept warm in our room, digging in to our work and activities.  Our kids handled all 5 indoor recesses very well, organizing themselves into some great games and art projects (it was good relationship-building time!).

We shared with each other all the books we've been reading lately, and have sparked some new ideas for each other.  This coming week in Readers Workshop we begin a new unit using  Historical Fiction books.  In addition to each student's independent reading book, they will be choosing another book where the story is set in another time period.  We will be exploring what it is like to be transported to a very different time and place in our reading, and what we can learn through the eyes of characters who lived through experiences we may not have ever realized or understood before!  Many of these stories are award winners, so the writing is some of the best that our students will be reading all year.    

The January Scholastic Book Order flyers went home this week.  Take a look, and as always, if you would like to order, you have the choice of online ordering or sending in a check with the order form to school.  We decided on a due date for orders - Friday, January 16th.

Every year at this time, all 4th graders in Dane County have the opportunity to enter a Haiku writing contest.  We learned this week how to write Haiku (a three line poem with 17 syllables).  Our kids caught on quickly, and all have been producing several Haiku during moments of inspiration throughout the week.  We will collect up all of our attempts, each student choosing their favorite 2 or 3, and we will get those typed up to submit by January 21st.  It's been a fun and valuable writing experience whether we end up with any official winners or not.  We will be notified by March if anyone in our school has a poem chosen by the judges, and then there is a program held to honor those writers with their families, with all winning poems printed into a booklet.  We will collect all of our poems in our Writing Binders, so you can see them.  I love what our kids are doing - some very creative 'word-smithing' going on!   

In Science with Mrs. Bertz, our class is moving into a new unit on magnetism and electricity.  In Social Studies, we are transitioning from the "Old Time" when native tribes had the land all to themselves, to when the first European explorers and traders found this area we know now as Wisconsin.  Life changes forever for the people of this time, and we find out how and why!  We are looking forward to our next big field trip during the last week of February - details will be coming.  We are planning a tour of our State Capital and the Wisconsin Historical Museum!

Important dates for the month of January include several days containing testing sessions for our 4th graders.  On both January 8th and 12th, I am meeting individually with each student to listen to them read a leveled passage and hold a comprehension conversation together.  We do this 3 times throughout the year to determine updated reading skills.  Also done 3 times this year is the MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) Assessment in the computer lab for both reading and math. We will do our sessions on January 13th and 15th - this coming week!  And then on January 27th, there is another assessment being given to just the 4th graders in reading, math, and science.  You should have received a letter this past week explaining this test.  If there are any questions, please let me or Mr. Macklem know.  If you could support your student with a particularly good night's sleep and breakfast for each of these upcoming days especially, that would be ideal. 

A little housekeeping note:  Our classroom has just about run out of cleaning wipes.  If you think of it next time you are shopping for such supplies, would you include Room 117 on your shopping list?  With all the cold and flu bugs being passed around this time of year, I am trying to be diligent about wiping off desk surfaces, etc. even more often than usual.  We're still pretty good with our Kleenex box supply.  Thank you!!

It has just been decided this past week that we will hold our next Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences during the month of March, around the dates of March 3rd and 10th.  I will send home a list of possible times for days during that timespan, in February.  At the Conference, I can share the updates on your child's reading and math assessments, along with their progress in our classroom units of study.    

In the meantime, let's hope we get some more agreeable weather, and that we all stay healthy!  I will continue to stay in close touch with you!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam