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
