Hello to our 4H families! In class this past week, we all paused to reflect together on how it has felt to complete our first full month of 4th grade already. We agreed it seems both a long time because we've done so much and gone through so many changes, and also a short time because we've been so busy that time flew by! And with the first week of October already done, we continue to add to our new experiences. The World Dairy Expo field trip gave us such a memorable day. It was raining through the morning, and then just as we got to the gates of Alliant Energy, the sun came out with a glow, and it shone on us the rest of the day. We got to see many of the 2,500 cows who were being groomed, fed, milked, and led around the show ring in the Coliseum, and the calves got lots of petting. We all now know what a milking machine actually feels like, and there were many exclamations like, "I never knew cows were THIS big!" I was so proud of our kids, who were accurately identifying the correct breeds, knew the answers to many of our guides' questions, and did a great job of listening and questioning. I send many thank you's to our wonderful chaperones who kept us all together in the crowds. I took dozens of beautiful pictures, and am working on the best way to share them with you all.
Back in the classroom, we have accomplished the work of Unit 1 in our new Bridges math curriculum, and taken the first post assessment. I am analyzing the data, and this gives me valuable information about what our students are understanding and what we need more work on. This curriculum is strong on breaking apart story problems into equations, and then solving those equations using more than one strategy. Much of this work requires a new set of skills, and will take time and practice to master. We try to do as much together in class as we can, where we can guide them through the steps of this reasoning. I haven't sent home much in the way of homework so far because of this. As students get more confident with what the pages in their workbooks want them to do, homework may come home a little more consistently, but it will usually be finishing up what we have started in class. One way that you can help your students at home is to give them chances to review and practice their basic multiplication facts. We are using them daily in our work at school, and I try to work in opportunities to practice wherever I can, but many will need more time on their own to master multiplication (and division will come much more easily once the multiplication facts are mastered).
In social studies we will be moving from Wisconsin agriculture to the history of our land (the Glacial Age!) and then into how the first people in our area lived, survived, and evolved. Our visit to Pope Farm Park this coming Thursday morning will be the perfect start to our study! We will be at the Pope Farm Conservancy (for those who are new to the area, it is just two miles from WM on Old Sauk Road) from 8:30 to 11:00, and any and all parents who want to meet us there, please do join us! You can meet our buses at the lower parking lot. We are so fortunate to live in such a historically significant area, and our expert guides will be making a big point about that. I learn something new every time I go to these sessions. We will all want to watch weather reports for this morning - this vast and hilly conservancy can be very windy, so we will want to dress accordingly to be comfortable. We will be hiking all over this park!
Writers' Workshop has all of us setting a storyline and a main character into a realistic fiction story where there will be a problem or challenge that needs a solution. This coming week we will be able to combine all of our notes into our story arc, and dig in with telling (writing) that story! As our students share their ideas, it is so entertaining to see where their imaginations are taking them!
We continue to love our reading time each day. Thank you for making this time a priority at home, too. Bringing those favorite books back and forth every single day is hopefully becoming an important ritual and habit for each one of us. I have had a chance to meet one on one with each of your 4th graders over the last two weeks, listen to them read out loud to me, and talk over their own particular goals for making their reading a growing, rich part of their lives. By the way, you should have found the October Scholastic Book Order forms in Take Home Folders on Friday. As always, you are never obligated to buy books, but if you and your students decide to do so this month, our due date to submit your order is Friday, October 14th. The easiest way to order is online (our account number is a sticker inside your student's Take Home Folder), or you can send cash or a check made out to Scholastic Book Club to me at school, and I can enter your order before I submit the whole thing next weekend.
I will soon be sending home a schedule of the possible parent/student/teacher conference time slots for certain days during the second and third week of November. I always like to include our 4th grade students in our conferences together because we are ALL on the team, especially the student! You will be able to mark your first, second, and third choices for times that work for all of you to come, and then I will confirm your time as soon as I hear back from everyone. At this conference, we can show you work samples and progress and will talk over best goals for the coming months.
On Friday, our class was given the honor of hauling in dozens of giant pumpkins to school from a bright red wagon outside for our PTO event. It was turned to be such fun for the kids, and I got video of their excitement. We added yet another precious memory to our 4th grade experience! Till next note! Melanie
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