February 6, 2017 Update

Hello, dear families!  It's time for an update here, and then in two to three weeks we will get to visit in person with your 4th grader about their progress. They have each brought home a bright orange sheet confirming your conference times, so hang on to that. Thank you for your prompt replies and flexibility!  

A couple more special dates to keep in mind -- we will celebrate our next Reward Day on Friday, February 10th.  The kids voted to wear comfy clothes, bring a small pillow/blanket to spread out for extra reading time, and have lunch together in our classroom. We also agreed on one hour of the day devoted to games, both board type and - with your permission and knowledge - they may bring in an Ipad or Ipod to play appropriate games.  We will also be doing some art, watch a nature video, and treat ourselves to hot cider from my crockpot.  It took some extra time this round to gather our required 30 Classroom Pride Paws to qualify for this day, so this is a hard won accomplishment for us.  Also, on Tuesday, February 14th, we will take our last class period to exchange valentine cards - hopefully you saw the class list of names that came home during the past week.  We have a couple of moms who have volunteered to bring us a healthy snack for this time, and we are centering our celebration particularly on KINDNESS, which is a special focus for all of our classrooms this month.  Also, Monday, February 20th, is a Professional Development Day, and there will no classes for students that day.

In Writer's Workshop, we have completed authoring our own "How To.../Informational Books.  To wrap up this unit, and to show how well each student has learned to impart organized and engaging information about a topic, our 4th graders will be writing an "on demand' piece of informational writing this coming Monday.  They have 45 minutes to write on a topic of their choice, and they may bring in a source to help them with their information if they choose.  Please look for a half sheet in Take Home Folders from Friday explaining this writing activity.  If you can talk this over with your 4th grader to give them a chance to explain what they have chosen for their topic, and how they plan to explain 'how to' do an activity or task (such as how to play a certain game, or prepare a certain recipe, or create a craft item....), this will help them be ready.  Thank you!

We are so wrapped up in our class Read Aloud book, Number The Stars, in Readers' Workshop, that we can barely stand to put the book down.  The thoughtful discussions, questions, musings, and predictions from our students get deeper and richer as we go along, which is why these sessions are my favorite part of the day!  Our students are also finding some of their favorite books to read independently in this Historical Fiction genre, and as they review them with each other, they are inspiring their classmates to line up to be the next one to read their book.  So fun!

We are getting to the last week or so of Unit 4 in our Bridges Math.  Our work has centered on subtraction strategies and also measurement (metric and customary) in the form of length, time, liquid volume, and mass/capacity.  Some of our students are finding that they need extra practice with their 'borrowing' skills, so any help there at home would be so helpful.  I would also like to put in a word again about spending time with your 4th grader in practicing their skill with the basic multiplication and division facts.  As we have explored all the strategies of using these operations with fractions and decimals, and our increased exposure to word problems, it is discouraging for your student to discover they get the new concept but are held back or slowed down because they can't recall their basic facts.  Your support at home can make such a big difference!

Some 'housekeeping':  Monday will be Take Home Folder inspection day, so would you make time to go through papers that may have collected here WITH your 4th grader?  While you are at it, may I suggest that this cleaning out activity also extend to backpacks?  Hopefully, you don't discover any icky surprises, but from a little of what I've seen, you may be in for some!  :)  Also, the plan to include a clean, dry pair of extra socks would be a very good idea for many of our kids - after the noon hour recess, there are many wet and cold feet trekking back into the classroom. Some students also don't have a dry pair of shoes to put on if they came in boots and don't have an extra pair at school for gym.  We have some messy, cold winter weeks still ahead.  Thanks!

Sometime in March, we plan to take all of our 4th graders to tour our State Capitol building and visit the Wisconsin Historical Museum, so stay tuned for those plans.  March will also bring you the second report card after the 2nd Trimester ends on March 10th, and the last week of that month is our Spring Break week. 

I will continue to send home quick reminders and announcements in the meantime, but I look forward to gathering with you soon at conference time with you and your 4th grader.  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

January 9, 2017 Update

Dear 4th Grade Families ~ Happy January to everyone!

It felt good to gather back together as a class last week after our two week break, even if we all felt rather 'rusty' at first.  We all said our brains felt 'smooshy'!  We eased back into our routine as gently as we could, sharing about our books and getting updated with adding new ones to our collection.  We have begun one of my most favorite Readers' Workshop units - Historical Fiction.  All our kids are gradually moving toward choosing their own independent reading book in this genre, and we are starting our Class ReadAloud book, Number The Stars, by Lois Lowry.  This captivating story brings us into learning about WWII and what happened in Germany and Denmark with the Nazi's and Jewish people, etc.  The good thing about reading this story is that it introduces this heavy subject to our children through the eyes of a child, and so a gradual realization of what different groups of people went through during this historic time is handled carefully.  I highly recommend that our parents read this book as well.  I have collected at least 6 bins of HF books by now for our fourth graders to read, which cover many different eras of history, so it will be a very enlightening time for us - that's why it's one of my favorite reading times of the year! 

We began our math classes this past week reviewing the very 'meaty' Unit 3 skills. This unit was our most involved unit yet with new skills (fractions and decimals!).  After three days of review, we took the final test, and wow!  We ended up with the best set of scores overall as a class so far this year!  I have to admit I didn't expect that, since during our lessons and our review sessions, many of our kids expressed doubt that they were getting some of it - it was a lot of new material!  I took that opportunity (more than once/several times/ okay, whenever I found the chance!) to point out to our hardworking kids that "see, when you keep trying, when you don't give up, when you keep asking questions and practice - it pays off and you learn more than you realize!").  Yay!  We probably built up our stamina in math class during this unit!  Next week we dive into Unit 4 - I will keep you updated on those skills after we get started, and how you can help and support at home.  When pages do come home, take a look and ask your 4th grader what it's about - having to explain what they are doing is a great way to learn the material more thoroughly.

In Writers' Workshop, we spent the week wrapping up our persuasive essay project.  We have been typing this second essay project right on our Chromebooks, loving how easy it is to compose and edit this way.  Plus, we are working on our keyboarding skills as well!  We will be phasing into a unit on Informational Writing next - practicing writing with clear descriptions and instructions so that our readers can follow the steps easily. We will be teaching others about something that we, as the authors, are 'experts' on already - can we explain it in a way that someone who does not know about this subject can still understand it?  By the way, I hope you enjoyed those colorful copies of the personal essays our students brought home in December about a special person in their lives.  I thought they were so precious!

Social Studies has us beginning to explore with the first non-native people to come to this area of Wisconsin.  How did this affect the native people who lived here already?  Why did these new people come here in the first place?  How does this area and the people change as more and more discover what an amazing place this is in which to live?  It's great stuff!!  We plan to take all of our 4th graders to a State Capitol tour later in February/early in March, as well as tour the State Historical Museum.  After we cover this time in Wisconsin history, these visits are so very meaningful!  In Science with Mrs. Bertz, they are delving into the Unit on Magnetism and Electricity.

The January Scholastic Book Orders came home Friday in Take Home Folders.  We set a deadline for ordering at January 13th - this coming Friday!  I have found several books I want to add to our collections in the room with the bonus points we earn through your orders.  Please also take a look at the information and permission slip that came home explaining the new Math 24 Club - six weeks on Thursdays after school with Mrs. Boles and Mrs. Schelitzche - a very fun way to play around with numbers (and get better at all basic math facts without feeling like it's work at all!).

Upcoming dates to keep in mind:  On two Mondays there will no classes - January 16th and 23rd.  The 23rd marks the halfway point of our school year already!  Our second trimester ends in early March, and we will be holding parent conferences again during the last week of February and first week of March. I will be getting to you a schedule on which to sign up by early February.

In the meantime, I hope we can all stay healthy during this cold stretch of winter.  It is great to see all the warm winter gear coming in for our outside times (though this past week we were not even able to get out there for three days!  Augghhh!).  I would like to advise everyone to throw an extra pair of warm socks into backpacks.  The kids are coming in with sometimes wet and always cold feet - so a dry pair of socks to pull on after a recess is very nice!   I will keep you posted on items/events/reminders big and small! 

Sincerely, Melanie Hannam