December 16, 2011 Weekly Update

I send warm Holiday Greetings to all of our 4H families! We kept particularly busy on projects this past week in Room 117, which was a good thing, since the rise of energy and excitement became more apparent as the week drew to a close :). After some preparatory lessons in mapping features, our students were finally ready to add those elements to their own large maps of Wisconsin. It provided for some productive and fun class periods during which they could be artistic with color, design, and printing - and at the same time, discover where to locate Wisconsin's major cities, rivers, state parks, even universities, airports, and some campgrounds! We are going to mount these maps in the halllway near our classroom door, so that will add some color to our entrance. Our next lessons will explore the natural landforms of our state, and how the last Ice Age influenced our present geography, with a detour to 'Fantasy Island' along the way (more about that later!).

We spent some time editing the Christmas Stories everyone had written (some students chose to write two stories!). We have some wonderful imaginations in our group, and it is so rewarding to see their growing ability to communicate their ideas with more description and clear story telling. That has been a goal - now on to the mysterious world (for most) of 'paragraphing' those great ideas and descriptions! We also practiced and tested on a list of holiday spelling words this past week - those stories highlighted the need for the proper spelling of 'ornaments' 'decorations' and 'sleigh', etc. We continue to encourage each other to keep reading, and looking out for that next great book, even when we might all be very busy with the other parts of our lives every day.

Math classes this past week involved wrapping up Unit 4, using our new skills with decimal numbers to convert measurements between millimeters, centimeters, and meters. This is a new skill for almost every 4th grader, and we have laid the foundation for future work on this concept in 5th grade. The conversion work is not presented as a required 'secure' skill at this point, but our exposure at this time will pay off with greater understanding the next time it is covered. Our Unit 4 test will be given next week on Tuesday, with Monday being a valuable review day. On Wednesday we will meet with our present groups one last time to discuss the test items.

Other activities this past week included seven preliminary class rounds for the district-wide Geography Bee. I will submit our scores to our GT teacher, Ms. Weber, and she will take the results from all participating students to determine the next step in narrowing down contestants. The kids loved doing these rounds, and I found that to be quite amazing, since the questions were REALLY hard, and I believe most adults would not have done much better with knowing the answers! Whew! Our classmates also wrote out rough drafts for their own short email note to send out to Tyler, our Chinese classmate who moved to Chicago around Thanksgiving time. Tyler has been able to email me and tell us about his new school, and so has become our penpal! This is proving to be a fun and valuable way to practice more writing - and as I have found out - to also practice newly developing keyboarding skills. Our tech teacher, Mrs. Stirn, has recently brought our students to the point where they have been exposed to all the keys and proper finger positioning on the keyboard. Now it is very important that our kids get consistent practice typing and using the proper fingers. If you are able to give your student time to type at home on a consistent basis - even 10 minutes most nights - that would help them develop their speed and accuracy. So many kids at this point have had several years already using computer keyboards with their own ways to find keys, and it makes it more difficult to switch habits to correct positioning. It is frustrating for many of them to adopt the 'new' way to type, but it is very important they keep trying and practicing it correctly. Thanks for your support with this.

Next week will go very fast. We will end the three days with a classroom holiday party the last hour of Wednesday. We have some wonderful moms who are planning some treats and even an art project! Thank you, thank you! On Wednesday, each student will be bringing home to you something special they made this past week - enjoy! I will write again once we gather back together in January. My own family has planned to do something we've never done before at this time of year - we are taking the week after Christmas to escape to Playa del Carmen in Mexico together. My husband and I have three grown daughters and one future son-in-law who all live out of town (two are out of state!), and we never get near enough time to spend with them. So we all managed to clear calendars and plan a getaway together. I am just hoping weather and flights cooperate! Until then, may you all enjoy memorable family time as well, and we can all recharge as we draw close to the midpoint of our year together. Best wishes to all of you! Melanie