Snowy, wintery greetings to you all! It was a very cold week with some indoor recesses, which the kids handled very well, but they were quite excited to get out into the new snow this afternoon for the last recess. On the first really cold day, we treated ourselves to some hot chocolate with marshmallows from my trusty old crockpot while we worked. Our Fantasy Island Maps are now laminated and will get displayed next week. We are now into tracing the path of the Ice Age Trail (did you know it crosses the whole state through 30 of Wisconsin's 72 counties!?), and digging deeper into glacial landforms. Wisconsin's neighbors, including the Great Lakes, are also on our agenda these days (some of us want to go kayaking along Lake Superior's gorgeous rocky shoreline! :) ).
Math classes forge ahead with Unit 5 and double digit multiplication and their first lesson in exponential notation. If you are able to give your student some extra problems with double digit numbers times two or three digit numbers, that would be a helpful boost. We expect to take the unit test by the end of next week. Most students can proudly say that this week saw many of their highest scores with their 3 minute timed basic facts practice. Please look with your student at the first semester's collection of facts sheets, along with the tally of their scores, and especially the graphs they made for each operation which reflects their progress most clearly. These papers all came home today, and they can remain at home. We will start a new collection for second semester beginning on Tuesday. Graphing their results quickly made it easy for them to see the rise and fall of their scores, and there was much excitement over some dramatically rising plot lines. Others saw some rather flat lines, which hopefully will prompt them to kick into some extra practice each day.
Over the last two weeks of shuffling descriptive words around and shaping them into lines of 5 and 7 syllables, our class produced dozens of Haiku poems! It was a very positive experience, as students found it easier with each session to write descriptive phrases and fit them into the Haiku format. I am so proud of the progress I witnessed toward more descriptive writing. I told the class that even if none of us ends up with a 'winning' Haiku in the Dane County contest, I definitely consider them all winners with the beautiful writing they have collected. Every poem, whether 'submitted' or not, is now typed and contained in a special section in their language binders to be saved.
With school back in session next Tuesday, January 24th, we welcome the second semester of 4th grade. Most of the kids say they can't believe we are halfway into the year already, and I agree! We have covered so many really interesting topics in all our various subject areas, and yet as we investigate new concepts and ideas, facts and places, each lesson leads us into numerous other avenues for new investigations and research. The joy of discovery and new knowledge is definitely alive in Room 117. So much to learn and so little time! Until next week, Melanie Hannam
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