Hello to our 4H Families. I am pleased to say that we had a very satisfying week in Room 117. We continue to make good progress with our skills in long division, and we've added practice measuring angles with full- and half-circle protractors, and creating our own angles. The kids have gotten so much work done in their two math journals, their poor teacher has had trouble keeping up with them! :) I love our Resource Time at the end of our school days, where students can dig into their assignments and I am able to answer each of their specific questions. They are using their time well. Motivation levels remain high to master all 100 basic math facts in each operation within 3 minutes - it is obvious who is kicking in with some extra practice on their own.
Most of the final drafts for our Fantasy Island stories have now been completed as well. We will enjoy adding them to our Language Binders, and sharing them with you at conference time. The kids have been asking for daily uninterrupted "read time" and we will be making that a priority for the rest of this month in particular, since there are fun plans in place to celebrate Literacy Week during the last week of February. This past week 4th grade teachers met with our reading specialist, Mrs. Smith, to report updated reading levels for our students at the midyear point, and progress is evident. Yay!
We are still examining the different regions of Wisconsin in Social Studies, and in Science, we are daily uncovering amazing facts about our earth, the moon, the sun, and our solar system. It has been so much fun to hear our students say with wonder, "I never knew that before!" NASA has some cool interactive sites online, showing the revolving and rotating planets, as does "space.com". I am learning almost as much as the kids!
I am happy to share with you, as I do with our students, that our class has been receiving some lovely compliments from their other teachers recently. After Art Class this week, Mrs. Hyland told me that she just loves how positive and motivated our class has been. After gym class, Mrs. Odgren said that she has noticed how our class has become like a close, helpful community. These words warm my heart. In celebration of our wonderful class 'family' of friends, we will be enjoying a Valentine's Day party on Monday, the 13th, for the last class period of the day. We have some creative moms who have been planning, and we are grateful for them. We decorated some bags on Friday which will be used to collect Valentine cards. On Tuesday, we will hold math class, and social studies/science classes - and then pack up for home by 11:00 am! It is one of our 5 CRT Days. The following Saturday, February 18th, the West Middleton PTO is running the annual WM Carnival from 2:00 to 4:30 pm in the school gym.
We are still collecting Box Top for Education - through March 2nd! Thanks for your support! The February Book Order will be mailed out this coming week (I got talked into extending the deadline till Monday, in case you are still interested in ordering.) Stay tuned for more details about Literacy Week, and also coming soon will be a sign-up list for parent/student/teacher conferences to be held in mid-March. The second trimester ends during the first week of March. Wow - time flies when we're having fun learning! Melanie Hannam
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