Hello, families! It was an unusual week, with a scheduled day off Monday, a surprise snow day on Wednesday, and our Read-In day on Thursday. We were still able to make some good progress with our work. In math, our 4th graders are mastering long division! They have come a long way in one week, and any extra problems you can throw their way is very helpful (one digit divisors, and up to 3 or 4 digit dividends). Next week we add practice with protractors, measuring angles, and coordinated grids on maps and graphs. Our students will continue with extra division practice throughout this unit, so you will see additional sheets coming home with their math books.
After many step by step lists and single paragraphs, our budding authors have begun to write their realistic fiction stories. We have gotten acquainted with our characters, developed our settings and scenarios, and created the problems and conflicts our characters must resolve in their stories. We've got these hills and valleys mapped out on our "story mountains" and many students are now teetering at the peak of their mountain where the problems appear to be at their most difficult. Next week, we hope to slide down the other side of the story mountain as we realistically resolve our characters' difficulties (there will be no "...and then he woke up and realized it was all a dream...")! :)
This next week your student will be bringing home the list of 75 "High Frequency Spelling Words" all 4th graders should know how to spell. Most of them appear to be quite easy, but we will see! We will be pretesting to see which ones are already mastered, and concentrate on the words each student must still practice, until all of our 4th graders prove mastery over the entire list. I believe we will also tackle the 5th grade words later this year - most of our students should have very little difficulty with them.
We are finalizing arrangements for February 22nd, when all of our 74 fourth graders will tour the Capitol Building and the Wisconsin Historical Museum. A permission slip will be coming home next week. Our WM PTO is covering the entrance cost to the Museum and our transportation - many thanks to them!
You will see the schedule of our day described on the permission slip, and you will need to send in the bottom portion of that page back to school with your signature and emergency contact. If you would like to volunteer to come along, we will have room on the buses for up to 4 parents per classroom, and your admission to the Museum will cost $2 - which you can give to me. Let me know if you would like to join us! We will all be bringing disposable lunches to eat in the lunchroom of the Museum. Our day away will last from 9:15 am until 1:45 pm.
In the meantime, thanks for sending warm and insulating snow clothing each day with your student. It looks like fresh snow coming almost every other day in the next week. An extra pair of dry socks in the backpack is a good idea, as well as a change of shoes for the classroom, while wet pairs of boots drip in the hallways! Melanie Hannam
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