Hello, 4H families! This past week has been another full and busy one in Room 117. In Writer's Workshop, we have organized our Writing Binders by inserting our first section with a cover sheet entitled "My Personal Narratives". Now we have launched into analyzing what makes for a 'grabbing' story lead, and using dozens of books from our library, our class brainstormed a wonderful list of different techniques for story beginnings. We are also identifying story endings that have meaning and relate back to the idea of the story (so there will be no more "and then we drove home and went to bed. The End.") Our students created at least six original ways to begin a story, picked out their favorite one, and are now writing the rest of the story - so those will be fun to share next week.
We came to a good point in Reader's Workshop this week to stop and closely examine those Reading Logs that everyone has been filling out daily both at home and at school. There is much to discover about each of our 'reading lives' as we look at the data we are collecting on these sheets. Ask your 4th grader what they are noticing about their reading habits so far this year! During conferences, we will take another look together at these logs. We began our new Class Read Aloud book, "Out of My Mind" by Sharon Draper - and it has pulled us in from the first page. It is such an enlightening story - parents, if you get a chance to read a copy, you will certainly enjoy this book as well! The new thoughts and realizations about what it must be like to be 'Melody', the main character, are just tumbling out of our kids, and our class discussions get deeper by the day. Ask your 4th grader to explain a bit about this story so far - it will be fun to hear their impressions!
In Social Studies, we have been traveling all over Wisconsin, using state road maps. Along with brushing up on map skills, we are becoming familiar with locations of major cities, highways, rivers and lakes, boundaries, and attractions all over our state. This is leading us into our deeper study of Wisconsin landforms, the history of the glaciers, and then how this land became settled. Our field trip to Pope Farm Park next week on Thursday afternoon will be perfectly timed to enhance our study. There are 3 parents who have let me know they would like to join us - please do email me if you also can come and spend from 12:30 to 2:30 at the Park with us. It will be a fun activity to share with your child and the naturalists and historians who will lead us in our 'adventures'. We will not change our normal school lunch plans for this trip - your child may still bring their own lunch or order the hot lunch like any other day. We will just go down to the lunchroom 5 to 10 minutes earlier than usual that day, so we may board our buses by 12:20. I am told we can all meet at the LOWER parking lot of the Park, not the higher lot.
All of our math students are wrapping up Unit 2 with final tests (4th graders - this Friday / 5th graders - next Monday). Everyone is being encouraged to keep practicing those basic facts! Many are showing some steady improvement, but we need to see even more. Students in my 4th grade group are keeping track of their results each week on the back pages of their Studylink books, so ask them to show you how those numbers are looking - are they climbing, or plateauing? Thank you for supporting practice time at home - it makes all the difference.
We had an exciting surprise this week - we have welcomed a new girl to our 4H family! Cecelia D. has joined us from a Madison elementary school, and everyone has been so welcoming and helpful in making her feel comfortable and at home with us. I am so proud of our friendly and thoughtful classmates!
On Friday this week, you will find a Parent Conference Sign-Up Sheet in your student's Take Home Folder. Please give it some thought, check calendars, and mark your 1st, 2nd, 3rd choices for time slots, and then I will confirm one of those times with you once I hear back from everyone. Thanks so much. This weekend I will place any final orders for our October Scholastic Book Orders online. If you still want to order online, feel free - I can wait till Sunday to do my part. Just a heads up - early in November I will be sending home the usual order forms for that month and there will also be an extra catalog form for Gift Books for the holidays.
I look forward to seeing some of you at Pope Farm Park next week - hope we still have some of the gorgeous weather we had this week! As always, feel free to email me anything you wonder about or need to inform me. Our kids are having some awesome days in 4th grade - it's been so much fun! Melanie Hannam
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