Hello to all of our "4H" families!! I send you this update hoping I am reaching all of our families - if you prefer additional email addresses or different ones, please do let me know, and I will adjust my contact list. My updates will also appear on our classroom blog, and I encourage you to take a look there also for our Calendar of Events, our Daily Schedule page, and also The Homework Page. Every day after classes end, I post everything we have written on our homework/reminders list in class (which our students are also copying into their planners). It's a great way to double check assignments and reminders and upcoming activities.
At our class meeting during the last hour on Friday, we all pretty much agreed that we have begun an awesome year of Fourth Grade! It was an action packed first week learning about each other, along with the expectations and routines that will make us efficient, organized, and working together for LOTS of exciting learning ahead.
I want to thank all of you for the thorough and very helpful answers to my Parent Questionnaire about your child. I loved reading your notes, and it makes such a difference in helping me know and understand my new students. Please feel free to continue to email me or call whenever you want to fill me in on any circumstances that will help me work best with your child. Another important part of our communication will be the routine of going through - with your child - their Take Home Folder every day after school. It is divided into two sides - one side for items for you to see that stay home, and the other side for items you should see that need to come back to school. I am encouraging each of our 4th graders to take the lead on this quick daily responsibility - I would like them to initiate sitting down together to go through papers AND their planners with you, explaining what they are doing and where they need your inspection, signature, etc. Thank you for helping to 'coach' them into this habit - this is a great first step in developing their own responsibility and initiative.
Some business notes:
-An extra pair of gym shoes to keep at school is highly encouraged, along with stashing an extra pair of socks in the bottom of backpacks for wet or messy days outside.
-Students may bring a water bottle to keep at their desks during the day.
-We do take time for a midmorning snack. Students may bring a one serving bag or container each day (no large multi-serving bags, please). Sometimes parents have purchased, through Lunch Express, a box of snacks to share with the whole class. This is always a nice treat for the kids every once in a while.
-The best breakfast you can manage to give your child with our new early morning start time is SO important. Our lunch time is at 11:30 this year, but even with fitting in our snack time halfway through our almost 4 hour long morning, the kids get pretty hungry.
-We have almost 10 orchestra students in our class this year. Orchestra whole group sessions will be on Tuesday mornings from 7:30 to 7:55. The small group lessons with Mrs. Corey will also take place at rotating times throughout every Tuesday morning as well. That should be easy to remember, with having to bring instruments to school those days. The first day of lessons is this coming Tuesday, September 9th!
-The chance to order reading books through Scholastic Book Club will happen every month! Yay! The first order forms will come home early next week. We usually give ourselves one to two weeks to get orders placed - and I will always post the due dates. Every time students order books, our class gets bonus points for new books for our own classroom library, and that has been the biggest reason our classroom library has developed into something I am very excited about - we have a very rich reading library right in class! You have two ways to order - by sending back to school the paper order form with a check (no cash) made out to the Scholastic Book Club, OR - my favorite way - ordering online! Give it a try if you haven't already - I love it! It is very user friendly and so fast! You will need our class activation code: MFRC8. Let me know if you have questions about this.
In the coming weeks, I will send out more details about our first lessons in Readers' Workshop, Writers' Workshop, Spelling, Social Studies, and Science. We have already begun to practice building our "stamina" for independent reading in class (a favorite part of the day for most of us!). We will start switching for math groups on Monday. For the first unit students will all stay with their homeroom teacher, except for those who do the 5th grade math curriculum with Mrs. Boles, our new Advanced Learning Specialist. And big news -- our first Field Trip has already been scheduled! On October 1st, all of our 4th grade classes will spend much of the day at the World Dairy Expo, which is held at the Alliant Energy grounds. We welcome any and all parents who want to join us as chaperones! I will send specific details very soon. Right now, it looks like the time commitment will be roughly 11:00 to 2:30 that day. This trip is a big hit with everyone who goes, and it is full of first time experiences, sights, sounds, (and smells!). :) Stay tuned for all details!
This has gotten to be long enough for now! There is so much to share! We are off to an excellent start, and I look forward to talking with each of you again soon. Whether you have already been in to visit the classroom, and especially if you have not, please do stop in to say hi very soon so we can meet! Until next note.... Sincerely, Melanie Hannam
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