Hello to all! I want to thank you all again for the amazing response we had with our first field trip last week to the World Dairy Expo! I am sure we broke a record with 13 parent chaperones joining us for a very special experience. The kids all seemed to be pretty engaged with all the new sights, sounds, (and really quite pleasant smells, believe it or not) they encountered there. The new facilities reminded me of luxury hotel accommodations for milking cows! I was very proud of our group - not only was everyone very well behaved and attentive, they knew the answers to many of the questions that our guides asked them! It was just a great day, and I love knowing that we created new memories together. I took over 60 pictures, and will be sharing them with you. I like to keep a photo album each year, so there will be copies entered there, and you can page through the album when you come for conferences in November.
We have half of our permission slips returned for next week's trip to Pope Farm Park on October 15th. If you would like to meet us there and chaperone, just send me an email. We will be there from 11:30 to 2:00 that day - and naturalists and archeologists and gardeners will be our guides. Park in the lot at the top of the hill. Let's hope we are fortunate enough to hit a good weather day! (Lunches will be eaten - hot or cold - as usual, but at 10:30 again that morning!(
I sent home the new flyers for the October Scholastic Book Orders on Friday. These will be due by October 13th - either paper form to me, or done online. In September we had enough orders that gave us bonus points to add 20 new books to our classroom library!! Awesome! The kids get so excited by our books - pretty much fun!
We are moving to history and landforms (Glacial Age) of Wisconsin in Social Studies, as well as continuing to practice writing accurate addresses and phone numbers. In Writers Workshop, we have begun to draft our Realistic Fiction stories, and in Readers Workshop, we are reading with renewed attention and following our book characters with deeper understanding. Today's discussion was so rewarding - on their own, our students commented on how what we are practicing with our reading is helping us be better writers as well! I am so happy they are making these connections!! Woohoo!
We are halfway through our second unit in Math, which involves more work with place value, organizing and reporting data, graphing, and more practice adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers. Remember, whenever possible, to provide some practice and review of basic facts in all 4 operations - thank you, thank you!!
Toward the end of the month, I will send home a sheet of time slots where you can mark your first, second, third choices for parent/student/teacher conferences during the week of November 17th. I really believe in including our 4th grade students in our conferences, so please choose times that your 4th grader can also attend the conference.
If any other news bits come up, I will continue to forward them to you as I have been doing. I am happy to answer any questions that might come up, at any time! (Looking ahead - I think I would like to hold a "Harvest Party" in class on the afternoon of October 29th - probably from 12:15 to 1:00. We don't have school on October 30th and 31st. If any parents would like to do a bit of planning for snacks and activities centered on Harvest/Halloween, I would so appreciate that, and just let me know. I can put all interested parents in touch with each other.) Till next note -- Sincerely, Melanie Hannam
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