September 4, 2015 Update

Greetings to all of our 4H families!  Our first week of school went so fast!  There was so much to tell each other as we got acquainted and as we learned about how we will manage our time and work (and fun) each day in 4th grade.  With each day, we will get closer to a routine.  Our class group is already showing such promise in direction following and helping each other out.  I am so happy to settle in for a fulfilling year with your 4th graders.

On Tuesday when we return, we will begin our first math lessons, using our new Journals and Studylinks.  Most days there will be pages, or parts of pages, to finish up as homework.  I want both books to go home everyday, so your child can show you (and ask them to explain to you how to do the skill!) what they worked on that day in class, and what they need to complete for the next day.  Even if the assignment gets all finished up in class, they should be bringing home both books, so you may see that they have indeed completed the items the best that they can.  Parents do not need to correct any work, but a suggestion to try an item again if you notice something incomplete or incorrect is appreciated.  I will be explaining to our math students that I do not grade anything they do in these workbooks, because this is where they practice their skills.  I never want anyone to be afraid to try something they are not sure of - I want them to feel comfortable giving every item their best effort.  I present the lesson one day, and we practice in class.  Students practice again by trying the pages in their books, and then the next day, we practice again by checking those items together and discussing again.  And remember, if you ever wonder about the accuracy of the homework assignment in their assignment notebooks, I update the Homework Page on our blog every day after school!

Another important part of our math class is Basic Facts practice in all four operations:  addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.  We will start out nearly every single class period with a chance to answer the 100 basic facts within 3 minutes.  On Mondays, we will do the 100 addition facts, Tuesdays it is subtraction, etc.  I check these papers daily and we keep track of progress.  Students may consider their facts 'mastered' once they achieve 100% accuracy within 3 minutes for each operation.  I tell them that once they achieve this, they get a 3 minute 'naptime' during this exercise!  :)  All you can do to help your child practice their facts is such valuable support!!!  I can't emphasize enough:  The 4th grade math curriculum assumes a 4th grader has mastery of all of their basic facts in the lessons that are presented every day.  If a student is still struggling to accurately recall their facts, it makes the new math skills much more difficult to practice and learn.  You will see each week's 3 minute attempts come home on Fridays, so you may be aware of how things are going for your child.  I will also send home progress reports every few weeks.  Thank you in advance for finding some way to routinely give your student the practice help he/she needs.  The clear plastic sheet protector with the fact sheets that came home in all of the parent papers is meant to stay home and be one way to practice.  If you use a slim dry erase marker on the plastic sheet, then you can use those pages over and over again. 

Speaking of the papers that went home the first night/day -- thank you so much for returning them so promptly.  I just need a few to come in yet.  One thing I thought I should explain better is that "Volunteer Disclosure Form".  It became necessary to have this on file about a year ago for all parents in the school district, before any opportunities to work with students as a volunteer and to even be able to go along on field trips!  So we are asking every one of our parents to fill out and sign this sheet at the beginning of the year, so if/when you want to join us for any activity or trip, you are all set and done with that formality.

And that leads me to the fact that all of our 4th grade classes are going on TWO field trips on the last two days of September already!!  Crazy, but that's how the schedules worked out this fall!  On September 29th, we go to Pope Farm Park for 2.5 hours to do activities with local experts in archaeology, gardening, geology, and history.  Our school district has made the commitment to send every 4th grader to these sessions both in the fall and in the spring for different activities. The Park is the perfect location to learn about Wisconsin's unique history, landforms, and geology - and we are so fortunate to have this area within two miles of our school!  If you'd like to meet us there and join us, it will be so much fun, and the more the merrier.  Just let me know - the permission slips will come home this next week, with the time frame and more details.  The following day on September 30th, we will continue our special tradition to attend the World Dairy Expo at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.  We study the agriculture of Wisconsin in Social Studies, and experiencing up close what is all involved in milk production from the most beautifully groomed cows we will EVER see, all the way to grocery store coolers, is a very memorable opportunity for our kids.  It is a highlight of our year, and parents love this trip, too, so again if you can find time to go along, let me know, and watch for that permission slip, too!  (For both of these days, we will probably have to eat a sack lunch in the classroom earlier than our normal lunch time, since we will be getting on buses around 11:00am (exact time frames will be on the permission slips), so talk over with your student this weekend if they will want to bring their own sack lunch from home, or will want to order the Lunch Express sack lunch.  We will have to fill out order forms on Tuesday so the kitchen knows what to plan for.  Thanks a lot!)

I will end for now with the reminder that if you have an Orchestra student, the first large group lesson begins at 7:15am THIS Tuesday, Sept. 8th, at school!  They will end at 7:45 each Tuesday, and get back to our room in time for our first class.  Sometime during Tuesday mornings, small group lessons also take place when these students get excused from class during different rotating 30 minute time periods each week.

I will keep you updated on all news and events, and as we go through the weeks ahead, I will fill you in on our other subjects and what we are studying and exploring.  I am happy to hear from you at any time through emails, calls, or visits!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

August, 2015 -- WELCOME TO THE NEW 2015-2016 SCHOOL YEAR!

Hello to all of our new "4H" families!  I welcome you all to Room 117, and to our classroom blog!

Please sign up to receive my posts from this blogsite, and you will find the Daily Schedule Page for our classroom, daily posts on the Homework Page, and weekly posts about life in our 4th grade world.  

Stay tuned for more information - and feel free to ask me any questions!  

Mrs. Melanie Hannam

May 1, 2015 Update

Happy May to all of our families!  The calendar is getting crowded with many events and activities being planned for this last full month of school.  I sent home on Friday a pink sheet with the schedule of meetings, etc. that Glacier Creek has sent out for incoming 5th graders - I thought that might be handy for you to keep.  On Friday, May 8th, all of our 4th grade classes will be taken to Glacier Creek for a tour from 1:00 to 2:00.  That will be very exciting!

As for the next month in our own West Middleton world  ---  whew, get ready!  We have all completed the new Badger Exams over the past month, and our kids handled it all very well.  Over the next three weeks, we will still need to fit into our days the 3rd round of MAPS testing for both Reading and Math (approximately one hour for each).  I will also be meeting individually with each of my students to listen to them read and discuss a short story with me, again a third round for this year to determine progress in reading skills.

We also have 3 field trips left to enjoy!  On May 13th, the 4th graders from our school will join those from Park and Sunset Ridge Elementary Schools at the MHS Track for the annual 4th Grade Track Meet.  The blue permission slip you received a good week ago has the approximate schedule of events printed on the back, in case you want to stop by and watch for awhile.  We will be wearing our tie dye shirts, and bringing along a completely disposable sack lunch, along with perhaps an extra water bottle or two for the day -- ALL marked with student name and school.  This includes all extra layers of clothing brought along as well, which is usually a very good idea!  On Friday morning, May 29th, our 4th graders go back to Pope Farm Park for the morning for a new round of sessions with naturalists, gardeners, and historians.  A permission slip and a chance to chaperone will be coming soon.  Finally, on Monday, June 8th, our four classes will be spending the day at the Cave of the Mounds.

Stay tuned for news of plans for our last afternoon of school on June 10th.  There will be special activities planned for our departing Fourth Grade Class, and you will get details from the organizing parents over the next month. If you are interested in helping with this, let me know (I think the activities will involve outdoor games and goodies).

We have transitioned to new units in all of our academic subjects over the last couple of weeks!  In Social Studies, we are exploring five regions in our United States, making maps and finding significant places and people for each region.  Science has our kids studying Life Structures, and they are developing 'green thumbs'!    In Math, we are well into Unit 11, figuring out volumes of geometric solids, and subtracting negative numbers. Just one more Unit to go after this one!  Writing class is giving us new opportunities to write more deeply about what we are reading (literary essays), and in Reading class, we are just about ready to start new books as members of Book Clubs.  Being able to converse about and analyze the characters and events in the books we read together has been a highlight in our room all year with our Class Read Aloud books.  Now we will be trying to transfer that same deep level of discussion to small groups where our students will be taking on more responsibility for the direction of their conversations.

I will definitely keep you informed as we go through each week, with details and special notes and reminders about our activities.  This coming week, we do have "Wacky Wednesday" where students can come with some mismatched or crazy clothing/hair/shoes.... - our school earned this day by accomplishing good behavior goals promoted by our PBIS Team.   Thanks for your attention and support with papers and deadlines for your student as we jump into this very busy final month of 4th Grade!  Wow!   Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

March 20, 2015 Update

Happy, Spring, everyone!  It was fun meeting with everyone again this past month at conferences.  Report cards should have come home on Friday.  You may keep the sheets inside, but please send the envelope back to school with your signature.  I'm sorry I had to be gone yesterday.  My mother will reach 92 years in two weeks, but she's been in failing health recently, and this past week was a rough one.  She is doing better again now.  My sister and I were able to transfer her from the hospital to a rehabilitation center yesterday, so that is a positive step.

We have been working pretty hard lately in Room 117, and the kids have been up for it!  I am proud of them!  In math, the new Unit 9 is taking what we've learned about fractions and decimals, and applying it to new knowledge about percents.  Combining all these relatively new skill concepts takes time, so I want our kids to know that we will give all of this plenty of practice and they will do well with it.  It just takes some extra exposure, which will happen in the next week.

In Writers' Workshop, we have dug into research and note taking about a well known or accomplished person in history.  Students have chosen people who have lived in a wide variety of time periods, from ancient to recent times.  We are reading from several sources, pulling out the info we need, taking efficient notes, organizing those notes into logical subsections, and then we will compose and type these into a biography.  Many useful skills are being used with this project, so we will be at it for awhile yet.  I am pleased that our kids have jumped into this with enthusiasm, sharing new information and facts with me and others as they discover surprises about their person.  I love this!

I couldn't be more impressed with the discussion points our students have been coming up with during Readers' Workshop over the last two weeks.  We are using our own reading books and those we have read together as a class so far this year, to compare and list life lessons and themes that we are learning from our characters.  Wow!  I am printing out the list of their comments we have made, so that each student can have a copy for their Writing Binders.  Wait till you see how deeply many of our kids are thinking, and the meaningful lessons they are discovering!  I think I will have them put their copies into their Take Home Folders for you to look at before we get them into our Binders.  I will let you know what day that will be.

The subject of immigration is the main topic of our current unit in Social Studies.  Most of our students were not aware of this entire issue in either our past or present world, so our reading and discussions have been opening up their eyes.  Now some of them have commented that they are noticing more about this topic when the news is on at home, and that is just awesome!!  In Science, they will be taking their final test on the Magnets and Electricity unit with Mrs. Bertz on Wednesday, March 25th.  Plenty of notes and guide sheets are in their red folders, so these should be coming home each day now to practice and review.  Thanks for helping them a little bit each night.

May I ask if some of our families would be able to supply our classroom with a few more boxes of Kleenex and cleaning wipes?  We have completely run out now on both.  Thank you so much.

I will be forwarding a flyer about a Young Writer's Camp to be held at Ohlbrich Gardens in Madison this summer, in case that is something you and your student would be interested in doing.

As always, please feel free to email or call with any concerns about your child, or questions you might have about our work.  May all of you have a most wonderful Spring Break, one week from now!  When we get back in April, I will inform you of some revised schedules on some days, due to the new Badger Exams we will be taking.  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

February 20, 2015 Update

Hello to all of our 4H Families!  We've survived a couple of cold weeks, with more indoor recesses than anybody wants, but... we can take it!  There's so much to accomplish in our classroom, so we are keeping it warm inside.  We've just completed reading "Number The Stars" by Lois Lowry in Readers' Workshop, and after reading our kids' Thoughtful Log entries, I know it is a story that has made a lasting impression.  We are winding down our Historical Fiction unit, and it has opened up a new genre of stories to 'get lost in' for most of our 4th graders.  Our next focus in Reading will be all about interpreting and analyzing themes, ideas, and life lessons in the books we are reading.  Which books share the same idea/theme, and how does one book handle that compared to another book?  What are we learning for ourselves from what happens to the characters in our books?  Our 4th graders have been demonstrating their growing ability to dig deeper into story meaning, and they are ready for these next steps.  It's very exciting and rewarding!

In Social Studies we have been doing some analyzing and comparing, too.  We are traveling through the time period in the early 1800's when the native Americans had to make room for the growing population of new settlers from the east, and our area's transition from Territory to Statehood.  We want to cover the beginning of our brand new state government, so we are prepared with the background to fully appreciate what we will see and hear about next Thursday.  Next week on February 26th, we go to the Wisconsin State Capitol and then the Wisconsin Historical Museum.  MANY thanks to the 14 parents from our classroom who will be meeting us downtown for our trip!  Wow!  For those parents who are going, you can plan on meeting us on the ground floor rotunda of the Capitol between 9:45 and 10:00.  Our guided tour will begin at 10:00am.  We will be walking over to the Historical Museum at 11:30 to eat our lunch in their lunchroom on the first floor, and then our tour guides will take small groups throughout the Museum beginning at 12:00 noon.  After an hour with our guides, we will have one more half hour to tour around ourselves with our chaperones, before boarding buses back to school at 1:30.  Parents, please remember to send along a completely disposable lunch for your child that day (unless they have ordered a school sack lunch).  Chaperones, feel free to bring a lunch and eat with us at 11:30, too. 

We are finishing up Unit 7 in 4th grade math, and we will take the Unit Test on Wednesday of this coming week.  It has been a pretty hefty unit with a lot of new fraction work.  These concepts and skills will come up again in 5th grade, getting reinforced and built upon next year, so if complete mastery is not demonstrated this year, our kids will still have learned some good foundational skills that will make a difference next year.  It is clear once again that the students who are still struggling with knowing their basic facts are the ones who struggle the most with our lessons. 

We are about ready to celebrate and enjoy the fruits of our labors in Writing Workshop.  We have completed our "How To..."  Books, and will be presenting them to each other, and then to our first grade buddies.  This project has also given our students a great opportunity to practice their skills with some researching online and saving information to their Google Drive.  Our next unit will be taking our research a little deeper by focusing on the life of a historical person, and practicing our skills with note taking and organizing information.

You should have seen a new bright green sheet in your student's Take Home Folder from Friday.  This sheet confirms every family's conference time on March 3, 4, or 10.  I look forward to seeing you and your child to talk over how 4th grade is going!  In the meantime, I will keep you posted on other events and reminders that come along.  See you all soon!  Melanie Hannam

January 23, 2015 4H Update

Hello to all. I'd like to bring you up to date with our activities in Room 117 over the last couple of weeks.  Friday, January 23rd, marks the exact halfway point of our school year!  We are approaching the end of several mid-year assessments!   Our class has completed MAPS testing in the computer lab for both Reading and Math.  I am also wrapping up my individual meetings with each of our students, where they have read a story (or two or three!) out loud to me, and then we discuss their comprehension of the story.  When we have conferences in March, I can show you progress with both assessments.  This coming Tuesday, January 27th, all of our 4th graders will be taking part in NAEP testing (see the letter that went home earlier this month).  This involves three 30 minute tests in the areas of Reading, Math, and Science.  Our kids have been troopers through all of these 'additions' to our learning days.

Math class, as you know, has involved the process of learning long division during Unit 6.  Almost everyone is feeling more confident with each passing day.  All students could use more practice, so whenever there are 5 or 10 minutes available, jot down a problem or two like the ones you've seen come home, and slide that paper in front of your 4th grader to solve!  (These would be problems of 2,3, or 4 digit numbers being divided by any 1 digit number.)  The last lesson of this unit does introduce 2 digit divisors, so we will be practicing those briefly (Part B on the test).  We are treating all remainders as fractions at this point in the year.  This work with long division has caused more than a few of our students to become painfully aware that they are still lacking in their quick recall of basic facts!!!!  Please continue to give your child support and practice with basic facts, especially multiplication and division facts.  We will be taking our final Unit 6 test sometime in the next week.  Then, fractions are on the horizon!

In Reader's Workshop, we have all found our first Historical Fiction books to read on our own!  As a class, we are also reading together "Number The Stars" by Lois Lowry.  This gripping story is a perfect example of what it is like to become immersed in another time period through the eyes of fictional characters.  We are learning history as we enjoy getting to know characters who represent what real people have gone through.  This story takes place in Denmark during the Nazi occupation, so this book also opens our 4th graders' eyes to a very difficult event in our world's past.  I want to assure you that we are treating their first exposure to these events carefully and sensitively. For about the next month, your student will be trying to keep up with the free reading book of their choice along with their choice of a historical fiction book.  Thank you for helping them manage their reading time to include both (or if they want to exclusively dig into historical fiction for awhile, that is just fine).

In Writer's Workshop, we are using our newly acquired knowledge of what makes an effective Informational Book, using a variety of Text Features, and we are creating our own Info Books!  These will involve topics about which each student already feels comfortable sharing in step by step detail.  This will allow them the chance to use Text Features (both computerized or hand written/drawn) to make their own book effective and appealing to their audience.  We will not only share our books with each other, but we will also 'teach' our first grade buddies when we have completed our projects! 

Social Studies class has been all about understanding what it was like for the native Americans in our area of Wisconsin as European explorers and fur traders, followed by the new United States government after the American Revolution, all brought their influence, customs, and new laws to rapidly settling new lands.  I have so enjoyed hearing the thoughts and opinions of our students as they realize that there are many sides and viewpoints to the same events and issues. (Plus, you may get some requests to travel to Prairie du Chien or Portage... :)  In Science, they are working on experiments to prove the presence and power of magnetism as they approach they study of electricity.

Our January Scholastic Book Order should be arriving any day now.  Thanks for continuing to check into your student's Take Home Folder with them each day for any notices that come home, along with papers that might need signing.  We've had some illnesses make the rounds in our room over the last couple of weeks - many thanks to those of you who sent in cleaning wipes.  We are making good use of them!  I will send you another update in a couple of weeks - in the meantime, we are staying cozy and productive with our napping polar bears keeping an eye on us in Room 117!  :)  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

January 9, 2015 4H Update

Happy new 2015 to all of you!  It feels good to say that we are one of very few schools who put in a full 5 day week of classes this past week!  In our classroom, we swept out some cobwebs in our brains after two full weeks off, and ended up being very productive.  In spite of the difficult weather, we kept warm in our room, digging in to our work and activities.  Our kids handled all 5 indoor recesses very well, organizing themselves into some great games and art projects (it was good relationship-building time!).

We shared with each other all the books we've been reading lately, and have sparked some new ideas for each other.  This coming week in Readers Workshop we begin a new unit using  Historical Fiction books.  In addition to each student's independent reading book, they will be choosing another book where the story is set in another time period.  We will be exploring what it is like to be transported to a very different time and place in our reading, and what we can learn through the eyes of characters who lived through experiences we may not have ever realized or understood before!  Many of these stories are award winners, so the writing is some of the best that our students will be reading all year.    

The January Scholastic Book Order flyers went home this week.  Take a look, and as always, if you would like to order, you have the choice of online ordering or sending in a check with the order form to school.  We decided on a due date for orders - Friday, January 16th.

Every year at this time, all 4th graders in Dane County have the opportunity to enter a Haiku writing contest.  We learned this week how to write Haiku (a three line poem with 17 syllables).  Our kids caught on quickly, and all have been producing several Haiku during moments of inspiration throughout the week.  We will collect up all of our attempts, each student choosing their favorite 2 or 3, and we will get those typed up to submit by January 21st.  It's been a fun and valuable writing experience whether we end up with any official winners or not.  We will be notified by March if anyone in our school has a poem chosen by the judges, and then there is a program held to honor those writers with their families, with all winning poems printed into a booklet.  We will collect all of our poems in our Writing Binders, so you can see them.  I love what our kids are doing - some very creative 'word-smithing' going on!   

In Science with Mrs. Bertz, our class is moving into a new unit on magnetism and electricity.  In Social Studies, we are transitioning from the "Old Time" when native tribes had the land all to themselves, to when the first European explorers and traders found this area we know now as Wisconsin.  Life changes forever for the people of this time, and we find out how and why!  We are looking forward to our next big field trip during the last week of February - details will be coming.  We are planning a tour of our State Capital and the Wisconsin Historical Museum!

Important dates for the month of January include several days containing testing sessions for our 4th graders.  On both January 8th and 12th, I am meeting individually with each student to listen to them read a leveled passage and hold a comprehension conversation together.  We do this 3 times throughout the year to determine updated reading skills.  Also done 3 times this year is the MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) Assessment in the computer lab for both reading and math. We will do our sessions on January 13th and 15th - this coming week!  And then on January 27th, there is another assessment being given to just the 4th graders in reading, math, and science.  You should have received a letter this past week explaining this test.  If there are any questions, please let me or Mr. Macklem know.  If you could support your student with a particularly good night's sleep and breakfast for each of these upcoming days especially, that would be ideal. 

A little housekeeping note:  Our classroom has just about run out of cleaning wipes.  If you think of it next time you are shopping for such supplies, would you include Room 117 on your shopping list?  With all the cold and flu bugs being passed around this time of year, I am trying to be diligent about wiping off desk surfaces, etc. even more often than usual.  We're still pretty good with our Kleenex box supply.  Thank you!!

It has just been decided this past week that we will hold our next Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences during the month of March, around the dates of March 3rd and 10th.  I will send home a list of possible times for days during that timespan, in February.  At the Conference, I can share the updates on your child's reading and math assessments, along with their progress in our classroom units of study.    

In the meantime, let's hope we get some more agreeable weather, and that we all stay healthy!  I will continue to stay in close touch with you!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam