May 17, 2013 Weekly Update

 

The countdown to year's end is on, but we have lots left to accomplish in 4th grade!  You should find the letter and permission slip for our June 3rd field trip to Cave of the Mounds in your student's Take Home Folder.  Keep all the info and send back the half sheet with your signature.  Thanks a lot.  If you would still like to join us on this day, you are most welcome - just let me know.  I have asked the kids to talk over with you if they should bring their own completely disposable sack lunches for this day, or if you want them to buy the sack lunch through Lunch Express at school.  We will have to fill out forms for Ms. Kay by Tuesday if we want to order a lunch.

 

Another permission slip will come home in the next couple of days!  This one is for our afternoon on June 4th at Pope Farm Park.  The naturalists have gone to great effort to accommodate our classes and I think it will be a very special tour and hands-on experience for all of us.  Again, any number of parents are welcome to join us, so just let me know.  The buses will get us to the Park by noon that day, and we will be back to school by 2:30.  See the permission slip info to find out all the details.  Your signature will be needed promptly for this trip as well.  Thank you!

 

Back in the classroom, we have spent nearly every day in the past week deeply involved in up to hour-long sessions with our new Chromebooks, doing research for our Informational Booklets.  Thanks so much for your support at home with computer time and printing jobs.  This coming week, we will be working on creating and constructing our book pages.  The kids have been excited to do their searches for info on the Chromebooks, and we have all been teaching each other how to find facts, pictures, save and share documents, etc.  They have taught me a number of tricks and shortcuts!

 

In 4th grade math, we are halfway through Unit 11 already.  In a few short days, look for the unit review sheets which will prepare everyone for our last unit math test within the next week.  We are learning about metric weights, volume and capacity, three dimensional polyhedrons, and subtracting with negative numbers.  Quite a mix of concepts!

 

Social Studies has had us roaming the western states lately, and comparing the extremes of geography and conditions in this region.  Thanks to some high quality National Geographic DVD presentations, within three days we explored the depths of Death Valley in California all the way up to the highest peak in Denali National Park in Alaska.  Fascinating!  We will still find time to do more exploring in our final science unit during the next two weeks when we delve into a study of our Solar System.  We are running out of time with so much to discover, but we are going to pack in as much learning as we can right up to the very last days!  

May 10, 2013 Weekly Update

Hello to all!  I must say, it was a special week of feeling appreciated!  I came to our classroom Monday morning with a newly decorated door crawling with personalized little Pac Man ghosties - it was "a Maze ing".  Thank you to the creative moms who put this all together - Trisha P. and Stephanie R.  In addition, our staff was very well fed all week long with breakfast, desserts, and two incredible lunches.  I love getting handwritten notes from our kids - they are precious.  Thank you all!

 

Speaking of gifts, your son or daughter will need to do some explaining when Mom opens her decorated envelope for Mother's Day.  We 4th grade teachers tried something new this year - and we will all have to wait and see if this is a successful venture.  I can't explain any more now, in case you have to wait till Sunday to see what I'm referring to!  I told the kids that an additional gift would be if they took responsibility for the 'care' of this gift... Let me know if anyone experiences any successful 'sprouting'!

 

We have already conquered Unit 10 in math, and took the final test today.  Watch for the test next week to sign and return.  We will begin Unit 11 on Monday. We will continue to meet in all of our math groups, 4th and 5th, through Friday, May 31st. 

 

Our Writing Project for creating Informational Booklets on a topic of interest, in order to teach other classmates, has been a major activity this past week.  We have been taking advantage of the new Chromebooks in our school, which are like small laptops.  At the same time, everyone can do research for their topic and take notes, saving articles and pictures to their own Google Drive accounts.  We cannot print from the Chromebooks, but by saving their material in Google Docs, they can access this material at computers in our computer lab, or at home, and get pictures printed from there.  I have been encouraging our students to take time at home to research, take notes, and print pictures in addition to time at school.  There is never enough time to do it all in class.  The kids love working with the Chromebooks, and the time we have them goes way too fast.  Next week we will have to decide on a deadline for note-taking, and get to the process of creating their booklets.  Thank you for helping your student get time on a home computer, if possible, to gather information for their note cards.  If any parent would like to come in for 45 to 60 minutes one or two days next week, to help some of our students gather information and take notes, that would be so very helpful.  It is difficult for me to get to everyone who needs assistance with notes and printing.  Just email me if you can help, and we can look at times and days.  Thank you! 

 

An update on upcoming field trips:  We are all set to spend the full school day on Monday, June 3rd, at the Cave of the Mounds.  Any and all parents who want to spend the day with us at this special place can do so, and follow our buses in your cars.  Some of you have let me know you plan to come - please email me if you want to chaperone, too.  Details with a permission slip are coming home soon.  Our other outing was to be for the morning of June 4th at Pope Farm Park.  That day needed to be rescheduled due to the conflict with the MHS Senior Class trip (no buses available for us!).  However, we got rescheduled to June 3rd!  At this time, I am trying to coordinate new plans with one of the naturalists with the Pope Farm Program, so I will let you all know as soon as I can if we can still make something work.  As it is now, June 4th will be a regular day in class for us.

 

Our final Scholastic Book Order is due this Monday, May 13th.  Another deadline is Friday, May 17th, the last day we collect Box Tops and Food Donations toward our building goal of 12,000 total items.  We send Mr. Macklem to the West Middleton rooftop for a day if we succeed!  Also, if you have a 4th grader interested in performing in a 4th grade (only) talent show on the afternoon of May 31st, the deadline for turning in audition/permission slips is Wednesday, May 15th. 

 

May you enjoy family time this Mother's Day weekend!  Melanie

May 3, 2013 Weekly Update

Hello, again, everyone.  This week we went from a couple of days in shorts and t-shirts for recess, to being stuck back inside with sweatshirts being pulled on and a 40 degree rainfall!  

 

We took two days in fourth grade math to complete Unit 9's final test, to make sure there was enough time to catch any careless mistakes or misreading of directions, which does plague many of our students.  Now we are exploring reflections and lines of symmetry in Unit 10, along with work on adding and subtracting negative numbers.  This unit is quite a bit shorter than the others, so we will be reviewing our lessons by the end of next week already in preparation for the final test there.  We will keep you posted on the exact date for that.

 

This week's spelling list may be more difficult for many, so I am giving everyone some extra days to practice.  The test will be next Wednesday.  The stories our students are creating, using these spelling words, are quite entertaining and fun - and they get the chance to let their imaginations roam along some unusual routes in trying to use all their words.  In Writer's Workshop, we did not get real far in our note taking this first week for our Informational Booklets.  We needed to take two class periods to complete this year's final and third round of MAPS assessments in the computer lab for math and reading.  Many of our students are becoming noticeably more comfortable using the computer for these assessments, and they are visibly gaining confidence in how they are answering as well.  We all feel great that we have completed these assessments for the year!

 

Now that our first Book Clubs have finished their books, we have given ourselves the chance to trade and exchange, so that students interested in reading one of the other books get the opportunity to do that.  We traded around today.  We will be doing more reflecting on our reading in our Thoughtful Logs with these.  In Social Studies, we are winding up our exploration of the Midwest Region of the U.S., and just like Lewis and Clark, we are pushing westward!  I cannot wait for the perfect time in this unit to show our students some National Geographic DVD's of our beautiful National Parks.  Watch out - you may get some requests for major family trips! 

 

On Monday at lunchtime, all of West Middleton's 4th graders get treated to a small dish of Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt!  Woohoo!  We won the contest for best behavior in the lunchroom over a two week period earlier in April!  We've come a long way!

 

Early next week, your student will bring home the last monthly Scholastic Book Order form of the school year.  We'll give it a week's time to turn them back in, so I can get our order out in time to receive our new books before the last week of school.

 

Keep in mind that we are planning our day away at the Cave of the Mounds on Monday, June 3rd.  If you are interested in chaperoning, just let me know.  The other trip, to Pope Farm Park for a half day, is now questionable - I will keep you informed.  It was scheduled by the district on the same day as the Senior Class Trip, and buses won't be available that day!  So stay tuned on the status of that one!

 

As notes of importance come up during this last month of school, I will email you all and keep you up to date.  We will be quite busy trying to get all the learning in that we can during our rapidly dwindling time together in fourth grade! 

April 26, 2013 Weekly Update

Dear 4H Families - I told our 4th graders that I would start my note right off with an invitation for you to look into their Take Home Folders today to find the finished drafts of their "Memoirs".  Hopefully they have already presented you with their precious memory stories.  I was so touched by these stories, and where our students were able to express what these memories meant to them, it was quite special (thinking more like a parent here than a teacher, I must admit!).  These are definitely projects worth putting in the "save till they're grown up" box.  I told the kids that they may have the option of keeping these at home now, or if they do return it to school after you've read them, we will be putting them in our big lime green binders where we are saving all of their 4th grade writing projects to take home at the end of the year.  Enjoy this little window into what's important in your son or daughter's memory so far - maybe some of you are in for a surprise!

 

I hope you haven't minded getting a little tree taking up space first in your refrigerator, and soon hopefully, somewhere in your yard, this week!  Give the kids the job of keeping them watered and safe from lawn mowers this first summer, and may these roots and sprigs grow into beautiful evergreens as your children grow as well.  Well, this is certainly a sentimental beginning to this week's update!

 

On to other more businesslike topics:  We have completed Unit 9 in 4th grade math, so on Monday we will take the final unit test.  We went over the Review problems in class today, and I instructed everyone to take these home this weekend so that they can use them for more practice.  These examples closely match the items on our test.

 

Our Writer's Workshop has been all about Informational Writing since we finished Memoirs.  We have researched what inviting and engaging pages filled with info about a real topic looks like.  We have decided on a topic we are interested in learning more (and teaching others) about, and are deciding into what categories we will sort our facts and pictures, charts, diagrams, etc.  Some students have already found books and articles in our libraries, and they will be looking for more info at home this weekend (online sources, the public library, your own book/magazine collections... may we have your permission to print out some pages of facts and pictures at home for our note-taking sessions next week?).  Next week in class, we will be taking our notes and keeping all of our information organized.  When these projects are completed, our students will be 'teaching' their own classmates, and one or two classrooms of second graders!

 

For the last two weeks, our Book Clubs have been reading and discussing the events in their books during Club Meetings.  They have set their own reading schedule, and have kept to them very well.  Most of the groups were able to celebrate the completion of their book late this week, and the last group will be done next week.  Now everyone wants to switch books and read some of the others, so that will happen next.  This project has proven to be valuable not only with reading comprehension, but also for proper meeting protocol, respect, self discipline, compromise and negotiation, leadership skills...  lots of valuable lessons! 

 

Social studies has us exploring the upper Midwest states of our country, and led us to 'discovering' the remarkable story of Lewis and Clark's courageous journeys from St. Louis, along the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, and all the way to the Pacific Ocean in the early 1800's.  We have also made the acquaintance of Sacajawea, and are reading stories of her important role in their exploration.  We've really enjoyed going back to this time period and imagining what it must have been like.  We will branch out into other regions of the U.S. in the coming weeks, and somehow we will find time to explore beyond our entire planet Earth for our final Science Unit on Sun, Moon, and Stars.  Yikes, and there's only 6 more weeks of school to do all this exploring!

 

This reminds me to let you know of our final two field trips, coming up during our last week of school.  Mark your calendars:  On Monday, June 3rd, all of our 4th graders will be spending the whole day at the Cave of the Mounds.  We get a special tour and meeting with the guides of the grounds above the caves, eat a picnic lunch there, go on our Cave tour, and also do some 'sluicing' for gold!  Think about whether you'd like to chaperone this fun day - a letter with all the info will come home in May!  All parents can follow our buses in their own cars to the Cave.  Then on the morning of Tuesday, June 4th, our 4th graders have been invited to take part in a special program of hands-on activities at nearby Pope Farm Park.  Naturalists, geologists, and historians will lead groups into exploring the evidence of the last Ice Age, and the history of this land.  Buses will take our classes there, and parents are again invited to attend with us - we'll want lots of adult help to be with our groups! 

 

Enough news for now - we certainly aren't slowing down as we come to our last month of school, by any means.  So much to learn, so little time....!   More news next week, Melanie Hannam

April 12, 2013 Weekly Update

All of these April 'showers' surely better bring lots of May flowers!  After a rainy week where our games cupboard saw lots of action during numerous indoor recesses in Room 117, we have survived!  During a couple of our classes, we all even stopped just to listen to the rain pounding the school roof, and counted seconds between lightning and thunder (which actually led one student to do a "Gold Star Research" extra report on this practice!). 

 

We began our Book Clubs this week!  First we discussed the expectations for respectful group talk.  Each of our four clubs has a list of questions to guide their discussion, encouraging deep conversation about the characters and events.  The clubs must make their own agreements on how much to read for their next meeting.  Every student has a supply of sticky notes to mark spots in their reading which they want to bring up in their meetings.  As I join each group to listen in, I can see that there is as much to learn about group dynamics, compromise, the art of respectful listening and speaking, and the ability to stay focused on the topic at hand as there is about deep comprehension.  I am pleased to see how enthusiastic the students are about reading their club book - and that's in addition to their independent reading book!  Next week we will be doing some written reflections about parts of their stories as well.

 

We are completing our Memoir writing in Writer's Workshop.  Next week we begin a unit on Informational Writing.  We will be analyzing the techniques used to make nonfiction books and articles clear and appealing to the reader who wants to learn and research about a topic of interest.  This will lead to our students creating their own informational booklet. 

 

In Social Studies, we have begun our study of the regions of the United States, beginning first with the most familiar for us - the Midwest Region.  We will be doing some mapping for each region, and much 'armchair' traveling as we uncover what makes each region special and important - landforms and natural resources, people, industry, sights to see...

 

We have completed our spelling work with both the 4th and the 5th grade high frequency spelling lists.  Our students did quite well with handling the responsibility to be prepared for assignments and tests.  A new list of words (and vocabulary) comes to them on Monday - this time the words are coming right from their own Book Club books!

 

Fourth grade math students will begin their new unit on Monday, which uses their knowledge of fractions and decimals to convert these values to percents.  Unit 8 final tests came home Friday, and we would like parents to sign these tests after they have been shared, and students should bring them back to school for saving in our yellow folders.  Thank you. 

 

Upcoming events include the final CRT Day of the year on Tuesday, April 23, when buses will come at 11:00 am.  Also, Earth Day is April 22, and Arbor Day is April 26 - in honor of these days, every 4th grader will receive a small tree seedling from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources that week.  It will come with instructions for planting, so maybe your family would like to do a little planning for where in your yard you might have room for an evergreen to grow!  My now-grown up daughters had each brought home a tree when they were in elementary school, and we took pictures of them in front of their trees as both they and the trees grew!  Even through a move from Fond du Lac to Middleton in 2000, we attempted to transplant them here at our new home, and two of the three of them survived!  These trees have now reached our second story windows in height!  Good luck with yours!  :)

 

Till next note - Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

April 5, 2013 Weekly Update

Greetings to our 4H families!  We have all returned from our Spring Break, and ready or not, we spent our first five days back becoming totally immersed in our subjects once again!  (It got easier after that first day!)

 

In Math class, we are over halfway through Unit 8 already, which, as you know, had us measuring our kitchens!  We are learning about and applying the formulas for perimeter, area, and the concept of scale.  I expect that we will be taking the unit test by Thursday or Friday of the coming week. Stay tuned to the Homework Page of our classroom blog (and your student's assignment notebook).

 

Our Writer's Workshop is all about - finally - writing those Memoirs that we had been preparing for over the previous two weeks.  I am so proud of our students!  They are writing some touching, beautiful, and descriptive stories of memorable experiences they think they may "remember even when I am 80 years old!".  The toughest part is explaining what the experiences have meant to them and why.  They are getting it, though, and it will be so much fun for you to read!  We should get two memoirs for each student 'published' by the end of next week. 

 

We have wound up our science unit on Rocks and Minerals.  Hopefully, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic are now part of our students' meaningful vocabulary.  They have been impressed with our own WM small mountain of rock and mineral samples, collected over many years by dedicated fourth grade teachers (notably Mrs. Bertz!).  We will be concentrating our time for the next few weeks on a study of United States Regions in social studies, and wind up the year researching our final science unit for Sun, Moon, Stars, and Planets.

 

As you know, after mastering the 75 Most Frequent 4th Grade words, we decided to 'master' the 5th Grade list as well, and next week we will tackle the final 25 words on that list.  The students are doing well, and hopefully learning to take on more independent responsibility for being prepared on time to demonstrate their knowledge.

 

Readers' Workshop will look different in our room in the coming weeks.  I have collected multiple copies of several different books (adventure, sports, animal stories) for "Book Clubs" in our room.  Each Club will read their book in stages and meet during the week to discuss and analyze the events and the deeper meaning behind their characters' actions and words.  Our whole-class reading of books earlier this year, such as The One And Only Ivan and Stone Fox, brought out such rich discussion and deeper thinking, I am anxious for our students to experience more of that.

 

A couple of due dates are coming up.  By Friday, April 12th, any student who wants a WM Yearbook should send in their order form and payment.  I have extra forms in the classroom if needed.  Also due that same day is our April Scholastic Book Order forms.  We will send out one more order early in May, and that will be it for the year.  Your orders throughout the school year have resulted in dozens of new books for our classroom library through the Bonus Points earned, and I want to thank you heartily for that!  I think I will need to add another book shelf soon!  

 

Hopefully the change in our daily schedule by adding 4 minutes to each day has not caused any extra difficulty to your own schedules at home.  We find it nice to have some extra minutes for our resource time the last period each day - more math, etc. gets done in school instead of at home, which the students like!  Also, keep in mind that on April 23rd, our district will have our final CRT (early release) day, and students will be dismissed at 11:00 that day.

 

Until next week's update, enjoy the signs of SPRING!  Sincerely, Melanie Hannam

March 15, 2013 Weekly Update

Hello once again, dear families.  I so enjoyed meeting with all of you for conferences over the last two weeks.  Report cards will be coming home on March 21st.  As always, you can feel free at any time to call, email, or request a meeting time to talk with and about your 4th grader.  I think it is so good for them to see how much we all care about their progress and achievement in school.

Friday morning this past week started out with a little extra 'breakfast' in 4th grade math class, as we celebrated the end of our unit on fractions.  We divided several steaming hot pizzas into various sizes, did some adding up, and then subtracted - by gobbling those fractional slices right up and out of sight in record time!  Along with this delicious end, we are checking our last journal pages Monday, doing a two page review over the weekend (check the Take Home folder), and then our Unit 7 Test will be on either Tuesday or Wednesday.  We will make the decision about which day on Monday - it depends on how much we accomplish in class on Monday and how many questions there may be.

Literacy classes this week have us diving into something new - memoir.  Even at 10 years old, every one of our 4th graders has discovered an endless supply of memories about special events, people, and places that have made a deep impression on their lives - and we've heard dozens of stories all week to prove it!  We've shared photographs and treasured objects that hold special meaning for each of us, and more stories came pouring out.  It has been so much fun!  This weekend, I have asked each student to take a few notes in their new "Memory Logs" which they have brought home.  I have requested that they each find one or more family member or close special friend, with whom they have shared a memorable time, reminisce together to see what they each remember best about this time, and jot down some notes so that they may share and write about it next week in class.  Thank you for helping your child find some quiet time to have this conversation with that special someone.  Through all these activities, we are attempting to identify what makes an experience so memorable and significant - is it the actual event, or could it be because of the feelings experienced and/or the person with whom the event was shared?

Today, you should also find your student's 'published' realistic fiction booklet in the Take Home Folder.  If you haven't had a chance to read this yet, please do.  This represents their longest writing project so far this year, and much time and effort went into creating it.  I gave our 4th graders a choice to keep it at home, or they may return it to school to be saved in their green writing binders.  Enjoy your child's imagination!

We continue our study of rocks and minerals, now investigating what happens to make igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rock.  We found some awesome video clips of exploding Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii, watching red hot lava flow over highways and meet the ocean waves in clouds of steam... so cool!

After having all week to practice the first 25 words of the new (5th grade) high frequency spelling words, we took the test on Friday.  Next week we will concentrate on the second 25 words.  Giving your student some extra practice with these words will be helpful.  I am handing off more of the responsibility for being prepared for testing on these words to our students - by not giving them as many structured assignments to help them practice as in the past.  This will be a lesson in figuring out for themselves how much each of them must work to be prepared, and then do whatever it takes for them personally to be ready!   This can be a difficult lesson in responsibility for some to learn, but it is not too early to practice this! 

In other business, it is now time to order the 2012-2013 West Middleton Yearbooks - until the deadline of April 12th.  If your student's order form can't be located, there are extras in the classroom.  Also, we have quite a number of students in class who still do not have good pencils to use.  Each student is expected to have a few good pencils, sharpened, with erasers, at their desks.   This must be the time of year when those wonderful supplies they came to school with on September 1st, finally give out.  Thank you to those who sent in Kleenex boxes!  We could still use a few more to get us through the end of the year.  I am amazed at how fast we go through Kleenex!  Thank you.

One last request: If you know your student will be missing any school days next week due to leaving for a spring break trip early, would you send me a quick email?  It helps our attendance record keepers if they can stay on top of all the planned absences ahead of time - thank you.  I will end my note by wishing you all a restful and fun break week, whether you are taking off on a trip or sticking close to home.  May your days together create more of those special memories that could one day be recorded in a journal somewhere, only to be discovered with delight years later.  Happy Easter and Happy Spring!   Melanie Hannam