Classroom News 12/20

Hello Friends!

We had a great week before heading off to enjoy Winter Break! Here's the recap!

Mason was our STAR OF THE WEEK! He did a fabulous job sharing about himself with our class. We really enjoyed all of his pictures!

Social Studies

We took an excellent field trip to the University of Oregon Museum of Natural History. We learned more about the Native people who live here in Oregon, their history, and we got some great ideas for our projects that will be built the first week back from break. 

Please send in supplies with your student for the project starting Monday, January 3rd. 

Thank you to the parent volunteers who came and chaperoned on this trip! I have to say, I was so proud of our students for displaying Billie Spirit the entire time we were there! One of our tour guides even mentioned how bright the students were! I couldn't agree more! Nice job Room 15!

Thank you, also, to our room parents for organizing and throwing a great winter party on Friday! I could tell the students really enjoyed it! Thank you to everyone who donated funds to make it happen! I know I've said it before, but, I really appreciate all the amazing families I get to work with this year.

After break we will start a new math unit and dive right into our reading curriculum again. I'm looking forward to seeing 25 lovely fourth graders again soon! I hope you all had a wonderful break!

Reminders

Monday: We will begin our Native American projects. Parents are welcome to come help from 1-2pm.

Please turn in reading logs on Monday! Make sure those are filled out for the entire break to help us reach our million minute goal!

Classroom News 12/6

Wow! I am WAY behind. I hope you all enjoyed our surprise weather break!

Chase was our STAR OF THE WEEK before the snow hit! He did a great job sharing. We really enjoyed seeing all of his pictures and awards!

Math
We wrapped up Unit 5 with learning the multiplication algorithm. We are starting Unit 6, Patterns and Expressions this week. We won't finish it before break, so this will continue into January.

Language Arts
We are continually working on our grammar. We have been learning about verbs, helping verbs, and tense. Our grammar lessons have been going well and hopefully it's helping everyone's writing improve.

Social Studies
Due to the snow week, our Native American models have been pushed back a bit. We are finishing the research piece this week and we will build our models after the break. Please continue sending in supplies with your student. If you'd like to help with the building process it will be from 1-2pm the week we return from break.

Reminders:
Our field trip is happening THIS THURSDAY (12/19). Please let me know via your student if you'd like to join as a chaperon. Plan on arriving at the school at 8:30 if you are joining us. We will return to the school at 11.

The food drive is continuing through this week. We are way under our normal goal of 750lbs. Please send in some non perishable food if you are able to donate!

Our Winter Party is happening on Friday from 1-2. Feel free to join! If you'd like to help set up the party, please arrive by 12:45. If you can donate $3 towards the cost of snacks and supplies, send it in with your student by Thursday.

Thank you!

Classroom News 11/22 & 11/26

Hi Friends!

I'm combining two weeks into one post since this week is SO short!

Blake H. was our STAR OF THE WEEK last week! He did a great job sharing about himself. We learned about his love for cooking and his family!

Math

We are plugging along in multiplication. We practiced partial product multiplication for two digit by one digit problems. We will continue on with this unit when we return from Thanksgiving Break. If you have access to internet, I encourage students to click on the XtraMath link on the Useful Links page and practice their facts there. 

Reading

Everyone continues to strive toward their goals in Daily 5. We practiced similes and metaphors this last week and being able to recognize figurative language. We even wrote our own silly similes! 

Social Studies

We wrapped up Lewis & Clark today! Next week we will begin our Native American's unit. Please keep your eye out for a note coming home next week about a big project!

We all wrote down one thing we are thankful for this year and made a flag for the hallway! It turned out great!

Have a great five day weekend! Happy Thanksgiving!

Classroom News 11/15

Hello Friends and Families!

Sorry this is a Monday post instead of a Friday post. These short weeks go by too fast!

Last week Garrett was our STAR OF THE WEEK! He wanted to include the whole class in his blog picture, which comes as no surprise! He is a great friend to everyone in class! We learned about his hilarious practical jokes and his family during his sharing time.

Math

We started learning how to multiply multi-digit numbers by single digit numbers. Our first practice was multiplying by 10's and 100's. Ask your student to share the 0's trick with you!

Reading

We learned a lot about possessive nouns and figurative language last week. We are continuing to work on these concepts this week too. So many rules for nouns can be tricky to master! We'll keep on practicing until we do! We also worked on finding the problem, actions, and solution to the stories we read.

Social Studies:

We are currently on an expedition following the footsteps of Lewis & Clark! Ask your student about their own Corps of Discovery! 

On long Wednesdays we get to read with our buddy class, Room 19. Here are a few pictures of our fun time with them!

Reminders

The Book Fair is happening all week in the Community Center! Students can shop in the morning and at Lunch Recess. It's open until 4 in the evenings and will be open on Saturday!

Wednesday, November 20th, is Early Release. 

Classroom News 11/7

Well that week went by fast! I hope everyone is enjoying their four day weekend!

David was our star of the week this week. He showed off some pretty cool pictures from Lego Land!

Math:

We wrapped up our first topic on division. We used arrays, fact families, and multiplication facts to help us solve simple division. 

Reading:

We continued to work on plural nouns. There are so many rules to remember! Everyone seems to be catching on now and memorizing the exceptions. Please remember to encourage your student to read 20 minutes a night, four nights a week. They need to turn their reading logs in on Monday (with a parent signature), so they can go to Fun Friday!

Social Studies:

We are finally wrapping up our Oregon Geography unit! I will post pictures of their awesome dough maps next week. The students did great on their presentations about the regions of Oregon. Next week we will start learning about Lewis & Clark!

Thank you to everyone who came to Parent/Teacher conferences! I really enjoyed getting to sit down with each of you and discuss your student's success. I know I have a great group of families to work with this year!

Reminders:

• No School on Monday, November 11th. Happy Veteran's Day!
• PTO meeting in the Community Center November 12th at 2:30
• Book Fair in the Community Center November 18th-22nd 

Classroom News 10/31

Well, our last week in October was too much fun!

Charles was our STAR OF THE WEEK! We enjoyed meeting his three chickens and getting to learn about them. We also got to see some pretty cute pictures of Charles as a baby!

Math:

We learned about fact families this week through a fun activity. We spent some time looking at how multiplication and division are closely related, and how division is really just repeated subtraction. 

Writing:

We started a writing sample this week that we will be finishing early next week. I am seeing some great creativity in our writers! Their stories are about taming a wild animal as a pet or a real life adventure. 

Reading:

We practiced finding the difference between facts and opinions while reading non fiction texts this week. This helps us analyze what the author's meaning is. 

Social Studies: 

Several partners finished their brochures!! I can't wait to see everyone's presentations on them next week! They are turning out so great!

Harvest Party

We had a blast during our celebration Thursday afternoon. Here are some pictures to prove it!

REMINDERS:

• Parent conferences are on Wednesday and Thursday. A reminder note for your scheduled time is going home on Monday. Please let me know right away if you need a schedule change! 
• Students will be released at 11:30 on Wednesday and Thursday.
• Book orders are due Thursday, November 7th. 
• No school Friday, November 8th. 
• No School Monday, November 11th. 

Classroom News 10/25

Hello!

We had a great week, here in room 15!

We went on our field trip to Elijah Bristow State Park on Wednesday. The students worked hard at removing Scotch Broom and helping out our Western Pond Turtle friends. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

Math:
We wrapped up topic 3 this week! We will be starting a new topic next week.

Reading:
We are continually adding and practicing new reading strategies. Ask your student to share with you their Daily 5 goal. I'd love to see them practicing this during their 20 minutes of reading at home each night. Please remember to sign their reading logs every Monday!

 Social Studies:
We will be finishing our Oregon Geography unit next week. Partners will share their region brochures on Tuesday and Thursday. Friday Next week we will paint our topography maps!

Today we had our first Celebration Assembly! Lilah and Mason won awards for being respectful and responsible. Celeste won an award for being safe on our field trip! Great job guys! I'll be looking for students who are safe, respectful, and responsible to award next month!

 Bailey was our STAR OF THE WEEK this week! She shared a lot of family pictures! She sure looks like her mom!

Reminders:

Thursday, October 31st, is our Harvest Party from 1-2.

Friday, November 1st, is a no school day.

November 6th & 7th are half days for conferences. Please return your conference form if you still need to sign up for a time.



Blake A & Mason accidentally dressed alike!

Classroom News 10/18

Hello!
Apparently our Friday news is turning into Monday news. Sorry! We've had some busy weeks planning and preparing for upcoming units and field trips.

Our star of the week was Cody! He did a great job sharing pictures of his dog, favorite video games, and favorite books!

In math we continued learning multiples of different factors. We practiced breaking apart to multiply using the distributive property of multiplication. Hopefully your student can demonstrate this for you! We are still working on that this week.

On Tuesday we will have a science lesson explaining invasive species. This information will come in handy for our field trip on Wednesday. If you are planning on attending as a chaperon please be here at 8:00 am on Wednesday, the 23rd. Wear boots and rain gear, just in case!

In Social Studies we made dough maps to show the topography of Oregon. This was great fun! Thank you to the parents who came in and helped this run smoothly! A big THANK YOU to Ms. Rosetta and Cesca for making all the dough! We will get to paint and finish these maps next week. For now we are working in partners on brochures that explain each region of Oregon.

If you still have jog-a-thon money at home please make sure to get that in! The PTO are doing final counts this week.

Speaking of PTO (Parent Teacher Organization), I would love to see more parents at the meetings. The meetings are the second Tuesday of each month and they are very informative! It's a great place to find out about book fairs, fundraisers, activities in the classrooms, and ways to volunteer. The meetings are always brief!

I'll be sending home conference sheets today! If you still need to sign up for a time please fill it out and send it back. If you would like to change your time, fill it out for a new time and send it back. I'm hoping to have times finalized by the end of this week since conferences are fast approaching.

Thank you for reading and keeping up with our class!