Letters
Letters
E-mail messages sent throughout the year. The most recent message is first.
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-sent December 19, 2008
Dear Fourth Grade Parents, An announcement was made yesterday stating that fourth grade girls basketball practice on Saturday will be canceled due to lack of gym space.
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-sent December 16, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, This will be an exceptionally busy week for the fourth graders. We have many units of study to finish, some projects to polish, a program to attend (we will be guests at the K-3 Christmas program dress rehearsal on Thursday), and a party! Remember students will be dismissed early on Tuesday, December 23rd. Buses will leave the elementary school at 1:00 p.m. I asked the children to bring their food donations this week. Mrs. Hacker and I would like to take the children’s gifts of food to the Food Shelf on Friday. Some of the children told me their church was also asking for donations to the Food Shelf. I suggested the children talk with their families and decide whether the gift should be given at school or at church and explained that the intent is to share the season with others. Please do not feel you have to make a donation on behalf of both the school and the church. Our classroom Christmas party will be on Tuesday morning. The children should bring a gift for the class gift exchange by that time. Girls should bring something suitable for a girl in the class, boys for boys. The children can bring a light snack for the morning party. On Thursday of this week, the students will have a vocabulary quiz for “Boss of the Plains”, the biography of John Stetson’s life. Each child has a sort card pack to study. We will also be working on a poster project for that story, learning spelling rules for making plural nouns, and identifying and correcting run-on sentences. This week’s spelling list is a review list of thirty words. Because of the Monday snow day, the workbook pages, spelling contract, and first test on the words will be on Friday. The retest will be given on Monday, the 22nd. We will finish the chapter on the environment and climate of the Southeast region in Social Studies this week. The students will review on Wednesday and Thursday and take the Chapter Test on Friday. Your child will have a review sheet to study from. Mrs. Hacker will be giving a “Bones Test” on Thursday. Your child has a blue skeleton sheet in his/her folder with the terms that will be tested. Another place to look is Mrs. Hacker’s web page http://www.teacherweb.com/MN/CanbyPublicSchool/mrshacker/ On Monday, the students will take a test on the fifth topic in Math: Multiplying by Single Digit Multipliers. Again, each child will have review problems similar to those that will be on the test. We will do most of the review in school. You can help by going over the flashcard packet with your child or by giving them a few minutes of computer time playing one or more of the multiplication games linked to our classroom website. Thanks for your continued support. Your involvement and interest in your child’s day makes a world of difference. I so appreciate your efforts at home with the reading homework and spelling contract. Thank you. I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and the best of New Years! Happy Holidays!
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-sent December 12, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, The students and I had great fun this morning making Christmas posters using Wordle Art, a tool found on the internet at http://wordle.net . After we completed the Christmas poster to be hung in school, several of the students made a poster with friends’ names for their bedrooms at home. I encouraged them to consider making a poster for Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas with all the cousins’ names. I asked the children to check with Mom and/or Dad before completing the project at home. Please take time to look at the site. It’s lots of fun! If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me. Wishing you a safe and “warm” weekend!
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-sent December 1, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, An exciting week in fourth grade as we ready the school with holiday decorations and prepare for our annual Christmas program. The fourth graders will be participating in Friday’s program that begins at 1:30 p.m. in the cafetorium. A cookie reception in the cafetorium will immediately follow the program. Don’t forget the BINGO for Books event (and book fair) tomorrow evening. Doors will open at 6:00 p.m. sharp and bingo play will begin at 6:30 p.m. Please feel free to take your child to the book fair at any time during the evening. The children have a rather difficult list for spelling this week: r-controlled vowels. We looked for patterns today in the list words and soon came to realize that the same spellings made multiple sounds. Very quickly the children agreed time to practice these words is a must. You can find the list in your child’s agenda or on our classroom website. Also in language arts this week the students will read and discuss the story “Tanya’s Reunion.” Tanya’s family is planning a reunion, and Tanya can’t wait to see where her grandmother grew up. Disappointed in the farm at first, Tanya eventually learns to see it through her grandmother’s eyes and gains a new appreciation of her family heritage. The students will learn many new vocabulary words (sort cards will come home on Tuesday), will use clues from the story and their own experiences to infer what Tanya is feeling throughout the story, look for details that add meaning to the story, and compare and contrast Tanya’s opinion of the farm when she first arrives to the time she is about to leave at the end of the reunion celebration. A comprehension quiz and a vocabulary quiz for the story will be given on Friday morning. We will also be working with word endings (suffixes), proper and common nouns, and writing plurals. Today, the students and I began the study of the environment of the southeast region of the United States. The Southeast comprises twelve states from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River. We will learn rivers, farms, and coal mines are important resources of the region. The students will discover mountain ranges, wetlands, the Everglades, the Florida Keys, as well as other important landforms of the region. Each student will be required to identify the twelve states, the Mississippi River, the Appalachian Mountains, and the Florida Keys given a map of the Southeast. We will record important information on graphic organizers and in our chapter foldable. Ask your child to share some of these facts with you as we progress through the chapter. Multiplication of multi-digit numerals times single digit multipliers are the focus of our work in Math. The students will use “break apart” numbers to begin computation. For example, we will take the problem 26 x 4 and rewrite it as (20 x 4) + (6 x4) to calculate the product of 104 (this illustrates the power of the Distributive Property). When the students have a strong understanding of this process, we will multiply like you and I learned to compute. We call it the “shortcut” in fourth grade. The students should continue to work on those flashcards to increase both speed and accuracy. I suggested using the flashcard packets as well as various games linked to our classroom website. Please continue to call me with celebrations and concerns. I wish you a safe, healthy, and productive week!
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-sent November 24, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your entire family! Remember:
The students will have a social studies chapter test tomorrow (on Tuesday) on the economy and history of the Southwest. Your child has a review sheet and map to study from. All of the test questions are on the review sheet. In today’s Monday folders you will find copies of the timed multiplication fact tests the students have done the past week. Please note the improvement. Your encouragement and help in practicing these 100 multiplication facts has made a difference. We will continue to test daily and chart our results. Please congratulate your child on his/her progress and encourage him/her to continue practicing. We are learning how to multiply multi-digit numbers times single digit multipliers this week and next. Today the children multiplied by multiples of ten. Examples on today’s assignment: 500 x 3 =; 300 x 9 =; 6,000 x 8 =; etc. There will be no spelling list this week. In Language Arts we are reading short stories to practice looking for details, using capitalization rules with proper nouns, identifying proper and common nouns, and writing a Thanksgiving senses poem. Your child used the watermark feature in computer class today to make a “fridge poster” of their holiday poem. I will send the poem home on Wednesday. Please look for it. Wishing this Thanksgiving finds you with plenty of reasons to give thanks.
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-sent November 10, 2008
Dear Parents, Report cards will be coming home today in the Monday folders. You will also be getting a copy of an Accelerated Reading contract that needs your signature. Your child and I have discussed working toward a specific number of points in AR during Quarter II. We looked at the number of points earned the first quarter, the opportunities your child has to read through his/her efforts on the weekly reading homework obligation, and the number of total points that may have been set for the year’s goal. Together, we decided on a reasonable number of AR points to work toward this grading period. I have asked your child to go over the contract with you. If you agree, please sign, have your child sign and date it. Return it to school in the Monday folder and I will sign it too. Your child and I will keep track of the progress made to achieving that goal during this second grading period. Thanks in advance for your support. Tomorrow morning, the entire staff and student body at Canby Elementary School will participate in the annual Veteran’s Day program at the High School at 10:00 a.m. The program, as you know, is open to the public. In preparation for our participation in the program, our class will be talking about the holiday, its history and its purpose. Your child will be bringing home an article that contains some of the information we will have talked about in school today. Each student will be assigned the task of reading the short article to someone in the family about this important day and working with that individual to answer detail questions about that article. On Wednesday of this week, the students will be taking a vocabulary test on “The Parcel Post Kid” and “Chester Cricket’s Pigeon Ride.” Each child has a vocabulary sort pack to help them study. We will be writing a summary poem (called an Acrostic) about a favorite character in this theme of study. An illustration of a scene involving that character will also be required. We will also be focusing on new vocabulary for a new story (“Tomas and the Library Lady”), work with proper nouns and antonyms, and practice the skill of sequencing events in our Language Arts time. The students have been working hard to memorize the 100 basic multiplication facts. I am requiring everyone to review the packet of flashcards (in the homework folder) at least three times each night. It is so important the students know these facts from rote memory. We will talk about multiplication properties, use the properties to solve problems, and continue to add facts to our basic 100. Any support you can give will be appreciated. I have linked a flashcard review site to our class homework board. Be sure to check it out! I wish each of you a safe, healthy, and productive week!
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-sent November 6, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, Just a reminder that report cards will be coming home in the Monday folders on November 10th. The district policy is to hold any and all report cards for those students with outstanding meal balances. If you need to check your child’s account balance, please call Sue at 223-2003.
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-sent November 3, 2008 Dear Parents Your child is bringing home a “mock” soccer test tonight to use as a study guide for Mrs. Hansen’s soccer test scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday). I am also sending home a memo from the Basketball Boosters regarding Lancerwear. If you are interested in ordering shirts, please respond by November 15th.
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-sent November 3, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, Today marks the first day of Quarter II. Report cards will be sent home in next week’s Monday folders. Reminder that picture retake day will be on Wednesday. If you would like your child’s picture retaken, please return the initial packet with your child the day of the picture-taking. In today’s Monday folder you will find a review sheet on soccer. Mr. Hansen asked that I tell you the students will be taking a test on the information shown on Thursday. We are beginning a new topic in mathematics this week, Topic 3: Multiplication Meanings and Facts. The students will be building arrays (columns and rows of things) to illustrate the meaning of multiplication. Each child will also be preparing a flashcard packet of the basic facts. Please remind your child to systematically review these cards. We will take frequent timed tests at school to help lock those facts into memory. There are several games linked to the resources page of our classroom website. Encourage your child to spend a few minutes interacting with these games, too. Your help in practicing these facts will be much appreciated. In social studies, we will have a chapter test on Wednesday. The students have a review terms worksheet to study from. Tomorrow we will highlight the information in our notes that will be tested. The students will also be required to identify the four states in the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas) as well as the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River, the Rio Grande River, the Colorado Plateau, the Coastal Plain, Mexico, and the Gulf of Mexico given a map of the region. We reviewed in class today and will play a review game tomorrow. In language arts the students will read two short stories: “Chester Cricket’s Pigeon Ride” and “The Parcel Post Kid.” We will learn a number of new vocabulary words (to be tested next week), practice the skills of comparing and contrasting plots and characters, looking for important and less important details in the stories, and using idioms (a phrase whose meaning is different from the meanings of its separate words – such as: raining cats and dogs). The students will have sort cards to practice the vocabulary words. Please continue to encourage your child to spend twenty minutes reading at least five times each week. Also remind him/her to remember to test. Each child and I will sit together on Friday to write a goal for earning AR points during Quarter II. Many of the children are spending lots of time reading (as per the Reading Homework sheets returned to school) but not taking the AR tests. The spelling lists in quarter II now include the challenge words as “got to dos”! Each week, I will test the five challenge words with the twenty list words for points. I have asked the children to be sure to practice these challenge words by including them on their spelling contract activities Please call me with celebrations and concerns.
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-sent October 20, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, There are only two weeks left of the first Quarter. My, how quickly the time has flown. I have posted all assignments/quizzes/tests/projects that have been graded to date. Be sure to check the scores on the school’s website. If you have any questions, please contact me immediately. Remember, students always have the option of reworking an assignment for an improved score. We are planning another busy week in fourth grade. The students and I will begin our study of the environment of the Southwest region of the United States: it’s geography, climate, and natural resources. The students will use graphic organizers and note foldables to record important information about the region. Most of the work we do with this region will be completed in class. We will read the material together and review the main ideas by completing worksheets, maps, and using the interactive white board. An excerpt from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, By the Shores of Silver Lake, will be the focus of our reading for the week. In this story, Laura and her family are going on their first train trip from Tracy, Minnesota. The students will practice the Question Comprehension Strategy by thinking of questions about what the characters see and think during their train ride. The fourth graders will discover that formulating questions is a good way of making sure they understand the story. They will use detail maps to sort out the story’s important and less important details. Together we will define and use a number of new vocabulary words. Please watch for the vocab sort pack coming home in the homework folder. A quiz on the vocabulary words and the details of the story will be on Friday. We will also identify common nouns and practice writing complete sentences as answers to comprehension questions. In addition, the children will have a review list of thirty words in spelling this week. All thirty list words will be tested on Thursday and retested on Friday. There are NO challenge words this week. The students have been progressing nicely with their keyboarding. Please remind your child to practice keyboarding by periodically going onto our class website link to the online typing lessons and the actual Canby Elementary School lessons. I have been impressed with how accurate and speedy the students have become! In math we are reviewing addition and subtraction of multiple-digit numerals, with and without regrouping. We will also be working on word problems that have too little or too much information. Any time you can devote to practicing those 100 basic addition and subtraction facts at home will help our work at school. A big thank you to each of you for your continued support with the Reading Homework and the spelling contracts. The students are diligent about completing both obligations. Without your support and assistance, these would not be effective tools. Again, THANK YOU! Contact me at any time with celebrations and concerns. I wish you a great week!
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-sent October 13, 2008 Dear Parents, A reminder: This is Education Minnesota Week. There will be no school for students on Thursday and Friday. Monday’s folder coming home today will have a couple of flyers I want to draw your attention to. 1.) A flyer in your child’s folder announces the expansion of the Homework Room. It will now be open on Monday and Wednesday nights after school until 4:00 p.m. A light snack will be provided for all of those students that choose to stay. Tuesday and Thursday nights the Homework Room will close at the usual time: 3:30 p.m. 2.) There will be a contest for all Canby Elementary students interested in designing our new school T-shirt / sweatshirt. Information about the contest and a blank sheet of drawing paper will be in your child’s folder. The contest ends on Tuesday, October 21st. Entries can be brought to school and give to me on or before that day. Because of the short week, we will not be working on a spelling list. We will, however, continue our work with identifying and using complete sentences. The students will also practice carefully reading questions to identify key words and clues to appropriately write answers for these questions in complete sentences. The students will be reading a non-fiction article on the International Ice Patrol (IPP), a division of the Coast Guard that monitors iceberg danger near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and provide the limits of all known ice to the maritime community. The students will use the information in this article to answer specific questions about its content. In social studies the students will complete their treasure map project, carefully writing detailed directions for the hunt to the treasure each child has “buried” on his/her island. The students have been working hard to include eight various landforms and bodies of water on their islands, using the compass rose to share specific instructions to the buried cache, and using color and creativity to enhance their individual map legends. If you are in school next week, be sure you “cruise” our hallway to look at the finished projects. In computer the students will long onto “Study Island” for the first time this year. We will spend some time familiarizing ourselves with the site. Watch next week’s Monday Folder for details about the site and log on information for your child. In math we are working on solving number sentences with addition and subtraction. It is important for students to understand that subtraction can be used to find missing numbers in equations. For example, in this problem: 8 + n = 35, students should be able to translate “what number plus 8 equals 35? To “35 minus 8 equals what number?” Today I had a lot of “deer in the headlights” kind of looks, we practiced, we stressed, and we will hit it again tomorrow. If your child comes home today a bit frustrated, remember, this is so new. We will practice until we are comfortable. You can help by continuing the fact practice at home. That will help to ease much of the frustration. Thanks for your continued support. I wish you all a productive, safe, and healthy week!
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-sent October 6th Dear Parents, Thursday, October 9th, is the first of our scheduled Parent-Teacher Conference opportunities. I look forward to celebrating the work of your child and sharing the results of our recent NWEA testing. Please bring any questions or concerns with you. If for any reason you find you need to change the time of our conference, please do not hesitate to call. School pictures are coming home today in the Monday folder. You will also find the plastic ID card and the emergency information cards. I have asked the children to let you remove those things from the folder. Four of the students in my homeroom have neglected to return the Monday folders to school so I am sending duplicate folders home today. Will you ask your child to look at home for the folder, put it in his/her backpack, and return tomorrow? Thanks for the help! The students have a very difficult spelling list this week. The words on our list are homophones – words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings. The students will need to know the spelling of each word as well as the meaning. We will be doing a couple of extra activities this week to lock those meanings into memory. Any help you can give them will be much appreciated. The children have been so enthused about a Titanic project we are working on. As you know, we read the story from our Reading text last week. We learned lots of vocabulary with the story. The test on these words will be given on Friday. We also spent time last Friday perusing various websites to find interesting facts about that terrible accident and the ship. How excited the fourth graders were to discover the size of the vessel, learn the vast number of items of food it hauled for the voyage, and information about the number of lifeboats and the warning signals that were ignored! Today and tomorrow we are constructing good sentences to share this information with others. Then, each student will make a poster to share the facts. Our hope is to have the project completed for you to view at the conference. We will also be working on using a thesaurus, alphabetical order, and combining two sentences into one sentence using conjunctions during our reading time. In social studies we will learn to use map grids to find specific locations. We will use what we know about map grids and landforms to construct a Treasure Island map and a set of directions. All of the work for this map project will be completed in school. I have asked the children to spend some time at home reviewing the landform vocabulary. We made the sort card set self-correcting by adding numbers to the back. Please issue a reminder to your child to review Thanks for all you are doing to encourage your child to complete the Reading Homework. The students seem to be serious about reading at home. I have tried to encourage them to complete their books and come to school ready to AR test. See you this week at the conference.
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-sent September 29, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, This is the week of the NWEA testing at Canby Elementary School. The fourth grade students worked very hard on the reading test this morning. On Wednesday morning, the children will take the mathematics portion of the test. Please help your child get to bed a bit earlier on Tuesday night and eat a good breakfast on Wednesday morning to prepare for the test. We’ve talked in class about the importance of giving a “best effort” on these tests. In the classroom, we will be reading and discussing a new story, “Finding the Titanic.” This selection is a piece of narrative nonfiction written by Robert Ballard and is a personal account of two real-life events: Ballard’s crew finding the Titanic’s wreckage and an account of a family’s experience as passengers on the ship. In August, 1985, Ballard and his crew found the Titanic with the help of a robotic camera. This camera took pictures of the ocean floor enabling Ballard’s crew to spot what they later learned were the remains of the famous shipwreck. The story also gives the account of a twelve year old girl, Ruth Becker, who was with her family on the maiden voyage in 1912 of this remarkable vessel. Luckily, Ruth and her family were able to get into lifeboats and survived the horrific accident. The students will learn lots of new vocabulary, work on the “monitor and clarify” comprehension strategy, and conduct research on this magnificent ship. The boys and girls will use their research findings to create a poster about the Titanic. There will be NO spelling lesson or spelling contract this week. In mathematics we will practice using organized lists (charts, tables, and “trees”) to solve word problems. We will also be reviewing reading and writing numerals to the hundred-millions place, identifying specific digits to the hundred-millions, rounding numerals, and making change. Early the following week we will take a test on all of the skills in the chapter. The students will be working with terms to describe various landforms: mesa, butte, isthmus, peninsula, mountain, bay, cape, sea, plateau, etc. We will work to define the words in our binders and practice the meanings using a word sort pack. These sort cards will be coming home in the homework folders. Students will be able to apply what they learn in a map construction project next week. Please remind your child to practice matching the cards. The children have been very diligent about using the correct posture and hand and wrist position when practicing keyboarding. We have completed two lessons using the homerow keys and will add the keys “h” and “e” this week. You can find a copy of the lessons we will be working on at this link: http://www.canbymn.org/dhoyme/00809/0809KYBDLESSPG.htm There are also two links on our classroom website to keyboarding games the children have been encouraged to use. Thanks for the support with the Reading Homework. The students seem to be enthused about reading and have been busy AR testing. Please know I appreciate the time it takes out of your busy schedules to help the children with this important task. Call at any time with celebrations and concerns. I wish you a safe and healthy week!
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-sent September 23, 2008 Fourth Grade Parents, I received this e-mail from Susan Kamrath, our Parent Liaison. This promises to be a valuable experience. For those of you who are daycare providers, Susan did tell me that hours are available. Be sure to mark your calendars!
Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, a best selling author and internationally recognized lecturer and parent educator, is speaking on Monday October 6th at Canby Elementary School at 6:30 p.m. She will talk about : · The scientific link between misbehavior and missing sleep · The importance of sleep for maximizing children’s health, development and performance · The inter-play between adult sleep habits and children’s sleep and (mis)behavior · How normal every-day events leave children to tense to sleep · Strategies for customizing the tools to “fit” each individual · Practical tools and real-life examples to help you and the children you live or work with get the sleep you need and deserve
Books by this author include Raising Your Spirited Child, Kids, Parents and Power Struggles and Sleepless in America: Is Your Child Misbehaving or Missing Sleep. I have attached a poster we will be using to publicize the event. I hope you can help us publicize this event by talking to everyone you know; students, parents, neighbors and other staff. If I can be of further assistance by supplying more information please let me know. Thank you, Susan Kamrath
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-sent September 22, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, Another busy week is planned for Fourth Grade. The students have been working so hard in school and have been anxious to please. I am very proud of their quick acceptance of our class routines and expectations. Thank you for all of the support you give your child and me as we work together in this partnership! As you know, this week is Homecoming Week in our schools. The elementary school participates in the festivities by hosting two special dress up days. On Thursday, the children should come to school with Wild Hair or Wear a Hat. On Friday, we will celebrate with Orange and Blue Day. The students will also have a school-wide pep fest on Friday morning led by the athletes and cheerleaders from the high school. Our map unit continues in Social Studies this week. We will study four kinds of maps: political maps, physical maps, transportation maps, and historical maps. The children will complete a graphic organizer showing the characteristics of each kinds of map. We will also be defining various landforms: what they look like, and where they are found. The students will write definitions in their vocabulary binders and use flashcards to help them learn the terms. Watch for the “vocabulary zip locs” coming home in the homework folder. I will encourage the children to play a “Memory Game” at home to learn the words. In the weeks ahead, the students will use these terms to build a legend (key) for a Treasure Island map they will construct for a comprehensive unit project. Math plans for the week include learning how to count change by counting on. The students will practice counting the change given a specific purchase amount. For example, Arthur wants to buy a new CD that costs $16.63 with tax. He has a $20 bill. If he gets the smallest number of coins and bills possible back as change, how many of each coin and bill will he receive? The students will use model currency in class to demonstrate making change, as well as drawing out their change on paper. We will also spend time working on “Making An Organized List” as a strategy to solve word problems. An examples of this problem would be: Mary has a white pair of pants and a blue pair of pants. She has three T-shirts: one is green, another one is yellow, and the third one is red. How many different outfits could Mary have? In reading, our story for the week is entitled “Grandfather’s Journey.” In this story, the author, Allen Say, tells of his grandfather’s trip to the United States as a young man and later his return to Japan. After growing up in Japan, the author moves to the United States. Like his grandfather, he misses his homeland when he is in America, and misses America when he is in his homeland. The skill focus for this story is author’s viewpoint. The student’s will use the author’s choice of words to infer his attitude or feelings toward the subject. We will read for detail, practice alphabetical order, and identify subjects and predicates of sentences. A vocabulary test will be given on Friday. The students have a vocabulary card sort pack to help them study. The new spelling list was assigned today with the test scheduled for Thursday and the retest on Friday. We began a new read aloud. Ask your child about the book Stone Fox. I’m sure they will have LOTS to tell! The students and I are working on keyboarding skills. A wonderful link for the children to practice their speed and accuracy can be found on http://freetypinggame.net . Again, if you allow your child internet time at home, ask them to go to this site. They can practice these lessons:
#1 Introduce
the f and j keys; I have a link to this site on the class website. Go to Resources, click on Resources for Kids and Parents, scroll down to Keyboarding. It’s the first link. You will also find the specific lessons the children and I are working on linked to this page, too. Please feel free to contact me at any time with celebrations and concerns.
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-sent September 15, 2008 Good Morning Fourth Grade Parents, How nice it was to meet so many of you at the Open House / Burger Feed last Thursday evening! The students are so proud of their work and their room. It was fun to stand back and watch them show you the Promethean Board, the projects they’ve already completed, and the workings of our classroom. Please feel free to visit at any time. A reminder that tomorrow, September 16th, is PICTURE DAY. If you plan to order pictures, please return the envelope with money to school with your child on Tuesday. NWEA testing for Fourth Grades will be on Monday, September 29th and again on Wednesday, October 1st. Please remind your child to get a good night’s sleep and to eat a hearty breakfast! Our week will be another busy one. In language arts we will continue working on the story “Akiak” . We will summarize the plot, write various kinds of sentences about Alaska and the Iditarod race, and study a new spelling list. The students will have another spelling contract to fulfill for the week. Please help me remind your child that he/she needs twenty points to meet his/her spelling contract by choosing any combination of activities from the menu to total the necessary points. The students homework in reading will be the required independent reading (the blue sheet). Ask about the new blue recording sheet distributed today. In math we will work on rounding numbers to specific place values. Students will have lots of practice working with this skill, We will use money as a means to learn the tenths and the hundredths places. Knowing how to use computers has become an essential skill in our society today, and the beginning point for using computers is knowing how to efficiently use the keyboard. Computer keyboarding will continue to be a valued skill to have. Therefore, it is an important skill for the children to learn. In computer class this week, the children will begin learning how to use the keyboard properly. This will be the beginning of approximately twenty, short-paced lessons, which will teach the location of the alphabet and symbols on the keyboard, show the students the correct placement of their fingers, and provide appropriate practice exercises. The objective of this experience is for students to develop accuracy and confidence in their keyboarding. With continued practice and use, of course, speed will also increase. I will post the lessons the students are working on the class website. These lessons can be viewed by going to the resources link from the “Hoyme Homepage”, then scrolling down to the “Resources for Parents and Kids” link, and then, scroll down to keyboarding. Our first lesson, Lesson 1a, will be posted late this week. The other two links under keyboarding are some fun practice games for the students. Please encourage your child to spend some time using appropriate keyboarding techniques and practice using these links. The students have begun a short unit on maps, map symbols, and the continents. We will be learning and using lots of vocabulary specific to maps. We will be studying the various landforms and their characteristics. Near the end of the unit, the students will be asked to construct a map. Each child will be required to identify the seven continents and four oceans, as well as the equator. There is a computer game linked to our website that offers an opportunity for the students to practice naming the continents. You can find it here: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/worldquiz.html I wish all of you a safe, healthy, and productive week.
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-sent September 8, 2008 Dear Parents, Thanks for the quick response to the information e-mail I sent out last week. I wanted to give you a couple of heads-up about things coming home tonight: 1) Mrs. Hacker asked that I send a letter (green) home in the Monday folders regarding an upcoming writing assignment the children will be doing in her class. The children will not be getting this information from her until Tuesday. Please remind your child on Tuesday night to find a rock or a special shell to bring on Wednesday. Thanks! 2) The students in Fourth Grade are asked to assume more responsibility for Accelerated Reading at home. For that reason, Mrs. Hacker and I will be giving points to the children for reading done outside of the classroom. Your child will be bringing home a blue form each week entitled “Reading Homework.” The task is to try to read a minimum of twenty minutes each day outside of class. Once each week, I have asked the children to spend time reading with you or another carrying adult (Power Reading - An explanation of what Power Reading is can be found on the blue form.) The students will keep a record of their reading minutes and pages, ask you to sign the form, and return it to school each Monday for points. I encourage you to give the responsibility of this charge to your child. Make him/her accountable for meeting the requirements. At the end of the quarter, I will average each week’s point totals for one score within the quarter’s reading grade. The maximum number of points earned for the quarter will be 100. This will be about 20% of the reading grade. If you have any questions about this weekly assignment, please do not hesitate to contact me. 3) Remember Picture Day is Tuesday, September 16th. Please return the picture envelopes and money to school on or before that day. I hope to see you on Thursday evening at the Burger Feed/Open House. Enjoy this beautiful Autumn weather.
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-sent September 5, 2008 Dear Fourth Grade Parents, We’ve almost completed Week 1 of the 2008-2009 school year. The week has gone very well. The students have been eager to learn the rules and procedures of the classroom, have completed a couple of projects, already tested in AR, practiced using the agenda as a tool to keep us organized, and renewed friendships. Today we will be talking about personal goals for the year. Next week is filled the lots of new learning and activities. We will begin our first theme in reading - Journeys. The first story we will read is entitled “Akiak”. In this story, a ten-year-old lead dog, Akiak, is faced with his last chance to win the Iditarod. When Akiak hurts her paw, she must be removed from the race. But, Akiak sets out on her own, catches up to her team, and shows them the way to the finish line. The students will learn new vocabulary, complete some comprehension exercises, and talk about the four kinds of sentences: Declarative, Interrogative, Exclamatory, and Imperative. Ask your child to share his/her “Ready Reference” to learn how we identify these kinds of statements. In Math your child is learning to read and write numbers with up to nine digits. He or she also is learning to compare large numbers using the symbols › (greater than) and ‹ (less than), to order numbers from greatest to least or least to greatest, and to round numbers. In addition, you child is learning how to use money to understand decimals. To do all of this, your child has to understand the concept of place value – that the value of a digit depends on its place in the number. For example, in the number 327,841, the 7 is in the thousands place. Its value is 7,000. You can help by encouraging your child to read large numbers or money amounts and to compare them to each other. In Social Studies we are talking about pedestrian and bus safety. Next week the children will be charged with making a poster that illustrates one of the bus safety rules. On Monday each child will bring home an assignment checklist for this poster that will be due on Wednesday. Please watch for it. I will attach a copy of the checklist to the homework board on our class website for your reference as you help your child with the project. Also remember the Open House/Burger Feed to be held on Thursday evening. Burgers will be served from 5 – 7 p.m. and the rooms will be open for visiting between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. I hope it will be possible for most of you to visit our classroom that evening. The students are very anxious to show you the space and share their work with you. Please check out our class website. I will be putting an example of some student work we did this week onto the site within the next few days. Also check the site for our spelling list (tests will be on Thursdays and Fridays), the homework board, and the link to resources. You can find us at www.canbymn.org/dhoyme/ Feel free to contact me with celebrations and concerns. I am asking that each of you reply to this email so that I know everyone is getting the communication. A simple “I received this message” would be great. I wish each of you a wonderful weekend!
Deb Hoyme
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