Thank you to all who could make the presentations today; the children are so creative and were so excited to "unmask" their animal.
I thought I would send an updated plan IN CASE we get called for early release tomorrow (at 12:00). If there is an early release we will hold our class party from 10:45 - 12:00. We will be exchanging gifts, guessing our who our secret santa is, playing Kahoot, and watching a slide show of pictures from the beginning of our school year. I hope many of you can attend the holiday celebration. Thanks for your support and HOPEFULLY we will have school tomorrow! Mrs. Howe
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Just a friendly reminder that the students will be presenting their animal projects tomorrow from 1:00 - 2:00. If they decided to use google powerpoint and need to send me the power point or anything through google, my address is [email protected]
If you prefer to send it to my regular e-mail it is [email protected] Remember: the students DO NOT need to use google.docs or a power point. Some of the most creative animals can be handmade or drawn! Also, I promised the children that I wouldn't have them present until you arrive, so if you are running late ... no worries. Mrs. Howe Good Morning,
I cannot believe only 1 more week until the holiday vacation break! I have some great news for you all. 1. The students ROCKED the unit 3 math test on Thursday. The average score was a 95, and many of the students received a good score on both the challenge and open response portion of the test. We reviewed our answers on Friday and I told the kiddos to bring their tests home and show YOU their work. They should be able to show you where their mistakes were made and how they fixed them. The challenge and open response portion of the test are graded separately. Your child should be able to explain the grades on these portions of the test as well. I was VERY pleased to see the number of attempts at these difficult problems - Go Reading Red Sox! We will be starting our next unit in math on Monday. Prepare yourself for the "crazy" new ways to multiply! The students will be learning how to multiply in a variety of ways (partial products, lattice, and YES, of course, traditional). Although I teach the three approaches to multiplication, I tell the students to use the approach they are most comfortable with. You will be seeing some practice problems coming home in this unit. Multiplication of double to single digit numbers should be mastered by the end of unit 4. On Friday, I sent home the unit 4 family letter with the tests. Please keep these letters for reference, and always remember you can log onto the everyday math website with your child's ID and password. There are some great games on the EM website that will help them to practice their multiplication skill. We have completed our New Hampshire animal research projects. The finished product is hanging on our wall outside of Ms. Brown's office. In addition, the students created their animal powerpoint. If there is enough time, they will have an opportunity to present them on Thursday. They WILL be presenting their CREATE YOUR OWN ANIMAL project on Thursday from 1:00 - 2:00! I am looking forward to seeing these and you are all welcome to join us for the viewing! This week we will be finishing up our N.H. ski posters. Each student chose a ski mountain and is creating a poster based on the facts they found about that mountain. The more cotton balls we get in, the fluffier our mountains can be!! Through this project, we are learning about counties of New Hampshire, elevations, annual snowfall (weather and climate), acreage, and more... Ski season is upon us! This week we will be starting our science unit on "The Human Machine." We will begin by reading about animal senses from our new readers in science. This topic ties in directly to our adaptation project. The students will be excited to jump back into our science lab work! I am hoping you have all had a chance to see the Sign-Up genius for our holiday class party on Friday, December 22 from 1:00 - 2:00. The students chose Secret Santas and they all brought home a 3x5 card with "ideas" on it. Please don't feel like you need to search to find anything; these ideas are helpful for those of you who don't have time to "guess"! Please feel free to join us for the party. There will be a slide show for your viewing pleasure which includes some great pictures of our trip to the library last week! A big thank you to Mrs. Schoenfield for picking up the pizza for us and bringing it to the community center AND bringing all of the trash home! I couldn't have been happier witnessing so many students EXCITED to go to the library - this is a dream come true!! I am sure we will make the trip again before our 4th grade year is over. I could go on and on (mainly because your children bring me so much energy and joy) and tell you how proud you should be of them, but I must prepare for the Patriots game! I hope to see some of you on Thursday OR Friday OR both days! Looking forward to a festive fun-filled week with The Reading Red Sox!! Mrs. Howe Update!Don't forget to send your child in with warm clothes including snow pants, boots, gloves, hat, and coat, so they stay warm on our walk to the town library. We are having lunch at noon and looking at books after lunch before we return to school for 1:20. Even if it is snowing, we will still make the walk - it will certainly be beautiful on the rail trail!
There is NO spelling and grammar this week and next. We are right in the middle of MANY projects and our Language Arts/Reading program allows for a week of writing to take place without spelling and grammar. Therefore, we will be finishing our How-to writing pieces, working on our New Hampshire ski projects, finishing up our New Hampshire animal slideshows, and completing some holiday activities as well. It is a nice break for the students, especially because they are also completing a reading/writing assessment AND the unit 3 math assessment on Thursday. Also, please send in ANY cotton balls you can! We will be needing them this Thursday and Friday! Can't wait for tomorrow! Mrs. Howe Sunday, December 10thHappy Snowy Day!
I'm sure the kiddos were all excited about our recent snow storm! Winter is upon us - just in time for the holidays. With that in mind, PLEASE make sure your child has proper footwear and outdoor wear for our walk to the library. As long as there is no heavy precipitation, we will PLAN on taking our walk through the rail trail to the library on Wednesday for our picnic lunch in the community center and our visit with Mrs. Ballou. Last week I handed out applications to those students who didn't have a library card. If they bring these applications with them on Wednesday, they will get their OWN library card and be able to take out books on that day! How exciting! Just make sure to send in the application with your child! We are in the process of completing our New Hampshire animal slideshows that we have been designing, in addition to our research papers. I have had a chance to peek at some of the slideshows and they look awesome. Don't forget to remind your child about our Create Your Own Animal project that is due next Thursday, December 21st. We will be sharing our creations from 1:00 - 2:00 on Thursday. If you are interested in coming to the presentation, please send me an e-mail so I can get a count of parents who will be attending. If this time of year is too busy for you, don't worry. There will be plenty more opportunities for you to join us in the classroom to see your child shine! In 2018, we have government projects as well as New Hampshire projects that we share. Tomorrow we will discuss our Secret Santas for the holiday party which will be held on Friday, December 22 from 1:00 - 2:00. Once again, you are welcome to join us. You should be receiving information regarding signing up for party items some time this week. Our unit 3 math test will be this Thursday, December 14th. The students finished the second of three study guides which were sent home on Thursday. I have highlighted areas of concentration for each student. Tomorrow we will finish the third and last of the study guides in preparation for the test. Overall, I think the students have a good handle on fractions, decimals, and conversions from mm to cm and cm to m. Enjoy your week - I'm looking forward to mine! Mrs. Howe Happy Sunday,
I wanted to let you know that I spent last Thursday and Friday at a conference with our principal, Ms. Underwood, and fellow fourth grade teacher, Mrs. McNish. I might add that it was one of the best conferences I have ever attended, and the presenter, Rick Wormeli was both informative and entertaining. In great detail, he described his pedagogy based around standards based report cards. I have been a part of the New Boston Central School report card committee for two years and we have been working hard on designing and implementing a new standards based report card. Last month this was presented to the school board, and with continued work and forward progress, parents should see a new type of report card within the next year that provides much more information than ever before! I am looking to give the unit 3 math test NEXT Wednesday or Thursday, December 13th or 14th. This all depends on the progress we make this week. I will send out another newsflash on Wednesday or Thursday to verify this. As always, I want to make sure the students have had ample opportunities to practice the fraction skills being taught in this unit. Presently we are working on decimal forms. We continue to work on our New Hampshire animal projects and power points, and the students seem excited about creating their own animal to present on December 21 and 22. Our Christmas Party is scheduled for Friday, December 22nd at 1:00. I will talk with the students this week about what they would like to do for their party in terms of secret santa etc. and I will make sure to give you all plenty of time to plan. Once again, you are all welcome to come to the party! I will have a few Holiday Kahoot games for everyone! I have a theme basket set up in the classroom for donations. Our theme is "New Hampshire Made!" Thank you, Jane Byam, for setting up the sign-up genius and getting this fundraiser underway. If you did not receive the sign-up genius please let me know. It is likely we misspelled your e-mail. This week we will be analyzing realistic fiction stories and responding to our reading on realistic fiction. We are also going to be introduced to poetry, particularly the Haiku. The students should love reading these poems about animals. We are also going to be looking at the ski mountains of New Hampshire. Now that ski season is upon us, the students will get to discover and explore the many mountains in the great state of New Hampshire. P.S. Please make sure that you have signed up for the Pats Peak ski program! And last but not least! WE HAVE SURPASSED OUR NOVEMBER READING GOAL! Can you believe we have read over 1, 850,000 words in November? I am simply amazed at the amount of reading going on in our classroom! Please look for the permission slip to sign and return in order for your child to join us on our trip to the library and to have pizza. I will be checking with the town librarian to make sure we can go on Tuesday, December 12th. Happy December, Happy Holidays, and Go Patriots! Mrs. Howe |