October 8

October 8^th, 2010

Dear Families,

It has been a full, but slow moving week here at SCS. The NECAPS have filled up our mornings with reading and math testing. The students have done a really great job staying focused and quiet during the testing. In addition to NECAPS here is some of the stuff we have been working on:

Reading: We have been engrossed in our reader’s theater scripts this week! Students were broken up into three groups, and have been practicing three different stories. Performances were this afternoon, and they were wonderful! Students did a great job following along in the script, using vocal and facial expressions to convey their roles, and read fluently as a group. The three performances were from the books; Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar, Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini, and The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. Next week in reader’s workshop we will be focusing on book recommendations and how to monitor our comprehension as we read.

Writing: This week in writing we have officially started our unit on memoirs. We have been immersing ourselves in memoir related material-reading picture books and excerpts from chapter books-and discussing what qualities make a memoir. Next week, students will continue to be exposed to memoir rich literature and begin to focus on their own lives and writer’s notebook entries to develop a seed topic to write about!

Math: We started the new October Number Corner this week which consists of students exploring a base four pattern on the calendar collector, as well as measuring cups, quarts and gallons. The discussions we have had as a whole class have been amazing! It is so great to see the amount of growth in students’ observations and their abilities to discuss these math concepts. Even from just a few weeks ago in September, they have made so much progress, and I couldn’t be happier! I have to stop the discussion sometimes because we have to move on! We are also exploring different strategies for multiplication. Next week I will be sending home a packet that has all the different strategies for each multiplication fact so that parents at home can learn right along with the students. Some of the strategies your fourth graders are learning are so cool- I wish I learned my multiplication facts this way!

Science: We have just hit the very tip of the iceberg this week in science. Students have created a KWL Chart (Know, Want to know, and Learned) on the Human Body, have watched an introduction to the Body Systems video, and explored the circulatory system a bit by checking our pulse rates. We will be diving more into the Human Body next week, but probably won’t begin any experiments until after NECAPS are over.

Geography: Students came into school Monday morning very anxious to see their scores on their Natural Landmark Geography Tests. I was so impressed with everyone’s effort, excitement and overall performance on this first round of tests. I had a chat with students on Tuesday, and I want to clarify it for all parents as well, that ALL students will receive a prize no matter when they pass the test. Whether it is on the first, second, third or fourth try, everyone gets the prize when they pass. There was a bit of confusion this week as students thought the prize was only given out if they pass on the first time. I stressed to them all that it does not matter which try they pass on, when they do pass, they should feel good about themselves because they completed something very challenging!

Other News: I have sent home a permission slip for our field trip taking place at the end of this month to the State House in Montpelier. Please return the bottom portion of the slip ASAP! We will continue math NECAP testing on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Since it is only two days of testing, we will begin an almost regular homework routine; spelling, one math worksheet and only two days of clinic.

We are also still looking for a few parents who can volunteer to come in and do fluency with some students. Preferably, you would come in the mornings, but we can arrange it to meet your schedule! Please email me if this is something you are interested in!

J Katie

** I have attached the November Conference Schedule to the email newsletter. Please respond with your top three conference times and I will get back to you with your time slot!

September 2010

September 24th, 2010

Dear Families,

Hello and Happy Fall! This week we continued to work on classroom routines, and we have been digging deeper into all content areas. The class has really come together as a community and I have already seen them grow in many ways. We had a successful curriculum night on Monday, if you were unable to attend, your student should have brought home a packet of information on the classroom for the year. Our class goal for next week is to focus on quiet signals and showing good listening, these are two of the procedures that are challenging for us as a class. There has already been a lot of improvement, and I am confident that we will meet our goal!

Some things we have been working on this week:

Reading: Students have officially started writing to me in their response journals. In addition to thinking and writing about our reading, we are working on proper letter format and proofreading our writing. It is a great exercise in writing and thinking about reading, as well as being a great way for the students and I to connect personally. All students will have turned in one reading response this week and should have received a response back from me.

Writing: We are continuing to work on strategies to think of things to write about in our Writer’s Notebooks. This week students looked into their hearts and created a heart map, they also made lists of their best and worst memories. All of these exercises will help us write thoughtfully in our journals. Students will be developing these “seed ideas” when we start looking at memoirs in the coming weeks.

Math: The Bridges program is going strong, and all of the students are truly enjoying the work they are doing. We are working on multiplication and division strategies using area models. Students have been using toolkits in class which contain lots of different manipulatives to help aid their understanding of the concepts. Coming home this week for homework are two more home connections. They involve multiplication and division story problems, and they are a review of what we did in class this week.

Science/Social Studies: Students were introduced to the Geography Mapping Unit today. A packet of information is coming home with your fourth grader. This is a four month unit-each month focusing on a different map feature. For this month, students are studying Natural Landmarks of North America. They will study the maps at home all week, and take a test on Friday. If they pass the test, they receive a prize! The websites on the sheets I sent home are really helpful for studying geography.

We will be starting our Human Body Unit next week!

NECAP testing will be starting October 5th. I will be doing some test prep in the classroom next week. You may see some materials come home.

We also had some parents sign up for volunteering in the classroom. If you were not at curriculum night and would like to get involved in the classroom send me an email and we will be able to work something out! There are lots of opportunities to get involved; clerical work, decorating, chaperoning field trips, fluency work with students, and writer’s workshop support. We are also looking for a PTO rep for the Endeavor team; if that is something you are interested I can put you in contact with Alice Brown.

Additionally, we have some really nice cushions in the classroom that Mrs. Crowther brought back from Thailand. The students get to sit on the cushions when it is their share day, and they really enjoy them. The cushions have some wear and tear and have started leaking stuffing all over the classroom! If anybody has some sewing skills and would be willing to come in and sew the cushions for us that would be greatly appreciated! Send me an email if you think you might be interested.

Coming up:
Tuesday 9/28 is a half day
Wednesday 9/29 is picture day
Thursday 9/30 is Fire Safety Day

Have a wonderful weekend!
Katie

Happy August

Hello Families and happy August!

I hope you are all enjoying your last, precious weeks of summer - especially now that it actually feels like summer in VT!

We're getting ready for the 09-10 school year already here on Endeavor. One idea i'm considering for the upcoming school year is for students to post responses to reading on our blog page. I'll keep working on it, it may end up we do it on our WIKI page instead.

Other tech news is that the school is currently working on an updated webpage and with a new server! Keep your eyes out for changes to the webpage.

This blog was intended to be an update for my new group of families and a test to see how things are changing . New posts will come along once the school year begins!

See you soon!

Mrs. Crowther!

:)

Dear Fourth Grade Parents,

This week we got to do D.E. science. On the website, we did sound waves and pitch. In sound waves we listened to an eBook, we also watched 1 or 2 videos, and did an exploration with bells in different matter. (Water, air, wood, and space) For pitch we also listened to eBooks, and videos, but we did not do and exploration.

Thank-you for taking the time to let me inform you about our science unit.

By Nolan Jimmo

Dear 4th grade parents,

We have taken the final test for our division unit and will be starting a fraction unit. Also Mrs. Crowther is teaching us from the Bridges math book. Yesterday we did a fun activity with the Geo boards, but before we began we had say what the definition for congruent, symmetry, halves and area are. In the activity we had to find the halves of the square geo board. Then we had to find the halves in unusual shapes that were congruent.(witch means same size and shape.) 

Dear Fourth Grade Parents,
We have now officially ended our Vermont studies. We are now moving on to Light, and Sound. On Monday, we had a sub, and she did a K.W.L. chart. (Know, want to know, learned.) We have many things that we already know, like: the speed of light is faster that the speed of sound. We also have many things that we want to know, like: what is the exact speed of light, what the exact speed of sound is, and what causes sound. Please ask your child what they want to know about light and sound.


Good-by

By Nolan Jimmo















Here is the cast getting ready with a beautiful photo shoot.

















Here is the cast of "The Patroits" musical review, performed by Mrs. Crowthers fourth grade class.




















Here are two of the narrators that per formed in the musical review.

















Once again, here is a narrator, and the whole cast. Mrs. Crowther and Mrs. Southworth are very proud of the kids.

Dear Fourth Grade Parents,
We are concluding our VT history studies this week. Last week we started doing a writing assignment. We are now finishing those, as well as a test we took on VT in 2009, and VT in the 1800’s. Like I said in the beginning, we are finishing the VT unit. Our next unit will be Light and Sound, and our main research point will be Discovery Education.com. (You can get the website at home by going to Discovery Education.com)



Thank you for letting me update you on the class’s social studies.

By Nolan Jimmo

Dear parents,
This week in reading we will continue to take 30 min. of our reading time to work on our projects. Just a reminder projects are due this week on Friday April 2, 2009. We are still reading Counting on Grace in read aloud. This month we will also be starting poetry . In writing we are writing papers on Vermont and learning about the Question Answer Relationship method.
By Caroline Averill