Welcome to a brand-new school year! I am so excited about working with your children. I was
very pleased to meet all of you who were able to come for our Open House. I hope you'll be able to visit the
classroom throughout the school year to see and share our accomplishments.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell
you a bit more about myself. This is my ninth year of teaching here at West Elementary. I have taught all three
grades in our building and decided that I really enjoy the fourth graders! I am a UNI graduate and am working on earning
my Masters degree. My husband Mike and I have six children ranging in ages from 17 to 6. We live just outside
of Rowley. I was raised here in Independence and love the fact that I am able to work for our school system. As
the students know, I love to read! I enjoy working with students and finding new ways to help them be successful in
their learning. Playing with the computer is also a new hobby that I find enjoyable. If you have questions or
concerns, please feel free to contact me. Helping children reach their highest level of success takes a true team effort.
I look forward to working with you and making this a great year!
Each month we will be sending home our Grover's
Gazette. This will give you an idea of some of the things we have been working on, along with upcoming events.
The newsletter content will also be posted on our website. With the letter I will also send our book order for the month.
Scholastic provides a great way to purchase books at reasonable prices that can help build your child's personal library.
Orders also help us earn free books for our classroom. If you would like to make a purchase from this month's order,
please return them to school by Monday, Sept. 15th. If paying by check you need only write one check payable
to Scholastic Book Company. If at any time you would like to order books as a surprise gift for birthdays or holidays,
please let me know. I would be happy to set those aside so that you can get them in secret.
We are off to a great start to our year! Despite a few technical difficulties and the heat of the first weeks, students are
settling in with our classroom procedures and beginning to take on some new skills.
I hope students have
shared with you that we are fortunate enough to have Mrs. Crawford come into our classroom during math and English.
She and I are team teaching these two subjects. This is a wonderful opportunity for the class as it allows us to accommodate
more learning styles and abilities and to better meet all the students' needs.
As you may have heard,
we are now able to use our new LCD projector and Mimeo Board. Both are great tools for us that will make it easier to
extend our learning.
Students have taken both the STAR Reading and STAR Math tests. Using the data
from the reading test, students have set their individual reading goals. The goal sheet is located in their MUSTANGs
so that you are able to see what they are working toward.
In social studies we
are beginning to look at the regions of the United States, while practicing some review of our map skills. The class
is excited about our coming pen pal projects with Ms. Porto's fourth graders in San Francisco, California and Mrs. Cartwright's
fourth graders in Hertford, North Carolina. For those of you who were able to send in postcards thank you very much.
We are still in need of more, so if anyone has picture postcards of Iowa or of Independence that you wouldn't mind donating
to the classroom, they would be most appreciated.
In science we are well into our first unit on animals.
Students have been learning more about the five main groups of vertebrate animals, studying the characteristics of each group
so that we can identify why they fit into a particular animal family. Next, we will be adding three groups of animals
from the invertebrate side of the animal kingdom. On September 25th we will take a field trip to Fontana
Park to put some of our new knowledge to the test. More information concerning the field trip will be sent home closer
to that date.
Place value has been our unit of study so far in math. We have been working with the various
forms numbers can be presented, while looking at number values up to the billions place. We have also been working on
various problem solving strategies. Students have been doing a great job with their nightly mini-math and problem solving.
We will be starting some practice with our basic multiplication facts soon. Multiplication and division are our two
biggest math units this year. It will be very important for students to practice their basic facts so that they will
feel more confident and be successful with the larger problems.
In reading we have started working with our first theme
of our reading series, as well as studying our first genre, realistic fiction. Students will be getting information
this week on their first reading project, a memory bag, which they will put together to tell about the book they are reading
for the month. For this project they will need to bring in some items from home to help tell about the story.
Watch for more information about this project to be coming home soon.
Students are expected to read
at least 20 minutes or a total of 10 pages each night. They have a reading calendar in their MUSTANG on which they need
to keep track of this information. As part of our reading goals students need to finish three books each month which
are within their reading range. As students are getting into longer books some do count as two. For example, a
book which has 200 pages would count for two books so the student would only need to complete one more. If students
are completing their required reading each night, this goal is very attainable.
As part of our classroom management
program the students have been working to be "Caught" doing something good. When the students are observed
doing something especially well they are awarded a fish to add to our classroom stringer. We are currently about half
way to our first bobber which will earn us an extended recess. When the class reaches the ceiling we will celebrate
our good behavior with a video and popcorn. In addition to our fish we have been using a check system to help us work
on some of our rules. Our fishing system also works with the Character Counts program, which we will be kicking off
this week. Our first character pillar we will be working on is respect.
The students have been doing a good job
completing and turning in their homework. In addition to the 20 minutes of reading, students have been working on mini-math
each night. This week we will be adding spelling to our nightly homework. Please continue to monitor the MUSTANGs
for your child's homework and any notes that might be coming home. Should a problem arise, please do not hesitate
to contact me so that we can find a solution that will help your student be successful.
