A Few Things

Inow Email is down again, so I'm back to using Gmail until it's fixed.

Wax museum speeches should have been typed and memorized by last Friday. Please check with your child to make sure they have done this and are ready for our wax museum next week. Speeches should be between 1 and 3 minutes. Also asking that the kids print their typed speeches from home tonight as we have not had the chance to get to the computer lab because of testing. If this is not possible, please send me an email and I will be glad to have them print it here at school. Dress rehearsal is Monday (just clothes, no shoes, wigs or hats, etc.)

Also, our class is in need of volunteers to come and help us laminate our portraits and decorate our hall for the wax museum. The other classes are asking their volunteers to come in this Friday, so if you can, and you would like others to work with, Friday is a good day! Let me know if you can come help!

Field trip forms and money for Montgomery and Brock's Gap are due tomorrow! Your child knows if they still need to turn something in, so please ask him/her tonight! I have given extra forms out if they were lost.

Day 2 of testing is over! Thanks again to everyone who has and will send in items for testing!

E-News

Dear Parents and Students,

Our year is moving right along.  This Newsletter has many upcoming important dates to put on your calendars.  More information will come home in the coming weeks regarding the field trip, wax museum, and spring fling, but I wanted you to go ahead and “Save the Dates”.    For those not aware of the Wax Museum, it will well be worth your time to attend.  Mark those calendars now!

**March 17-SSC Zaxby’s Night

**March 18—Report Cards go home

**March 30-April 3-School Closed-Spring Break

**April 13-16 ACT Aspire Testing

**April 21-4^th grade annual SSC Wax Museum (tentatively scheduled from 10:30-12:00)

**April 22-Field Trip to Montgomery, Alabama (We  can take 3 chaperones, let me know if you are interested)

**April 24-School Closed-Inclement Weather Day
** April 28th-4th Grade Transition trip to BGIS

**May 1—SSC Spring Fling

**Third and fourth graders will be participating in the ACT Aspire, a

comprehensive assessment, April 13-16.

In order to maximize students’

performance, listed below are a few suggestions for parents to follow:

1. Ensure child gets to bed at an appropriate time.

2. Awake at a time that does not require a child to rush, that could increase

anxiety.

3. Eat a healthy breakfast.

4. Reassure child that this test does not affect his/her grades, and do not

discuss the test in excess.

5. Arrive to school on time. Please try not to make any appointments during

testing times.

ACT Aspire Testing Schedule

Monday, April 13 th, 7:50am 9:

30am (Reading)

Tuesday, April 14 th 7:50am – 9:30am (Math)

Wednesday, April 15 th 7:50am 9:

00am (English)

Thursday, April 16 th 7:50am – 9:30am (Science)

**BOX TOPS : Keep sending in your box tops every month!!!

Every box top adds up to help our school!!

**PUBLIX : Continue to use your Publix card every time you shop. We have received over

$600 in donations from Publix this year all

thanks to you!!

**TARGET : Do you have a Red Card? Did you know that if you link your card to our school

(online at Target.com/redcard), Target will donate 1% of all your purchases back to the

school?

**RECYCLE: We are still accepting used cell phones and small ink cartridges to recycle.

Help our students be Resourceful, Responsible & Recycle!!

E-News

Hello parents!

First, I would love to thank you all for making me feel appreciated and loved during Teacher Appreciation MONTH!  You and the kids made me feel special every day!   I love your kids and appreciate every day I get to work with them.  They inspire me and teach me so much.  I hope they feel a similar feeling from me.  You are raising fabulous kids!

**This week is Dr. Seuss week.  Each day students will get to do something special.  Tomorrow students can wear their favorite hats to school.  Wednesday students wear something red and blue.  Thursday students wear a crazy or mismatched pair of socks.  Friday Students wear a cozy pair of pajamas!  Our class will visit the Book Fair on Thursday from 8:00-8:30.  Feel free to join your child during this time.  They will also have the option of shopping Friday.  We will have Monday’s scheduled menu (green eggs & ham) on Tuesday 03-03-15 at lunch.

**SSC Literacy Night is tomorrow night, March 3^rd from 6:00-8:00.  We will have lots of fun activities hosted by our teachers and faculty like making Dr. Seuss hats, making book marks, and playing computer games.  We might even have a visit from a book character.  Our book fair will be open during literacy night.  We will also have a few games in the book fair like guess the number of fish and our famous Sucker pull.

 **Our Alabama History scrapbooks are to be completed no later than March 9^th (next Tuesday).  Some have asked about the Wax Museum.  This is an entirely different project.  The date has not been confirmed, however it will be sometime after Spring Break, and after testing, which will be sometime in April.  We have worked on the speeches in class.  In the meantime, if you would like to work on finding costumes that look something like your famous Alabamian would wear that would be wonderful!  More information will come later regarding the details of the wax museum.

**Thank you for encouraging your child to read every night!  I am really noticing significant improvements in their comprehension and fluency levels.  Most importantly I am seeing a love for reading increase!!

**Thank you to all who are helping with classroom needs!  Speaking of this, we are totally out of pencils. Next time you are out, please pick up 2 12 packs of sharpened pencils! Thanks so much!

E-News

**Friday the 13th we will celebrate Valentine’s Day. Students can bring cards, please make sure they address them on their own. Click here for a list of names that your child can use for his/her cards. We will also have a "decorated mail box" contest for our Valentine's cards. These can be brought in on the 13th. This is optional and is to be done at home. No bigger than a boot box please. If your child does not bring a box, I will provide a bag he/she can decorate. We will also have healthy snacks that morning, if anyone is interested in sending in fruit Kabobs, juice, donut holes or paper products please let me know.

Reading Club Order Due Date: February 11
Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub
One-Time Class Activation Code: GRZHL


Good news! This month's Scholastic Reading Club flyers are ready for you to explore with your child. Children read more when they choose their own books, so I encourage you to look at the flyers together. Each flyer is filled with grade-specific, affordable titles and Storia eBooks.

Place your order online at scholastic.com/readingclub or return the order form and payment to me. Ordering online is the easiest way to ensure I get your order on time. Also, there are more books to choose from as well as teacher recommendations. 

Remember, for every book you order, our class earns FREE Books and supplies...and we have our eye on some new additions. 

Thank you for your support! 



PS: Books make wonderful gifts! Please let me know if your order includes a gift, and I will contact you when it arrives.

 
If This Is Your First Time Ordering Online:
- VISIT scholastic.com/readingclub
- ENTER the one-time Class Activation Code (top of this letter)
- SHOP from a carefully curated selection of the best books, value packs, and Storia eBooks
- SUBMIT your order and earn FREE Books for our classroom
- All book orders will be shipped to our classroom so we can celebrate the joy of reading together!


Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-We are having a "Reading Cafe" during our independent reading time. The kids choose a reading goal and work towards it and we discuss their progress during our reading conferences. Writing-We are starting on our Arbor Day essays for the contest!  Math-Fractions, fractions, fractions!! And always practicing computation.  Content-We will be beginning the Civil War soon.

 *Check our calendar for other important dates.

E-News

We have started our Fraction Unit. No fraction homework will come home for homework yet. The homework will continue to be the weekly computation practice. Please refrain from teaching your child fractions "the way we were taught" at this time. I will send a parent sheet home as an attachment of what you can do to help with fractions, I need them to understand the basics of what a fraction actually is. Many of my students see fractions as only shapes or parts of shapes, not as a number. For the upcoming week we will be investigating different types of unit fractions (1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/2, etc). Once they get a grasp of this, we will move on. Thank you for your support. This will be a struggle for all of us, not just your child. I promise I will work diligently with your children to make this a fun, learning experience for all of us. 

So many of our grades are starting to come from online assignments and assessments. Some I will be able to email to you. This lessens the amount of graded papers that will be coming home. Should you ever have a question about your child's grades please let me know. 

We are continuing our study of Alabama History focusing on Slavery. Your children are enthralled with Social Studies and our read aloud. Many are excited about learning the history but also in disbelief about what happened. We are tying our non-fiction writing in with our Social Studies and pretending we are news reporters, writing about what happened during the times of slavery. 

The younger classes are doing an author study of Jan Brett. They discovered that she is running a contest for whichever school has the most likes of her Facebook page, wins a free visit from Jan herself during the 2015-2016 school year!  How cool!?  Several 1st grade classes are doing this but they need our help and we will all benefit from it if we win!!

I have the link for her website below.  If you are willing and able, take time to share her website with your child to generate their excitement.  This is a great time of the year to read her stories since most of them are set in the winter months. 

1st grade is getting together a flier that will be sent home with each student school wide with more information on how you can participate from home. 

We really appreciate your support!

http://www.janbrett.com/index.html

For Facebook:  search for Jan Brett.  The directions to the contest are in her recent post.  Make sure to select SSC as the school you are representing!

*Check our calendar for other important dates.

Please continue to send in box tops have a good week!

E-News

Thought for the week:

We teach our students/children how to behave by what we allow, what we stop, what we ignore, and what we reinforce.

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading- We looked at the traits of non-fiction writing before the holidays, now we will dive deeper into this topic by incorporating nonfiction with reading and writing. Writing-Before the holidays we wrote persuasive essays with a partner, starting out the new year, we will compose our own, 5 paragraph, persuasive essay. Get ready to be talked into something!! Next we will be begin working on non-fiction writing.  Math-We are finishing up a unit on geometry and about to start a study of fractions. Content-We are continuing our study of Alabama History! Soon we will focus on famous people from Alabama and start planning a wax museum. More information will come home soon.  *Check our calendar for other important dates.

Reading Club Order Due Date: January 14 (Extended to this Friday the 16th!)
Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub
One-Time Class Activation Code: GRZHL

Dear Families,

Good news! This month's Scholastic Reading Club flyers are ready for you to explore with your child. Children read more when they choose their own books, so I encourage you to look at the flyers together. Each flyer is filled with grade-specific, affordable titles and Storia eBooks.

Place your order online at scholastic.com/readingclub or return the order form and payment to me. Ordering online is the easiest way to ensure I get your order on time. Also, there are more books to choose from as well as teacher recommendations. 

Remember, for every book you order, our class earns FREE Books and supplies...and we have our eye on some new additions. 

Thank you for your support! 

PS: Books make wonderful gifts! Please let me know if your order includes a gift, and I will contact you when it arrives.


If This Is Your First Time Ordering Online:
- VISIT scholastic.com/readingclub
- ENTER the one-time Class Activation Code (top of this letter)
- SHOP from a carefully curated selection of the best books, value packs, and Storia eBooks
- SUBMIT your order and earn FREE Books for our classroom
- All book orders will be shipped to our classroom so we can celebrate the joy of reading together!

From the music room:

Dear Parents,

Auditions for the February 12 talent show will be held January 12-16 during regular music class.   Students should be prepared with materials brought from home if necessary.     I have talent show forms if your child needs one.

Here are the audition times for  music class.

Monday, Jan. 12  Constantine 8:00-8:30

Monday,  Jan. 12  Carver  8:30-9:00

Tuesday, Jan. 13  Tindal   8:00-8:30

Tuesday, Jan. 13  Barry  8:30-9:00

Thursday, Jan. 15  McCune  8:00-8:30

Thursday, Jan. 15  Hutchison  8:30-9:00

The talent show will be held on February 12, at 8:30 a.m. in the lunchroom.    All 4^th graders will sing songs at the beginning before the talent portion.

Box Tops:

Keep sending the box tops in!! They really make a big difference! 

Group Photos:

The 5x7 classroom group pictures and the grade level picture of the entire 4^th grade students are in! You may drop by the front office if you would like to take a look at the pictures before buying. The pictures are only$8.00 each. Online payment is preferred at www.myschoolfees.com in which you will be able to print confirmation of payment. Otherwise, you may send payment to the school by check or correct cash (we cannot make change). Please make checks payable to SSC. This is a school fundraiser and we receive 100% of sales!!  Thank you for supporting our school with this memorable fundraiser. If you have any questions, please call the school office at 439-3000.

Below is the schedule for 4^thgrade ACT Aspire.  If this changes, I will let you know. They will take the tests on their Chromebooks!

Grade	Subject	Date	Time	Amount of Time for Assessment
4	Reading	4/13/15	8:00 – 9:30	60 minutes
4	Math	4/14/15	8:00 – 9:30	55 minutes
4	English	4/15/15	8:00 – 9:00	30 minutes
4	Science	4/16/15	8:00 – 9:30	55 minutes

E-News

E-News

Thought for the week:

Never think that what you have to offer is insignificant. There will always be someone out there that needs what you have to give.

I hope everyone had some good, relaxing family time over the Thanksgiving week!


Stone Fox along with an information sheet for homework went home last week. It was a short, good read and will be due December 3rd, I hope you enjoyed reading this with your child.


Our Holiday Poetry Presentation will be Tuesday, December the 16th at 9:45 a.m. It will last until about 10:30. If you are unable to attend, please let me know and I will try to get someone from school to be there for your child. The poem your child chooses to memorize will will be in his/her Google Drive on Monday, December the 1st. Also, if you can send in a goody for us to enjoy for the program, please select an item here!

Our class Holiday Party will be December the 18th at 12:45, please send in a wrapped, new or gently used 4th grade book for a book swap that our class will do!

We are making a few adjustments to our afternoon dismissal. All students must have one standard daily dismissal plan. For example we can no longer have Monday/Wednesday/Friday carpool, Tuesday/Thursday bus. If there is a transportation change the parent or guardian must send a written and signed note to school including child’s 1st and last name, transportation change (including bus number or carpool number if applicable) and date of the change. If it is a change every Tuesday you will need to send a note every Tuesday. I apologize for the inconvenience but our goal is to get everyone home safely.

    New yellow Transportation forms went home with all students in the last Wednesday folder. If you have not turned yours in, please do so as soon as possible. Blank transportation change letters also went home that you are welcome to use in the event that you need to make a change.

You can also make your own note including all of the needed information.

Cookies with Santa:

Cookies with Santa is scheduled for December 12.  Cookies with Santa is 5:30-7:00. Please e-mail Ashley Anderton if you would like to help. ashleyanderton@bellsouth.net

I added some sites to the Lab Lessons page and told the kids about them before the holiday, they are still there if you want your child to do extra practice.

You’re Invited

Our class will be memorizing and performing holiday poetry for you on Tuesday, December the 16^th from 9:45-10:30. This will be a very informal time just to be together and celebrate the season! If you cannot attend please make sure someone comes to watch your child. It can be a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or a neighbor. Let me know if you cannot find anyone to attend and I should be able to help. The children will be acting out winter poetry and will need to dress up/bring props to “show” their poem. They will be choosing their poems and bringing a copy home.

Have a great week!

 *Check our calendar for other important dates.