April 2

I really cannot believe it is April! This class has been truly amazing. I really think that is why it  seems like we have just started school. And all of you have been just as amazing. Your support of me, the children and all of the new things we incorporated into our classroom made for such a productive year, and made our class leaders in our school.  I can not thank you enough. I feel like they are more than ready to be 5th graders and I hope you will keep me updated next year!

The ARMT is just around the corner. I will send you an email with a few test taking strategies that you can discuss with your child. We will also need lots of good snacks that week, Please sign up here if you can send something in. I will familiarize the kids with the format of the ARMT by doing some practice during class and some ARMT practice will come home starting next week as well. I will send info about what is expected for a good score, so please reiterate this at home so the kids will feel well prepared and will not "stress".  :)

Just a little bit about what is going on in class: Reading-With our adopted reading program "Making Meaning" we are incorporating a study of non-fiction with our unit on Animals that we are starting in Science. Writing-We are finishing up or mystery writing and soon we will also be writing non-fiction in conjunction with Reading and Science. In preparation for the ARMT Spelling/Vocab will look a little different. Let me know if you have any questions.  Math-We have finished fractions and decimals and like I mentioned in the email, the unit we are on now should be an easy review unit of larger multiplication and division problems. You should have received a parent letter about this unit.  Content-We have just finished Geography and Landforms and we are beginning our study of Animals. We will be researching, discussing and doing class projects on topics such as the classification of animals, food chains, vertebrates and invertebrates, interdependence, habitats, camouflage and mimicry. The kids were excited to begin our study by researching their own favorite animal.  Technology-The Aurasmas were so much fun. I hope all of our portraits are hanging on walls and still being enjoyed with smart phones! If anyone knows of a business that would like to display our Aurasmas for a while let me know!  :)

 *Check our calendar for other important dates.

Wax Museum

Just a reminder that our Wax Museum will be this Wednesday, March 6th from 11-12. The kids have done a wonderful job preparing. They have really worked hard and are SO excited! Before you come, follow the directions below to be able to view our virtual museum. It may be too noisy to hear, but you will get the idea. When your child takes his/her picture home, make sure to hang it up so that anyone can see the  speech at any time on the Aurasma App!

Directions for viewing the virtual tour:

1. Download the Aurasma App onto your Ipad, Iphone, Itouch, Android or tablet.
2. Open the App
3. Click on the triangle at the bottom of your screen.
4. Click on the magnifying glass at the bottom right or your screen.
5. Type ssces in the search bar at the top.
6. Click enter.
7. Click on the ssces with the purple triangle icon (it says by hoovercity-trace).
8. Click “follow”
9. Click the icon that looks like 4 corners at the bottom in the middle of your screen. This will take you back to camera view.
10. Now you are ready to view our wax museum, just point the Aurasma camera to any of our portraits and make sure the volume is up!

Congratulations

Congratulations to Juliana Howell for winning the Arbor Day Essay contest at our school. She was recognized at Aldridge Gardens this past Saturday! Beautiful writing Juliana!

Wax Museum

As part of our American history unit, each student will independently research a specific famous person from the Revolutionary time period. Each of these famous people played some part in the birth of our nation.  Each student was given a name of a person to research last week.  Research will be conducted both at school and at home. (The Public Library has lots of books on this topic.) From conducting this research, the students will learn about the different personalities and lives of unique individuals who helped in creating our nation.  As research is conducted, students will be expected to take notes to help in organizing all information collected. They were given a sample form last week that tells them specifically what they need to research.  After the research has been completed, the students will then begin working on their Wax Museum presentation. In class, each student will have to draw & paint their famous person’s face as best they can at school.  They will also begin working on a short speech to say about their person. Their speech should only be about 20-30 seconds and should explain who they are and why they are important.  Beginning next week, I will send  home drafts of information they would like to share.  Please help your child compile and memorize the final speech.  Students will need to dress up as their person might have dressed.  These attires should be created from clothing found at home and are not expected to be elaborate. The costumes are in addition to the presentation and will make the Wax Museum seem realistic and authentic. Creativity is very important and encouraged in this project. Your child will need to act as though they are their person.  Each student will present his or her speech to the class for a dress rehearsal, in their costumes, on March 4th. All speeches are to be completely memorized.  On this day they are NOT to have make-up or hair designs specific to their person.  This is to be saved for the main event on Wednesday, March 6th.   The entire fourth grade will do a Wax Museum on famous people from Pre-Colonial times all the way through the Westward Expansion time periods Wednesday, March 6th from 11:00-12:00. Our SSC friends, Parents, Grandparents, and friends will be invited to come and walk through our museum and learn about each person. This is an event you will not want to miss! Students should arrive to school with their hair and make-up ready on the morning of the 6th.  I will keep the costumes at school from the dress rehearsal and will allow students time to change before the Wax Museum.  If you would like to stay and eat lunch with your child after the Wax Museum, feel free to join them!
I intend for this research to be an enjoyable way for the students to get to know the individuals they have been reading about while studying the events of the revolution.  The students should have fun in this learning experience.  If there are any questions or problems, please do not hesitate to ask.. Thank you for your continued support!!

4th grade baby pictures for yearbook:

 In years past, we have done baby pages for fourth graders ONLY.  We plan to do the same this year, but it depends on the participation.  You can begin to submit your photos.  We ask that it be scanned and saved in jpeg format.  You can use the same eshare website to upload it.  Please put teacher and name on website (website will prompt you) so we can make sure not to mismatch pictures with children.  Deadline for baby pictures will be February 1st.  ******Please forward to Teachers and Parents*******It’s yearbook preparation time…..and we need your help!!!  Our yearbook has gone completely digital and parents and teachers have an opportunity to upload pictures to the eshare website.  We will use this library of photos to make our yearbook pages.  Attached is a copy of the step by step instructions to use the website.  (1. Go to the website www.hjeshare.com 2. Enter our school code 3014807 3. Enter your name, e-mail address, and accept the terms and conditions 4.Click on browse for images and locate where you have saved your images on your computer. You can save them in a file or insert your memory card and retrieve them that way. 5. Choose your photo and click ok to upload. You may hold your control key down and select multiple photos at once, maximum of 10 each time. 6.Once your photos have uploaded, you will be asked for some info for each photo. *****This is very important so that we will know what grade, teacher and function it is. Please enter the grade in the proper blank. For the students shown in picture, please enter the teachers name first and then you may enter the students names if you know them. If not don’t worry, just make sure we have the teachers name. For the description, please enter what function the picture was taken. (example- field trip to zoo, Halloween centers, playground, etc.) 7. Once info is entered for each picture, then you may click submit pictures and you will be done. You may go back and enter more pictures at this time.  **Guidelines to follow***Only enter pictures taken at school or at a school function. 2. Please only enter a maximum of 10 pictures from each function. If you made 50 pictures on a field trip just upload your best 10 pictures. 3. Do not attempt to edit pictures, the yearbook software will do it for us. 4. Please try to use high quality photos (8 mega pixels or higher if possible) that way your photo will not be grainy looking.  If you are a parent and would like to help with yearbook, please email me.  I am especially in need of parents willing to take photos of special events and upload pics to website.

Dates

Since so much is coming up, I wanted to post the dates that I will be adding to our class calendar just for convenience:


January 29—SSC Chick-Fil-A night at the Galleria, 5:00-8:00
February 1—Deadline to submit a baby picture of your child for the yearbook (THIS IS A VERY SPECIAL, PRECIOUS PAGE.)
February 5—Deadline for permission form and money for American Village field trip (forms go home tomorrow)
February 14—Valentine Exchange/Decorate a Shoe Box for our mailbox to collect Valentines Cards for the class can be store bought or homemade, let your child fill out a card for each classmate, attaching a candy to each card is fine.
February 15—deadline for yearbook picture submissions
February 26—American Village field trip
February 28—4th grade Beef-O-Brady’s night, 5:00-8:00 (date was incorrect in the Dolphin Echo)
March 1st-Have Wax Museum Speech memorized-sheets for this and easy costume ideas will go home next week, this will be the same person your child is doing a scrapbook on)
March 4—American History Scrapbook due
March 4—Dress Rehearsal for Wax Museum—students only, WITH costumes, but no make-up or hair design
March 6—Wax Museum from 11:00-12:00—Parents invited-Kids come to school with make-up and hair READY
March 25-29—Spring Break—schools closed
April 19—SSC Family Fun Fair, more information to come
Box Tops—Send in as soon as possible, as often as you would like
Spark for Change—we will do a service project as a class, for our school, community, or world-talk to your child and send ideas to me as soon as possible.  We will vote as a class by Friday of this week. Ideas in the past have included: collecting cans for needy families, creating a brochure for new students, making blankets for kids with cancer, collecting new playground equipment for our school’s playground, conducting random acts of kindness, a book drive for school’s affected by tornadoes, giving plants to elderly people in a nursing home, and caring for the environment and sprucing up the school’s eco-site.

January 24

Just a quick post to share our self portraits and our Causes of the Revolution glogs. The kids did a great job!

Classroom happenings!

Reading- We are starting a new Read Aloud Wonder by R.J. Palacio. check out the review about the book on YouTube.  It's going to be a great book! We are also completing mid year reading assessments. Writing-We are working on a writing piece about Loyalists and Patriots and what side we would choose if we lived during the time of the American Revolution. I think we can really relate now that we have revolted as a class against the Starbursts!! We will publish on our blogs, so make sure to read our finished pieces and comment on them! Our class will also be participating in an Arbor Day writing contest. We will begin working on these this week!. Math-We are still working on Unit 5, Landmarks and Large Numbers.  Content- We are sharing our Glogster projects on the Causes of the Revolution (link above), we learned about the Declaration of Independence, exactly what it means, how it was written, and how we celebrate the signing each year on July 4th.  Technology-Check out our Glogs on the Causes of the Revolution!! We are going to be trying something brand new to me called Aurasma to go with our wax museum projects. If you are interested in seeing a recording of your child's wax museum presentation and you have a smart phone, IPad, Ipod, etc., you can go ahead and download the app and I'll send more information when we start video recording! Should be fun!!

Lots of dates will be coming up in March for our wax museum, field trip, due dates for scrapbook, etc. I'll continue to add dates to our class calendar.