News and Notes 10/31

News and Notes

From Fourth Grade

Spooky!

In case your fourth grader has not been overflowing with excitement at home, we just wanted to remind everyone that Halloween is this week!  The fourth graders were so full of enthusiasm for this, one of their favorite times of the school year.  In honor of the fun and silliness of this season, we took some time this week to integrate festivity into our learning.  We solved math problems relating to ghosts and goblins, we used our reading skills of inferencing to solve the mystery of what is hiding in "the dark", and on Friday we put on costumes and participated in the annual Halloween parade in downtown Warner.  These simple ways of integrating fun into our normal routines made for a particularly enjoyable and exciting week of learning in fourth grade!

Endings and Conferences

Although it's hard to believe, we have reached the end of the first quarter.  This means that grades have closed for the fourth graders and next Friday we will be sending home report cards to share with families the progress that their children have been making.  In addition to the quarterly report cards, during this first quarter we also ask that all families come to school for a conference.  Most of our conferences for fourth grade will be held before and after school during the week of November 10-14.   If you have not yet signed up for a conference, please make sure to do so as soon as possible!  It's such a great opportunity to close out the first quarter by sharing all that has been going on with your fourth graders.  Thank you for taking the time and effort to be involved in this important part of the school-home partnership!

Snow

Living in New Hampshire brings with it some commonly accepted realities.  In the fall the leaves will change, in the spring rain showers will come, and in the winter we will have snow and hail and wind and freezing temperatures and blizzard-like weather of varying degrees.  For those who love skiing and sledding and snowmen, winter is a wonderful time of year.  It certainly holds special appeal for many of us.  For schools however, winter travel is a difficult and potentially dangerous challenge.  Therefore we invented the snow day.  The problem with the traditional snow day was the fact that at the end of June neither child nor family nor teacher was keen on adding on additional days when learning in the classroom was so unappealing and summer vacation felt so very close.  In recent years the Kearsarge District has developed an alternative plan to snow days: Blizzard Bags.  Coming home this week is the 2014-2015 fourth grade Blizzard Bag.  This is work that students are meant to do at home when we have an official "Blizzard Bag Day."  Please be sure to ask if you have any questions or concerns regarding the format and procedures for Blizzard Bags in fourth grade!

News and Notes 10/24

News and Notes

From Fourth Grade

Rounding Around

At the grocery store, telling time, and on a road trip...  These are all occasions when knowing how to estimate comes in pretty handy.  This week the fourth grade mathematicians focused on the specific estimation skill we call "rounding."  We applied our growing knowledge of place value to the concept of finding an estimate.  We practiced rounding to the nearest given place value.  Using different analogies and tools, we found the benchmark or "friendly" numbers and then decided which our given number was closer to.  The goal in understanding rounding is to develop our number sense which will help us later as we dig deeper into computation.  The fourth grade mathematicians were certainly doing a fabulous job of rounding around this week!

Q and A

This week the fourth grade readers got to practice applying our most recent comprehension strategy to their daily reading.  Every morning during reading workshop we sat together reading our individualized daily reading books and recording questions in our reader's notebooks.  As we read, we also paused to record answers to the questions we asked.  After a while, we would pause in our reading and questioning and answering to share with our reading partners.  This class is full of enthusiastic readers and this week in particular the group felt like a strong and engaged community of readers.  We'll have to keep brainstorming ways to dig more deeply into our love of reading!

State House

One of the greatest comments that can be shared with a group of students would be about their impressive learning habits.  This week we went to visit the New Hampshire State House.  As usual, the students from Simonds were well behaved and respectful.  Their manners and self-control weren't their most noteworthy characteristics though, it was their obvious enthusiasm for learning.  Their tour guide kept complimenting them on their great questions and connections.  It's true, this group of fourth graders is particularly excited about learning as evidenced by the great knowledge basis many of our classmates had on history and civics.  What an encouraging moment it is for a teacher to hear students being praised for their love of learning!  This praise however is obviously to be shared with the awesome fourth grade families who provide enriching and exciting opportunities for each child to experience the joys of learning outside of the classroom. 

Student Government

In close connection with the State House visit, this week the fourth graders participated in the election of student council representatives.  Students who were interested in running wrote and delivered speeches to their classmates.  Then the whole of the fourth grade voted on who they thought would be good representatives of the student body at Simonds School.  In the end we not only had three student council representatives, we also had an experience in the democratic process!

Halloween in Fourth Grade

Halloween in Fourth Grade

Dear Fourth Grade Families,

That’s right, Halloween is upon us!  The fourth graders are gearing up for one of their favorite holidays.  In school we are reading books and solving problems about fall and during our sharing times kids are making great school to home connections about family traditions.  

The Simonds School tradition of forming a parade and walking down Main Street on Halloween is a highlight of the year for many students.  This year the students should pack their costumes (minus any toy weapons)  and can change after lunch for the parade which will start at 2:00.  Families are welcomed to come stand along the sidewalk of Main Street and enjoy the creativity and festivity.  We will not be collecting candy during the parade this year.  We will, however, be offering a healthy snack of apples, popcorn, and cider to the fourth graders during their normal “snack time” on Friday.

 

If you have any questions or concerns about Halloween, please feel free to let me know!  Many, many thanks for your involvement and support of these amazing fourth graders!  

State House

The fourth graders were able to visit the New Hampshire State House this week.  We had a great time of sharing our prior knowledge of our great state, as well as exploring our state government up-close and in person.  We were even welcomed to a tour with our Warner Representative David Karrick, which was a special treat.  By the end of the day our minds were swimming with questions and ideas about state government and New Hampshire history.