Classroom News...

This week flew by! The field trip went very well. Students seemed to really enjoy Fort Snelling. I have been on this trip 4 times now, and I always seem to learn something new, as they seem to "change up" many of the stations the children visit. The class asked some great questions, and did a great job remembering to say their "thank yous" as we went from station to station.

Students just had their October reading logs and book reports sent home. Please record how many minutes/day your child reads on the calendars. I forgot to put a spot for parent signatures on the bottom. At the end of October, please tally your child's minutes and sign the bottom of these. Children earn one "chance" ticket for every 200 minutes they read each month (with a maximum of 5 tickets). Also stapled to the reading calendar is a book report form. These are assigned monthly (through April), and are due the last SCHOOL DAY of the month.

The class will have their FIRST social studies test on Wednesday. I will send home a study guide on Monday for you to help your child study at home. It will cover material from chapter one in our books.

Friday will be our first math test, also on chapter one. We will do a class review on Thursday. Please help your child prepare for this by looking through chapter one with him/her at home. Mostly, it covers place value and rounding - with some decimals and money (counting and making change). Also, I noticed that MOST OF THE CLASS has forgotten how to regroup in subtracting. YIKES! I will review this on Monday and Tuesday in class. Please do this at home, as well.

Father Hennen is coming in on Fridays for religion. The students just LOVE this! Right now, he is working with them in their Bibles, studying Genesis. When I attended Catholic grade school (about 100 years ago) our parish priest came in weekly to teach us, as well - and they were always some of my favorite classes. How fortunate we are that we have a priest who is so committed to educating our children!

I am currently reading aloud the book Murder at Midnight to the class. It is a book by the author Avi. I have found that fourth graders absolutely LOVE this author. I will be reading his book, Midnight Magic next. Other titles I read by him include: The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Seer of Shadows, The Christmas Rat, and Crispin and the Cross of Lead. Both boys and girls love these books, which are filled with mystery, fantastic cliffhangers, and surprise endings. I really encourage you to read a couple of these at home (or anything else by Avi), as they are enjoyable for both children and adults. I do read other authors to the class, as well. Read aloud time is one of my favorite times of the day. Many studies have shown that it is so important to continue to read aloud to our children even as they get older. It reinforces pronunciation, comprehension, and is just plain FUN! Just don't visit our room during this time, unless you want a small sample of my terrible acting and accent/dialect skills! :)

Just a reminder to get out and get those MARATHON PLEDGES!!!