You may have heard this from your fourth grader, but May is bringing chicks in Rooms 112 and 111! We got the eggs and put them in an incubator last week. By my calculations, that means we will have some pipping and cuteness around Monday, May 16th! We will learn more about the life cycle of the egg and get to do some fun experiments with non-fertilized eggs in the classroom. I enjoy this special mini unit from ChickQuest a great deal! 

In language arts, we will be doing some persuasive writing and discussing mythology this week. We will focus on allusions in literature. I know the children will do great; the class did really well with the figurative language in those exaggerated stories. I will be sending home the graded stories they wrote this week. Make sure you take a moment to enjoy them! I have such strong, creative writers!

We started studying matter in science last week. We will discuss mixtures and solutions this week and how matter changes. This will be a short unit, and then we will begin with economics. I want to make sure we start that social studies unit before starting our last novel, Toothpaste Millionaire. 

Lastly, I wanted to share a couple of housekeeping items. First, I need to mention that only water is allowed as a beverage in the classroom. Sparkling water, soda, and milk are not friends with iPads, so we save those for the lunchroom. Second, our field trip is on May 12th at the Bath Nature Preserve. We are lucky to have such a fantastic resource in our backyard! The permission slips are due this week! Children need their Bath Team Hero shirt for the day, so please email me if you need a replacement. They are $15. 

Dates to Know:
May 4 - Stress Less Day with Mrs. Kerrigan
May 6 - Farmer's Market
May 9 - MAP ELA Testing
May 11 - MAP Math Testing
May 12 - Fourth grade Field Trip (permission slips due this week)
May 23 - Celebration of the Arts begins
May 30 - No School / Memorial Day

This weather is crazy! I hope everyone has enjoyed our warmer temperatures this weekend. I can't wait to hear stories of playing outside and picking up around town with Project Pride. I hope we get this excellent weather for the Bath Nature Preserve STEM Event next weekend!

As a reminder, this week, we have AIR Testing for Math. Part one will be Thursday, and Part two will be Friday. Please note that our class will be rewarded Friday with a pizza lunch from the Rotili family. If the children still want to pack or buy, they can, but I know I am looking forward to celebrating our hard word with a cheesy-goodness slice! 

This week, we will wrap up our fun unit on Tall Tales with Reader's Theater performances. In addition to showing off our fluency skills, the students will be working on their creative tales during writing. We developed character ideas last week. We will make magic on paper as they get creative and silly with their hyperboles. We are also finishing up our book reports in IE this week. If your child hasn't finished reading their book, please make sure they do that at home so that they can use class time to compile the craft.

This past week we wrapped up the government unit in social studies. Congratulations to Georgia, Natalie, Elinor, Allison, Ayla, and Julia for getting elected as class officials! Although we will be moving on to science this week, we will use this team to help make our end-of-year memorable and fun. Everyone who ran for office, made posters, and campaigned for friends has already brought our room closer together. It was so special to watch.

Dates to Know:
April 28 / 29 - MATH AIR Testing
April 29 - Bath Team Hero shirts / popcorn Friday
April 30 - Bath Nature Preserve STEM Event
May 4 - Stress Less Day with Mrs. Kerrigan
May 9 - MAP ELA Testing
May 11 - MAP Math Testing
May 12 - Fourth grade Field Trip (permission slips coming home this week)
May 23 - Celebration of the Arts begins

First, I would like to wish you a Happy Easter if you celebrate today! It feels abnormal to be sitting at my school laptop on a holiday. Still, after eight wonderful days off, I am not complaining. I hope your family had time to relax and recharge last week. About half of the class had travel plans, which can sometimes be more stressful than we remember when planning the vacation. I am hopeful that was not the case for you and that you and your children got some much-needed downtime.

The benefit of Spring Break being so late is that we are now halfway through April, and the weather is bringing us buds on the trees! Like the flowers, we will be blossoming into fifth graders over the next two months! With this comes some new units and hands-on projects... but I will also try to incorporate some weekly homework for the children. I would like to help them build responsible habits at home before summer break to better prepare them for potentially more work next year. Most homework will be math-based, so it will not apply to students that go to Mrs. Coen for math. It will also be a weekly assignment, given on Monday and due on Friday. This will allow the children to plan how and when to complete it without worrying about after-school activities. 

We are moving into a fun unit on Tall Tales for language arts. Many of the children will be familiar with our stories, allowing us to take a deep dive into character traits and figurative language. The students will be hearing read-aloud stories, writing their own stories, and even have the opportunity to work with classmates on readers' theater scripts. I am confident it will be fun and engaging!

In social studies, we are continuing to learn about government. To make the roles and responsibilities of our elected officials come to life, we will discuss the positions of classroom leaders. Afterward, we will decide what their responsibilities should look like and vote to elect those officials in our classroom. It will be an exciting week!

Since the weather is shifting, I would last like to remind families that now is an excellent time to have students bring home winter gear from lockers. Most boots went home, but I think we still have snow pants and gloves in lockers. I would also suggest that students come prepared every day with a coat (and maybe even a spare pair of slacks) until we are officially out of the cold. Many students think April and May mean they can shed their coats and dive for footballs, but they end up with rosy red hands and freezing legs from the mud and chilling Ohio wind. ​

Dates to Know:
April 22 - Pj Day for the school!
April 23 - Project Pride
April 28 / 29 - MATH AIR Testing
April 29 - Bath Team Hero shirts / popcorn Friday
April 30 - Bath Nature Preserve STEM Event
May 4 - Stress Less Day
May 9 - MAP ELA Testing
May 11 - MAP Math Testing
May 12 - Fourth grade Field Trip (details coming home after spring break)
May 23 - Celebration of the Arts begins

I feel like I blinked, and suddenly it is Spring Break and the Fourth Quarter! Maybe it was the snow days or just our busy schedule, but the third quarter seemed to fly by. Grades closed for that quarter, and you will have access to your child's report card on Friday. To access it, please log into to ProgressBook and go to Report Card on the left side (on a PC or laptop). Of course, you can go in now and see grades for Q3 on the dashboard. Still, the report card will give you additional comments and feedback on the "responsibility" categories like demonstrating effort and working independently. 

We have made significant headway in language arts on our I Survived books. Groups get an opportunity to create products as they develop book trailers and a newscast on their disaster. They also have the chance to rate their book, show their understanding of the plot, and then document their own COVID 19 survival story. I am very proud of the group dynamics on this project. We have had fun and maintained a strong work ethic throughout the unit.

We will be changing our format for the fourth quarter for those students who have math with me. Since all students have completed the fourth-grade math curriculum (woohoo!!), we will be moving into learning experiences that review what they have learned while challenging what they know. We will be doing math assignments that require some exploration to help the students refine their skills and push them to develop even stronger problem-solving strategies. I am so excited to have the opportunity to work with these hard-working kids on these types of activities!

Finally, in social studies, we will discuss the Constitution and Bill of Rights. We will begin talking about the roles and systems that build up our government. By the end of this week, students will understand that the Ohio and US Constitutions separate the significant responsibilities of government. By spring break, they will be able to tell you about our three branches and the duties of each one.   

I am looking forward to our five-day week! We have a lot to accomplish but great minds to do it! 

Dates to Know:
April 4 - Students need their fiction book for IE (starting a month-long book report unit)
April 7 - Builder's Club / Coder's Club (students need a note to stay) 
April 11 - 15 - Spring Break
April 28 / 29 - MATH AIR Testing
April 29 - Bath Team Hero shirts / popcorn Friday
April 30 - Bath Nature Preserve STEM Event
May 12 - Fourth grade Field Trip (details coming soon!!)