Good morning everyone! Wow! I had such an incredible night last night! I went kayaking with my husband and my brother and sister. We put in at 5:00 and the water was perfect. We saw some river otters (my first time seeing one of my favorite little animals), lots of wild horses, blue herons, and a big owl that flew right in front of us! The sun set just after 7 and we still had another hour on the water. It was so beautiful and peaceful out there. I can't wait to tell my students about it!
Speaking of students, I was thinking the other day that after this year, I will have taught over 300 kids here at Archway. In this group of 4th graders there are 25 students whose siblings were once in my class. I wish I could teach them all, but there's no way they'd ever put all my students' siblings in one class. I want all of you parents to know that I wish I could have them! I feel so blessed to have met so many incredible families over the past ten years. Archway Chandler is a great place to be.
Let me give a little plug for the Dad's Club at this school. Teachers were invited to join the group at their initial meeting and Mrs. Scott and I did on Thursday. I've been around forever and I didn't know half the things this group does! It was a lot of fun and I want to encourage you to join if you're not already a part of it (although I must say fourth grade fathers did a pretty good job representing!)
Alright already, now down to business. Let's see what we're doing this week.
Language Arts:
Grammar - We'll be learning about common and proper nouns as well as reviewing how to make various nouns plural.
Poetry - We've had many students recite their poems already, but the rest will have to do so by Friday.
Literature - We'll read chapters 8-11 this week in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The kids are working on a sequencing assignment this weekend. Just a reminder that the pictures need to be colored.
Writing With Ease - Still waiting on a few more WWE packets to come in. We're going to finish up Week 1 exercises and then next week we'll be in full swing with 4 days a week.
Math - We are enjoying our math classes and will have a short quiz on Tuesday. It looks a lot like the 1.1 Review page that went home as homework. So if your child is struggling with any part of it, maybe just circle it, or highlight it so we will know better how to review the concept on Monday. Later in the week we'll be practicing with 6-digit numbers using all the operations.
Science - We will wrap up with the scientific method and move onto our chemistry unit on Wednesday. Lots of fun things to discover in science!
History - We will also be closing out our maps unit and will begin the one on mountains. Students will learn about the major mountain ranges on each continent as well as the highest peaks.
Other info - We will have our first Galileo testing next week, so on Monday, students will get to practice with the program on computers in the classroom. This will be the benchmark test against which we will be able to measure student growth this year. We will do one test each quarter.
Curriculum Night - Finally, Wednesday night is our curriculum night. We hope to see you all there. The evening will begin in the CPA theater and then parents will move over to the Archway side to be in the classrooms from 7-8. Looking forward to explaining all that we have planned for the kids this year.
Have a fabulous week!