Happy Friday! We've had a wonderful week full of fun activities and projects. The kids have worked very hard this week to make up the day we lost on Monday due to the snow. Today we wrapped up our study of Native Americans with our chapter test. The kids did a terrific job preparing for this assessment. Grades will be posted to PowerSchool next week. Our Native American masks that were created out of paper mache are complete and are hanging in the hallway. They look great! Here is a peek... We also started reading "Sign of the Beaver". The class really seems to be enjoying this tale of a colonist boy who is living in the woods alone and meets a Native American who helps him survive. We also read "Eagle Song" which is another modern day Native American story . I'm sad to see this unit come to an end but we will be able to make some great connections to what we've learned next week during our field trip to the New York State Museum!
In ELA, we worked hard on using our RACER response to short answer questions. The kids are getting the hang of using this writing tool to make sure their answers are complete. We also did some creative writing. We enjoyed working on Christmas "Roll-a-Stories" and had some fun solving holiday mysteries. Next week we will be taking a break from spelling. In fact, our next spelling test won't be until the week of January 9th. Math this week was all about division. In fact, we started LONG DIVISION on Thursday. I told the class that this will take a lot of practice before we feel confident doing long division independently. Today's math class was much better. They're really picking it up quickly. Some are slowed down due to not knowing their math facts. Keep working on them each night if needed! Also, please don't hesitiate to let me know if your child is struggling. I'm happy to work with them independently. Our Random Acts of Kindness project has been lots of fun. The kids love to read the blog everyday. Please keep encouraging your kids to do random acts of kindness. I have more laminated tags if you're interested! Next week is sure to be lots of fun. Here is our schedule of events: Monday(12/19): Kindergarten Holiday Shop! Our 4th graders will be setting up a holiday shop for our Kindergarteners so they can shop for their parents. 4th graders will be paired up with a Kindergarten buddy from Mrs. Tarbox's class and help them pick out gifts for their families. The students will then help their buddies wrap and tag their gifts. Festive holiday attire is encouraged! Tuesday (12/20): Our in-school holiday concert will begin at 2pm. This is a dress rehearsal for our holiday concert that will take place Tuesday night at Genet. The concert begins at 7pm. Students should arrive at 6:40 to the music room. Wednesday (12/21): Colonial Holiday Crafts. Please be sure your child comes to school with 8 holiday cards and one orange. (No clementines please!) We will be making some fun holiday crafts in the morning. Thursday (12/22): Capitol & NYS Museum field trip. We will be leaving at 9:25 and returning around 3:00. Please make sure your child wears comfortable shoes. We will be doing a lot of walking! Friday (12/23): Holiday Party and all-school Pajama Day! Our holiday party will begin at 10:30 with a hot cocoa, cookie, and movie party. Students can wear pajamas to school! Holiday vacation is 12/26 - 1/2 Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday! It is a pleasure working with your children everyday! - Mrs. Kusche
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Happy December! It's hard to believe that the holiday season is here already. This week, we kicked off our Random Acts of Kindness program. The blog posts have started to come in from members of our community who have received an act of kindness from someone in our room. The class is learning that making someone else feel good makes them feel good in return. Today our class did two random acts of kindness right within the walls of our school. First, we delivered a basket of candy canes to Mrs. Schreck's 5th grade class. They were so surprised and plan to pay it forward. Next, we surprised Mr. Garab by decorating the door to his office! He was very surprised! I can't wait to read about the kind things that the class will be doing on the blog. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to meet with me to discuss your child's progress on our two conference days. Please remember that if you have any questions or concerns I'm always available. Please reach out! There were many questions about the online homework last Tuesday. Some of the words that were given online were not on the original list. This week you will see that students have "challenge words" as part of their weekly lists. Students will not be tested on these words but they may come up when doing online homework every Tuesday. Thank you for your patience with "Techy Tuesdays". We had a lot of fun in social studies this week. We continued our study of Native Americans. We learned about the Iroquois Confederacy and even acted it out during class. Each clan was given a problem that they had to work together to solve for their tribe. Different roles within the clan were assigned and we sat "fireside" and came up with solutions to these problems. We also made a replica of Hiawatha's belt out of pasta. Next week we will continue with our Native American unit and will be learning about the False Face Society and we have a very exciting craft for the kids to create while we read our next chapter book, Eagle Song! Mark your calendars, students will be given a test on this topic on Friday, December 16th. In math we are working on division. Please encourage your child to practice their math facts each night. There are many fun websites available. In ELA we worked on personal narrative writing pieces. I really enjoyed reading about what everyone did over Thanksgiving break. We also took our first unit test. Grades will be posted sometime next week. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! - Mrs. Kusche |
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June 2017
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