Happy June! It's hard to believe we are in the final weeks of school. Next week will be our final spelling test as well as our last week of homework. Our marking period officially ends on June 15th. Report cards will be sent home on the last day of school. We are approaching a very busy time of year. Please make note of the important dates and events that are approaching. As always, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me. [email protected] Monday, June 5th: Students will be taking the second and final part of the NYS science test. The test will be given on Monday morning starting at 9:30. Please make sure your child arrives to school on time, gets a good nights rest, and eats a healthy breakfast. Friday, June 9th: Half day of school Wednesday, June 14th: Our field trip to Lake George. Permission slips and money are due by Monday, June 5th. Chaperones will be notified on Monday, June 5th . Due to limited space, we are only able to bring a few chaperones. Friday, June 16th: Half day of school Monday, June 19th: All school picnic. Students will be served hamburgers and hot dogs during our regular lunch time at 12:00. Parents are welcome to attend. At 2:00 grades 4 & 5 will be participating in the talent show for the whole school. All are welcome! Thursday, June 22: Last day of school. Report cards come home.
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It has been a long test week here in 4th grade. The kids have worked so incredibly hard! I'm proud of the class for taking their time and using all of our test taking strategies. We celebrated on Friday by watching Disney's Moana. We also had a few munchkins thanks to our 3rd place victory in the Soup-a-Bowl. Thursday we had the treat of watching the 2nd eaglet in the DC eagle nest hatch. The kids were so excited! Here is a picture that we captured. Testing took up a good chunk of our time this week but we did still manage to get some math in. We completed our unit on fractions. We have been working on it for some time now. Next week we will move into area and perimeter as well as points, lines, and planes. This will be a review from third grade but we will start to incorporate more complex figures. We will trade in our ELA test prep booklets for math. The date of the NYS math assessment is May 2-4. Friday, we also managed to get to the computer lab. We continue learning about Google Slides. The students have started working on the Earth Day task I've given them. They have been given guidelines on what to include in each slide. They are also given the freedom to design the rest of the slideshow however they choose. We hope to present these before April break! The class is loving our weekly time in the lab. Spelling picks back up again next week. Students are welcome to log on to spellingcity as often as they'd like to practice their words. A few reminders...
I hope you have a wonderful weekend! - Mrs. Kusche What a crazy week it has been. With the winter weather strorm and two snow days, our week was a little strange. But that didn't stop all of the fun we were having. This week in ELA all of our centers were St. Patrick's Day themed. Students had a chance to find our fractional parts of their bag of Lucky Charms cereal. I've decided that if I include food in our math lessons the students are much happier! We also learned about some of the history of St. Patrick's Day and tried our hand at Limerick writing. The kids had fun sharing the poems that they had written in small groups. In math we continued our study of fractions. We worked on improper fractions and mixed numbers. We also started adding and subtracting mixed numbers. The kids are doing great! Next week we will begin our next science unit on electricity. The kids are really looking forward to this hands-on unit. Please check back next week for photos. A few reminders... - Please return your child's signed report card envelope at your earliest convenience. - ELA state testing begins next Tuesday (3/28) - No School on Friday, March 24 for teacher professional development - We could REALLY use some more Clorox wipes in the classroom. We wipe down our desks, tables, and surfaces regularly. If anyone is willing to donate , I would really appreciate it. Thank you in advance. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
We had another wonderful week in 4th grade! In social studies we ended our unit on New Netherland. This week students were given a scavenger hunt around the room where facts about the colonial period were posted and they had to find the answers to questions that were provided. It was fun! We will not be given a test on this unit. Students were given a project this week in class that will be used as a test grade for the third marking period. In ELA we continue to work on short and extended response questions. The class is really getting the hang of using our RACER strategy to help organize their thoughts. In small group we continue to work on making generalizations about reading passages. This is a skill that requires a lot of practice and the children have made some nice progress. We also wrapped up the book that we were reading and had a chance to watch the movie. The kids really enjoyed reading "The Witches" by Roald Dahl. Math has been quite challenging lately as we continue our study of fractions. The class has worked really hard and I am so proud of their efforts. Next week, as part of our center work, we will be completing a fractions activity using Lucky Charms in honor of St. Patrick's Day. If fact, all of our center work will be St. Patrick's Day themed! This week was our second Friday in the computer lab. After we took our spelling tests online, students continued working on their animal research slide shows. We used Google Slides and today the students learned how to insert pictures from the internet, change their theme, and alter the font. The projects are looking great! Now that we've reached the end of our second marking period there will be a few minor changes. Students will no longer need a parent or teacher signature in their agendas each night. This is to promote responsibility and independence as we become closer to being 5th graders. Please feel free to continue to check your child's agenda however, a signature will not be checked each day. Because I won't be reading agendas each day, please be sure that your child brings any notes written in their agendas to me first thing in the morning. Or, if it is easier, please feel free to communicate with me via e-mail. Thank you for helping your child to become more independent. Now that our second marking period has come to an end you can expect report cards on Wednesday, March 15th. Also, our students have a half day of school on Thursday. Please send your child to school with a snack. Thank you! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Don't forget to turn those clocks back Saturday night. As always, please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. I hope to see you all at the Green Meadow Carnival this weekend from 10-2! Happy Friday! We've accomplished many things this week.
ELA: This week we continued working on preparations for the NYS ELA exam which will be given on March 28th-30th. We spent this week working on reading comprehension skills with multiple choice answer as well as short and extended responses to reading passages. I really don't like to call this "test review". These are skills we have been working on all year. We are just now using them in the same format that the NYS test will be given. Please let me know if you have any questions about the upcoming tests. The class finished reading Shiloh before break. We took a vote and the kids agree that this has been their favorite book that we have read this year. We even had a chance to compare the text to Shiloh the movie. This week we began reading "The Witches" by Roald Dahl. The class is really enjoying this book so far as well. Our Green Meadow Literacy Fair is coming up next week. Many students have completed registration forms for a project they are working on. All are welcome to check out the projects next Thursday, March 9th from 6:00 - 7:30. We hope to see you there! In social studies we continued our study of colonial times. We also worked on a comparative writing piece by comparing roles of men and women in the same way we did when studying Native Americans. We also read about games that were played during colonial times and compared a child's life today to a child's life during the colonial period. Today we started our first of Tech Fridays. We will be going to the computer every Friday morning to take our spelling test online and then kids will use their Google accounts to work on Google Classroom, Google Slides, research, and web development. The class is very excited about it! Our second marking period comes to an end next week. Please be sure to check PowerSchool on a regular basis so that there are no surprises when it comes to report card time. Report cards will be sent home on Wednesday, March 15th and March 16th will be a half day for students so that teachers may hold conferences as needed. If I have concerns and need to request a conference I will reach out to you ASAP. We could really use more Clorox wipes in our classroom. If anyone is willing to send some in to class we would really appreciate it. We are working hard to keep the classroom germ-free! Thank you for your help. Upcoming Dates: 3/9 - Literacy Fair 6:00 - 7:30 3/10 - End of Marking Period 3/12 - Daylight Savings Time 3/14 - Green Meadow PTO Meeting 3/16 - Half Day of School - Parent Conferences 3/17 - St. Patrick's Day 3/20 - First Day of Spring!! 3/28-3/30 - NYS ELA Exam Grades 3-8 Please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions. Have a wonderful weekend! It was an exciting week in room 22! On Monday, our class found that that we had taken 3rd place in the Soup-a-Bowl contest and that our school had beaten Genet! It was a very close and exciting race. Thank you for all of your generous donations to this wonderful cause. By taking third place, our class was awarded a Dunkin' Donuts Munchkin party. (We also celebrated today with a pizza party! ) This week we began studying fractions. I am really impressed with how well they are doing with our math modules. We have concentrated on using specific vocabulary when studying this unit. The kids are working very hard. Please remember that each night students are provided with a "model sheet" that we do together in class. The homework looks identical to those examples and serve as a guide for homework. As always, if your child is struggling, please let me know ASAP. Simply write a note on the assignment, in your child's agenda, or shoot me a quick e-mail. We will use assignments from both Engage NY modules and our Envisions math program. In ELA, we continued reading the book Shiloh. We will be wrapping up this book on Monday and comparing the text to the movie during our AIS block. I think the class will be sad to see this book end! In small group we have been working on fact and opinion. We created posters that identify key words used to identify fact and opinions in different texts. Look for these posters to be coming home next week. This week we wrapped up our animal research too. Next week we will head to the computer lab to put our new Google logins to use. We will be creating slideshows that present the information that was collected on their chosen animal species. I hope to be able to link these projects to our classroom website! We continued our study of colonial times this week. We are reading The Scoop on Clothes, Homes, and Daily Life in Colonial America. The kids are really enjoying it! Tuesday is Valentine's Day. We will be celebrating with a make your own sundae party and Valentine exchange. Please have your child create a box or bag to collect their Valentines. It doesn't have to be anything fancy! Our party will take place after lunch on Tuesday. Thank you for all of the contributions from home to make this party possible! I truly appreciate it.
Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions! Have a wonderful weekend. Stay warm! Happy February! We've reached the halfway point of the school year. And although Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, we are still hopeful that warmer temperatures will be headed our way soon . Here is a breakdown of what we worked on this week: Social Studies: We wrapped up our study of European explorers. Students did really well on Thursday's quiz and all of the projects that were completed for this unit. Grades have been posted to PowerSchool. Next week we will begin our study of colonial times. We will incorporate a lot of interesting trade books and research into this unit. Math: This week we continued with our chapter on factors and multiples while including prime and composite numbers. Students were quizzed on Thursday. Today we began our new chapter on fractions. We will go very in depth while studying this topic. Our lessons will come from both our Envision math text book as well as math modules from Engage NY. Please don't hesitate to communicate to me if your child is struggling. Homework help is available each day during study hall. ELA: In ELA we started a new chapter book. We are reading Shiloh, a Newbery Award winning book. The kids are really enjoying listening to this audio book. The dialect of the main character is quite unique with his souther drawl, which is why we chose to use an audio book. We were very busy in writing this week as well. Students wrote persuasive writing pieces to President Trump convincing him to pick a new White House pet. A even mailed our letters to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Other Important News: Thursday morning our fourth and fifth graders traveled to Columbia High School to take part in the district wide choral festival. Students from grades 4-12 performed. It was a wonderful event. We look forward to our next trip on Tuesday back at CHS for the instrumental festival. Our Valentine's Day party will be held on Tuesday, February 14th at 1:00. Students will be having ice cream sundaes and taking part in a valentine exchange. Students should make some sort of bag or box to collect their valentines from classmates. If you need any materials, please ask! Have a wonderful weekend! - Mrs. Kusche Today your child will be coming home with a Google login and password provided by our school district. This account will follow your child throughout high school, much like their PowerSchool account so keep their login information in a safe place.
For the time being, these accounts will primarily be used just to log in on our school computers and devices. Eventually these accounts maybe used for e-mail, Google Classroom, Google Docs, and other apps. This is all very new to students and staff so we will be taking things very slowly. On Tuesday, your child will be going to the computer lab to log in to their Google account for the first time. All parents and guardians grades 3-12 are invited to a Google Apps for Education seminar on Wednesday, January 18th from 6:00 to 8:00 in the Columbia High School auditorium. If you have questions, please feel free to post them in the comment section below or e-mail me. I will do my best to answer those questions. Thank you for your patience! - Mrs. Kusche Happy New Year! We've had a wonderful week back at school after vacation. Things were slow moving at first but I think they're back in to our normal routine here at school. I'd like to thank you for all of your kindness and generousity during the holiday season. I'm so fortunate to be able to work with your children everyday. We have a lot of fun together! To kick off the new year, students were asked to write New Year's resolutions. We talked about how important goal setting is. We also talked about how resolutions should be reasonable and achieveable. Look for these to be sent home next week! This week we began a new unit in science: Roles of Living Things. Our focus for the week was describing living and nonliving things. We even did a comparative writing piece. The class worked very hard! Most students finished all four steps of the writing process. As the week continued we discussed producers and consumers and completed an activity which included identified carnivors, herbivores, omnivores, and decomposers. We also talked about animal extinction and reseached the ancient tarpits in California. We will continue with this unit next week. A study guide will be sent home on January 13th and we will test on January 20th. We took some time this week to review our multiplication and division skills. We also worked on some word problems. Our next topic is measurement. We will be learning both metric and standard units. This week in ELA we worked on identifying author's purpose. We use the acronym P.I.E (persuade, inform, entertain). We completed a cut and sort activity this week during skills to practice this skill. The class is really getting the hang of this skill. We've read a variety of texts this week to practice . We started reading a new trade book this week as well. We are reading "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" (one of my all time favorites!) The class really seems to be enjoying this book written by Kate DiCamillo. Next week we will be doing another comparative writing piece related to this story. We hope to finish this book next week as well. We've been stuck inside most of the week due to cold temperatures. We are hoping to get outside next week. Please remember that children need boots each day. Lunch monitors do not allow them to play if they are not dressed for the cold. Thank you for your help with this. Upcoming Dates: 1/10 - Green Meadow PTO Meeting 7pm 1/14 - 1/15 - Winterfest 1/16 - No School : Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Stay warm this weekend! If you wouldn't mind, please fill out the online parent survey below. Thank you for your time! Sincerely, - Mrs. Kusche 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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